2023-10-07 They’re Repeating The Word ‘Unprovoked’ Again, This Time In Defense Of Israel We’re seeing the western political/media class bleating the word “unprovoked” in unison again, this time in reference to the massive multi-pronged operation launched by Hamas against Israel on Saturday morning which reportedly killed hundreds of Israelis. There are all kinds of arguments you could legitimately make about it, but one argument you definitely cannot defend is that it was unprovoked.
“75 years of ethnic cleansing. 15 years of blockade. Confiscation of Palestinian lands. Pogroms on Palestinian towns. Desecration of Palestinian sacred sites. Daily raids into Palestinian homes. Constant humiliation of a entire people. Nothing about today is ‘unprovoked.’” Calling Palestinian violence against Israel “unprovoked” is easily even more ridiculous than calling the Russian invasion unprovoked, because the abuses of Israeli apartheid are so well-known by the general public at this point.
Multiple mainstream human rights organizations have accused Israel of administering an abusive apartheid regime which treats Palestinians as lesser people. Palestinians who live in the open-air prison known as Gaza are deliberately subjected to undrinkable water, food shortages, energy shortages and bombing campaigns. Those outside Gaza are subjected to racist, violent policing and land seizure and live under a different set of laws than Jewish Israelis. The entire people were forced out of their homes to make way for a new state for reasons that had nothing to do with them, and any attempt to resist this has seen them killed as “terrorists”. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/theyre-repeating-the-word-unprovoked
Ceasefire Now Ongoing List (As of March 7) 76/536 Members of Congress fully support a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities* 76 Democrats 0 Republicans 0 Independents
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 30,500 Palestinians, including more than 13,000 children, and injured more than 71,000 since October 7th. The only way to end this current conflict that is threatening to grow across the Middle East is with diplomatic solutions. The violence must stop, hostages must be freed, innocent captives must be released, and humanitarian aid must flow freely. Ceasefire now! https://ceasefireaction.com/
2024-05-06 Sanders Says US Must ‘End All Offensive Military Aid’ as Israel Targets Rafah As Israel rejected a cease-fire deal that Hamas had accepted Monday, dashing the hopes of civilianstrapped in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that an invasion could be averted, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders called on the Biden administration to stop the looming attack that humanitarian and rights organizations have been warning against for months.
The Vermont independent senator said President Joe Biden must follow through on his call for Israel to protect civilian lives by forgoing a ground invasion of Rafah. In March Biden said the attack would be a “red line” unless Israel developed a credible plan to evacuate civilians, who include an estimated 600,000 children in the city.
To stop Israel from killing potentially hundreds of thousands of people in the city, where 1.4 million people are sheltering following Israel’s obliteration of cities across Gaza, the U.S. must “end all offensive military aid” to the country, Sanders said Monday. https://www.commondreams.org/news/bernie-sanders-2668176062
2024-05-06 GOP Senators Threaten ICC: ‘Target Israel and We Will Target You’ Just over a week before the International Criminal Court issued a statement condemning threats against the institution, a dozen Republicans in the U.S. Senate sent a letter to the ICC’s prosecutor warning him against pursuing charges against Israeli officials over war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.
The letter, dated April 24 and reported exclusively by Zeteo on Monday, explicitly threatens U.S. retaliation against the ICC if it issues arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top Israeli officials.
“Target Israel and we will target you,” reads the letter, which was led by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a notorious war hawk, and signed by 11 others, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The letter specifically threatens to sanction ICC employees and associates and bar them and their families from entering the United States, which is not a party to the ICC.
“You have been warned,” states the letter, which invokes the American Service-Members’ Protection Act—a 2002 law informally known as “The Hague Invasion Act.” As Zeteo explained, the law “authorizes the U.S. president ‘to use all means necessary and appropriate’ to bring about the release not just of U.S. persons but also allies who are imprisoned or detained by the ICC.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/republican-senators-icc-israel
2024-05-01 57 House Dems Call On Biden to Prevent Israeli Assault on Rafah Dozens of U.S. House Democrats on Wednesday joined Congresswomen Pramila Jayapal and Madeleine Dean in pressuring President Joe Biden to prevent a full-scale Israeli assault on Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip that’s now full of over a million displaced Palestinians.
“We write with urgency to say: an offensive invasion into Rafah by Israel in the upcoming days is wholly unacceptable,” states the letter from Jayapal (D-Wash.), Dean (D-Pa.), and 55 other members of Congress. “We welcome your administration’s efforts to dissuade the Israeli government from this military operation, which would deepen both the humanitarian catastrophe for people in Gaza and the strategic challenges that regional and global stakeholders face in this conflict.”
“We now urge you to enforce U.S. law and policy by withholding certain offensive weaponry or other military support that can be used for an assault on Rafah, including the offensive weaponry and aid already signed into law,” the letter continues. https://www.commondreams.org/news/rafah-gaza-strip
2024-04-20 Historic Number of Democratic Reps Vote Against Unconditional Aid to Israel “Most Americans do not want our government to write a blank check to further Prime Minister Netanyahu’s war in Gaza,” a group of nearly 20 of the 37 no-voting lawmakers said. Nearly 40 House Democrats voted against a measure to send around $26 billion more to Israel as it continues its war on Gaza that human rights experts have deemed a genocide.
While the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act passed the Republican-led House by a vote of 366-58, party insiders said it was significant that such a large number of Democrats had opposed it, with more centrist lawmakers joining progressives who have called for a cease-fire since October.
“Despite the weapons aid package passing, this is the largest number of Democratic lawmakers to vote against unrestricted weapons aid for Israel in recent memory,” senior Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid observed on social media. https://www.commondreams.org/news/historic-number-dems-vote-no-israel
2024-03-22 Just 22 House Dems Oppose Bill That Bars UNRWA Funding While Giving Billions to Israel The House of Representatives on Friday approved a sprawling government spending package that prohibits U.S. funding for the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency for at least a year and hands Israel billions of dollars in unconditional military assistance, even as the country massacres and starves Gaza civilians.
The 1,012-page legislation passed in a 286-134 vote, with 112 Republicans and just 22 Democrats opposing the bill. All but one of the bill’s Democratic opponents are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC).
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the CPC, said in a statement after voting against the measure that she is “very concerned that this package continues funding for the Netanyahu government with no conditions, while at the same time prohibiting funding” for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-house-unrwa-israel
Buried at the end of 1,012 pages of legislative text unveiled early Thursday is a section that says funds appropriated under the bipartisan bill “may not be used for a contribution, grant, or other payment” to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which Gazans rely on for food and shelter. The U.S. is historically the largest donor to UNRWA.
The proposed freeze would last through March 2025. Many Republican lawmakers are calling for a permanent end to U.S. funding for the agency, which has faced shortfalls since the Biden administration and other Western governments paused donations in late January following Israel’s unsubstantiated claims that UNRWA staffers took part in the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel. https://www.commondreams.org/news/starvation-caucus-unrwa
2024-03-17 Van Hollen Says Netanyahu Spreading ‘Flat Out Lies’ About UNRWA U.S. Senator for Maryland Chris Van Hollen continued his defense of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and its work in Gaza in an appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
“The claim that Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and others are making that somehow UNRWA is a proxy for Hamas are just flat out lies, that’s a flat out lie,” he told journalist Margaret Brennan.
The U.S. was one of many Western countries that paused funding for UNRWA after the agency announced in January that it had fired 12 staffers over Israeli allegations that they had been involved in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. However, some countries including Canada, Sweden, the European Union, and Australia have since restored funding. A report has also emerged that Israel tortured UNRWA staffers into falsely confessing to involvement in the Hamas attack. https://www.commondreams.org/news/van-hollen-netanyahu-lies-unrwa
2024-03-14 As Schumer Slams Netanyahu, Palestine Defenders Want ‘Action From Democrats, Not Words’ While welcoming remarks by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an obstacle to peace and hinting at a possible shift in policy if far-right extremists continue to run the Middle Eastern country, Palestine defenders on Thursday stressed the need for Democrats to push for the Biden administration to stop arming Israel’s genocide in Gaza. https://www.commondreams.org/news/chuck-schumer-israel
2024-03-12 ‘That’s the Law’: Senators Say Biden Must End Arms Sales If Israel Keeps Blocking Aid A group of senators said Tuesday that under U.S. law, the Biden administration must cut off American military assistance to Israel unless the Netanyahu government immediately stops impeding aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip, where children are dying of starvation after months of incessant Israeli bombing and attacks on humanitarian convoys.
“The severe humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza is nearly unprecedented in modern history,” the eight senators—led by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)—wrote in a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden. “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.”
The senators argued that the Israeli government’s systematic obstruction of aid deliveries violates U.S. law, pointing specifically to Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. The law states that “no assistance shall be furnished… to any country when it is made known to the president that the government of such country prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.”
Biden administration officials have admitted that Israel is impeding aid deliveries to desperate Gazans. But when asked last week whether Israel’s actions amount to a “breach” of the Foreign Assistance Act, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said he would “have to go back and look at the language of that text.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/senators-biden-israel-aid
2024-03-11 Support for Gaza War Must End, Says Sanders, But Biden-Trump Choice Is ‘Day and Night’ Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that the contrast between President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump could not be more stark even as the Vermont senator offered a sharp criticism of the incumbent’s support for Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, which is now in its sixth month with no end in sight.
Asked about the backing that “uncommitted” campaigns have gained across multiple states—a sign of the broad unpopularity of Biden’s approach to the war—Sanders told “Face the Nation” that “the fight continues to change Biden’s policy in Gaza,” where children are dying of starvation as the U.S.-armed Israeli military attacks and impedes aid deliveries.
“But the contrast between Biden and Trump is day and night,” the Independent senator added, pointing to differences between the two candidates on climate, abortion rights, voting rights, and other issues. “The election of Trump would be a disaster for this country and, in my view, the world. We’ve got to come together, reelect Biden. But, at the same time, we have to demand that we have a progressive agenda, where we have an economy that works for all, not just a few.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-gaza-trump
2024-03-07 House Democrat Accuses GOP Colleague of ‘Calling For Genocide’ Rep. Chuck Fleischmann is one of several Republican lawmakers who have openly called for genocide in Gaza in recent months.
U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat, on Thursday said the latest rant by a Republican lawmaker about Israel’s ongoing U.S.-backed slaughter of civilians in Gaza should be recognized for what it is: “a member of Congress calling for the genocide of the Palestinian people.”
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) was confronted by campaigners with the anti-war group CodePink on Wednesday in a corridor at the U.S. Capitol where he repeatedly told them he “will never support” the Palestinians and “will support Israel forever.”
Last month, Rep. Andy Ogles, also of Tennessee, responded to an activist who told him: “I’ve seen the footage of shredded children’s bodies. That’s my taxpayer dollars that are going to bomb those kids.” “You know what? So, I think we should kill ’em all,” Ogles replied. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) also called for Israel to “level the place” in the first days of the bombardment of Gaza.
Refusal of the Democratic Party, particularly President Joe Biden, to stand firmly against Israel’s attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure and its blockade on humanitarian aid “is also teaching Republicans how much they can get away with.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/gop-genocide
“We, the undersigned parliamentarians, declare our commitment to end our nations’ arms sales to the state of Israel,” reads the statement, which was coordinated by Progressive International. “Our bombs and bullets must not be used to kill, maim, and dispossess Palestinians. But they are: We know that lethal weapons and their parts, made or shipped through our countries, currently aid the Israeli assault on Palestine that has claimed over 30,000 lives across Gaza and the West Bank.”
The statement’s signatories include legislators from Israel’s top allies and weapons suppliers, including the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Canada. The statement includes six signatories from Germany, which is facing an International Court of Justice (ICJ) case alleging complicity in genocide against Palestinians. The lawmakers argued that an arms embargo on Israel is both “a moral necessity” and “a legal requirement,” given the ICJ’s interim ruling in late January. https://www.commondreams.org/news/lawmakers-arms-embargo-israel
2024-02-16 ‘History Is Watching’? You Bet It Is, Mr. President. “History is watching,” the president said after the Senate passed his $95.3 billion war bill by a vote of 70-29. He said it three times: “History is watching.” He’s right. Democrats should remember that before trying to use an obscure parliamentary procedure to force a vote on this bill in the House. The move, called a “discharge petition,” would almost certainly fail without support from House progressives. They have a moral obligation to withhold that support.
This bill, deceptively described as an “aid package,” slashesall future funding for the most important humanitarian aid group serving the people of Gaza. At the same time, it provides $14 billion in military aid (which its Democratic sponsors coyly call “security assistance”) to the armed forces that are killing them. Israel’s attack on Gaza isn’t “over the top”; it’s genocide.
When it comes to humanitarian aid, the bill’s only immediate impact will be to end all aid to the United Nations Relief and works Agency (UNRWA), which has received hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States in recent years. In return, the bill commits to replacing that assistance with … nothing. No guaranteed funding at all. That’s a moral travesty. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/house-progressive-israel-aid-package
2024-02-16 Pelosi, Biden, and the Spectacular Solipsism of Our Nation’s Political Leaders Her recent outburst against opponents of Israel’s ongoing devastation of Gaza that has followed upon Hamas’s October assault left no doubt that—for better or worse, she’s still at it. What particularly raised eyebrows was her call for an FBI investigation into whether the people disrupting President Joe Biden’s speaking engagements by shouting out demands to support a Gaza ceasefire were funded by Russia. To wit: “What we have to do is try to stop the suffering in Gaza … But for them to call for a ceasefire is Mr. Putin’s message.”
Putin’s message is it? This is a spectacular level of obliviousness—for anyone, really, much less for someone who within the past two years ranked second in order of succession to the presidency of the United States. December 12, 2023 United Nations General Assembly vote calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in the Israel-Hamas war, and in particular the 153–10 margin (with 23 abstentions) of its passage. So, were those153 countries delivering Putin’s message? NATO is currently reckoned as an explicitly anti-Putin alliance. So what to make of the fact that NATO’s member states backed the ceasefire resolution by a 20-2 margin (and 9 abstentions), with only the Czech Republic joining the U.S. in opposition? Is NATO too dominated by nations intent on delivering Putin’s message? https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/pelosi-biden-gaza-war
2024-02-14 Senate Letter to President Biden signed by 25 U.S. Senators Now 130 days since the October 7th massacre, two million Gazan civilians remain displaced in extreme danger and deprivation while hostages held by Hamas remain in life-threatening captivity. We therefore write to express our urgent support for your Administration’s ongoing diplomatic efforts to secure the release of hostages in tandem with a restored mutual ceasefire in Gaza. We recognize that such a diplomatic achievement will require the agreement of the warring parties, and that its terms remain under negotiation. In our judgment, it is in our urgent national interest – and the urgent humanitarian interest of millions of innocent civilians — that these negotiations succeed. We recognize that it is in Israel’s vital national interest that Hamas — a brutal terrorist organization — be removed from power in Gaza. We continue to support Israel’s pursuit of that objective. We also recognize that without a break in the fighting, humanitarian conditions for civilians in Gaza will become even more catastrophic and thousands more innocents — including many children — will die. Without an agreement that secures their release, the prospects are dim for the survival of hostages who remain alive. Without the space created for regional diplomacy by a restored ceasefire, the political conditions for durable peace and security will remain unreachable, and escalating regional conflict will continue to threaten U.S. national security. https://www.ossoff.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/24.02.14_Ossoff-and-Warnock-letter.pdf
2024-02-06 Author of debunked NYT ‘Hamas r@pe’ report to share stage with Hillary Clinton The reporter behind a discredited NY Times investigation alleging systematic sexual violence by Hamas on October 7 will appear alongside Hillary Clinton and key Biden foreign policy functionaries at a Columbia University event justifying Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Jeffrey Gettleman, the author of the New York Times’ discredited “Hamas mass rape” story, is set to share the stage with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an upcoming panel on “conflict-related sexual violence” which will feature several other high-profile State Department functionaries.
A description of the event, hosted by Columbia University’s Institute of Global Politics, cites what it calls “Hamas’s brutal acts of sexual violence against Israelis on October 7” as “evidence” that “conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) is used widely as a weapon of war and a tactic of terrorism.” https://thegrayzone.com/2024/02/06/nyt-hamas-report-hillary-clinton/
2024-02-05 Senate Deal Would Block All Funding to UNRWA as Gazans Starve As the United Nations warned Monday that at least a quarter of civilians in Gaza are suffering from “catastrophic” food insecurity and the collapse of the healthcare system is causing disease to spread, the U.S. Senate doubled down on cutting funding for the U.N.’s top humanitarian agency serving Palestinians by including in a bipartisan package a provision that would block aid for the body. The proposed $118 billion Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, chiefly negotiated by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), and James Lankford (R-Okla.) includes $14.1 billion for Israel, which has killed at least 27,468 Palestinians in Gaza and at least 360 in the West Bank since beginning its assault on the occupied territories in October.
But a provision notes that none of the $10 billion in humanitarian assistance for Palestinians and Ukrainians “may be made available for a contribution, grant, or other payment” to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Just after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said in an interim ruling late last month that South Africa’s claim that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza is “plausible,” Israel announced it had discovered that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Palestine had been involved in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7.https://www.commondreams.org/news/senate-deal-unrwa
2024-02-05 As Senators Unveil Aid Bill, Sanders Says Stop Fueling the ‘Netanyahu War Machine’ Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that the U.S. must stop fueling the Netanyahu government’s assault on the Gaza Strip as senators unveiled legislation that would provide more than $14 billion in aid to Israel, which has waged its monthslong war on the Palestinian territory with massive American-made bombs, artillery shells, and other destructive munitions.
“This is not JUST about 27,000 Palestinians killed and 67,000 wounded—two-thirds of whom are women and children,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. “This is not JUST about 70% of the housing units in Gaza being destroyed or damaged. This is not JUST about 1.7 million people driven from their homes. This is not JUST about hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children starving to death. This is also about our credibility in the international community and what this country stands for.”
“This is also about our credibility in the international community and what this country stands for,” the senator continued. “If we continue to fund [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s indiscriminate war, how can we, with a straight face, criticize [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine as a war crime? How can we criticize China, Saudi Arabia, and other countries for their many violations of human rights? Who in the world will not see through the hypocrisy?” https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-netanyahu-israel
2024-01-29 Ocasio-Cortez: US Should Restore UNRWA Funding ‘Immediately’ “Cutting off support to UNRWA—the primary source of humanitarian aid to 2 million+ Gazans—is unacceptable,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote on social media. “Among an organization of 13,000 U.N. aid workers, risking the starvation of millions over grave allegations of 12 is indefensible. The U.S. should restore aid immediately.”
The U.S. State Department announced last week that it would temporarily pause any additional funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East as it reviews Israel’s allegations that a dozen of the agency’s employees were involved in Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel. Several countries have followed the U.S. in suspending aid to the UNRWA, including Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan, putting the agency’s critical operations in Gaza at risk of total collapse.
Observers noted that the U.S. and other Israel allies were quick to suspend aid to the UNRWA but have refused to cut off military assistance to the Israeli government despite the overwhelming evidence that it is committing war crimes in Gaza. https://www.commondreams.org/news/ocasio-cortez-unrwa
2024-01-22 Give AIPAC The Finger AIPAC and its allies funnel Republican and (illegally) Israeli money into Democratic primaries to defeat progressives. Last cycle they spent millions of dollars to replace Andy Levin (D-MI) and Marie Newman (D-IL) with more conservative candidates. At the same time, they financed conservative candidates against Donna Edwards (MD), Christina Garcia (CA)— elected a lifelong Republican masquerading as a Democrat in a heavily blue district— Nina Turner (OH), Jessica Cisneros (TX), Daniel Lee (CA), Erica Smith (NC), Nida Allam (NC), Angelica Duenas (CA), Summer Lee (PA) and others. The only candidate on that list who prevailed was Summer Lee. And this year, AIPAC is back for another attempt to defeat her.
In fact, AIPAC is boasting that it and its allies will spend $100 million against progressives this year. In immediate danger are the progressives on this page: Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Angelica Duenas (D-CA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Pervez Agwan (D-TX), Cori Bush (D-MO) and, as we mentioned, Summer Lee.
AIPAC has been doing this for a very long time, although only recently with money from Republican billionaires. In the past they financed defeats for Democrats who didn’t tow the Likud line, like Cynthia McKinney (GA) and Earl Hillard (AL).
former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner told us that “The pouring in of millions of dollars of dark money from AIPAC and DMFI completely suffocated the voices of the voters in Ohio 11th Congressional District on 2021 and 2022. Moreover, the targeting of Black progressive leaders using more centrist Black candidates as cover is deeply disturbing and has layers of anti-Black racism.
Former Congresswoman Marie Newman had a similar perspective: “More than anything else I’m deeply concerned about how AIPAC, Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) and their 20 affiliate PACs are putting a huge wedge in the Democratic Party, particularly in the House. Those groups are desperate to have all members be conservative or centrist, so they can control them and their votes. In the last 3 months I’ve talked to several Members of Congress who live in absolute fear of AIPAC and DMFI working against them or primarying them.
Ultimately, their bullying of members and donors is starting to backfire. Voters now know who they are and their vile tactics. I believe that this now will work against AIPAC/DMFI/affiliate candidates. https://crooksandliars.com/2024/01/give-aipac-finger
2024-01-09 On Gaza, Most Congress Members Have Been Moral Failures. Don’t Grade Them on a Curve The vast majority of Congress members have refused to call for a ceasefire in Gaza during three months of slaughter by Israel’s military. Capitol Hill remains a friendly place for the Israeli government as it keeps receiving massive arms shipments courtesy of U.S. taxpayers. “Israel would not be able to conduct this war without the U.S., which over time has provided Israel with about 80 percent of the country’s weapons imports,” Vox reports. The distance between the Capitol and Gaza can be measured by the vast disconnect between the standard discourse of U.S. politics and the terroristic carnage destroying Palestinian people. The human toll includes upward of 22,000 dead, more than 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.2 million population displaced, and the emerging lethal combination of hunger and disease that could kill several hundred thousand more.
The impunity enjoyed by Israeli leaders is enabled by President Biden, who clearly does not want a ceasefire. The same can be said of the vast majority of Congress, with silences and equivocations if not outright zeal to voice support for the wholesale killing of civilians in the name of Israel’s “right to defend itself.” Members of Congress, now providing such easy rhetoric in public statements to justify huge and ongoing military support to Israel, would not be so complacent if they had to dig their own dead children out of rubble.
Seventeen members of the House stepped forward in mid-October to sign on as cosponsors of the ceasefire resolution introduced by Congresswoman Cori Bush, “calling for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine.” The number of those forthright representatives has not risen during the 11 weeks since then. https://freepress.org/article/gaza-most-congress-members-have-been-moral-failures-don%E2%80%99t-grade-them-curve
2023-12-19 Jewish Groups Line Up In Support Of Biden’s Muslim Court Pick Assailed By GOP Fifteen Jewish organizations on Tuesday pledged their “strong support” for President Joe Biden’s historic Muslim court pick Adeel Mangi ― days after Republican senators subjected him to hostile and Islamophobic questioning in his confirmation hearing.
“Having ethical and unbiased judges is ingrained in our Jewish teachings in which we are taught that ‘judges need to be people of strength through good deeds,’” reads the groups’ letter to all 100 senators, obtained by HuffPost. “It is clear to us that Adeel A. Mangi is a person of strength and good deeds, as evidenced by his career, devotion to his community, and commitment to religious freedom and civil rights.” The letter is signed by the National Council of Jewish Women, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, Carolina Jews for Justice, The Shalom Center, and others. The groups collectively represent more than a million people nationwide. The Jewish groups’ letter comes after Mangi, who is a partner at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, endured a series of offensive and irrelevant questions from Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
GOP Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Tom Cotton (Ark.) and Josh Hawley (Mo.) yelled at and interrupted Mangi throughout his hearing. They demanded that he share his personal views on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Oct. 7 attack in Israel and the Israeli-Hamas conflict in general. They also repeatedly tried to tie him to pro-Palestinian comments made by people he didn’t know, and to events he didn’t know about.
On Friday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the country, condemned all three Republican senators for their behavior. “Singling out a Muslim judicial nominee and forcing him to answer ‘gotcha questions’ about the Middle East simply because of faith or because of his tangential connections to Muslims who comment on the Middle East is Islamophobic and un-American,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, CAIR’s national deputy director. “So is raising the hateful trope that presumptively assumes that Muslims are antisemitic.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jewish-groups-line-up-in-support-of-biden-s-muslim-court-pick-assailed-by-gop/ar-AA1lLelV
2023-12-19 Republican Michelle Bachman Says She Wants To WIPE OUT Gaza Former Congresswoman and right-winger Michele Bachmann said she wants Gazans wiped off the map. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2RmWKLWEL4
2023-12-15 Warren Demands Facebook-Instagram Explain Censorship of Pro-Palestinian Content “It is more important than ever that social media platforms do not censor truthful and legitimate content, particularly as people around the world turn to online communities to share and find information.” The senator is seeking clarification regarding documented occurrences on Facebook and Instagram of censorship of pro-Palestinian content, labeling the Palestinian flag as “potentially offensive,” and translating the words “Palestinian” and “Alhamdulilah”—Arabic for “praise be to God”—as “Palestinian terrorist.”
Progressive U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding answers to questions about the Facebook and Instagram parent company’s alleged suppression of pro-Palestinian content during the ongoing Israeli obliteration of Gaza. “Over 90 human rights and civil society organizations have raised alarm about Meta’s reported suppression, filtering, and mistranslation of Palestine-related content over the past two months, calling on the company to provide additional transparency as to content moderation and to address discriminatory algorithmic design,” Warren (D-Mass.) wrote.
“Even more concerning, Meta reportedly manipulated its content filters to apply stricter standards to content generated in Palestine compared to the standards in place in the rest of the region and the world,” Warren noted. https://www.commondreams.org/news/facebook-censorship
2023-12-13 These 125 Democrats voted against a resolution declaring that the presidents of Harvard and MIT should resign after recent antisemitism testimony The resolution, which essentially calls for the presidents of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to resign, was ultimately opposed by 125 House Democrats — a strong majority of the caucus. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who has voted against multiple pro-Israel resolutions in recent weeks, also voted no. Meanwhile, three House Democrats voted present: Reps. Julia Brownley and Jimmy Gomez of California, and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania. It’s the latest contentious resolution to hit the House floor since the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack, coming in the wake of a resolution affirming support for Israel, a resolution affirming the Jewish state’s right to exist, and a resolution equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/these-125-democrats-voted-against-a-resolution-declaring-that-the-presidents-of-harvard-and-mit-should-resign-after-recent-antisemitism-testimony/ar-AA1lsTam
2023-12-09 The Endless Dropping of Bombs Is Sabotaging Humanity’s Ability to Evolve Will we be able to overcome the wreckage we are inflicting on ourselves? The game of war is beyond human control! We’re spectators at our own demise.
As Dennis Kucinich put it in a recent interview with Chris Hedges: “We have almost a closed-loop system that guarantees that we will continue to go to war. There is no counterbalance for diplomacy or peace. That doesn’t exist.” War, in other words, does nothing but create the certainty of more war. And peace is no more than an occasional pause as the combatants reload. And there’s no official questioning of this world —certainly not by Congress, certainly not by the media. “So there’s very little deep thinking that goes on,” Kucinich added. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/war-evolution-bombing
2023-12-03 Jayapal calls for Middle East coalition to bring peace in Gaza, take out Hamas Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) on Sunday called for a coalition including the United States, Israel and Arab countries to bring about the demise of Hamas, while also ensuring long-term stability in the region.
In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Jayapal reiterated her call for a cease-fire and denied the suggestion it would lead to keeping “that brutal terrorist regime in place in Gaza.” “I don’t think that’s true. I think that what is true is that Hamas needs to be taken out. It is a terrorist organization,” Jayapal said. “But I think the way to do that — as many terrorism experts have said — is to create a durable and strong coalition of allies within the Middle East, with the United States, with Israel, to make sure that we have a long-term political solution, that there is an alternative to Hamas to lead in Gaza and to establish a state for Palestinians.” Jayapal condemned Hamas but pointed to Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza as what’s hampering progress to a long-term solution https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jayapal-calls-for-middle-east-coalition-to-bring-peace-in-gaza-take-out-hamas/ar-AA1kVrgK?
2023-11-28 Just 2 House members did not vote in favor of a resolution affirming Israel’s right to exist The House of Representatives on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a resolution affirming Israel’s right to exist, and only two members did not vote in favor of it. Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the sole Palestinian American in Congress, voted “present,” while Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky voted against it. Introduced by Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, the resolution affirms a variety of widely accepted facts about Israel and the Jewish people, including the atrocity of the Holocaust and the history of persecution of Jews. However, the resolution made no mention of Palestinians — who have their own historical claims in the region — even as it stated that Jewish people are “native to the Land of Israel.”https://www.businessinsider.com/which-house-members-vote-against-present-resolution-israel-right-exist-2023-11
2023-11-10 Tulsi Gabbard Switches Anti-War Stance To Justify Israeli War Crimes! During the 2016 presidential election, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard emerged as a uniquely principled voice, criticizing the Clinton campaign and the DNC for icing Bernie Sanders out of the party’s nomination and for criticizing the U.S. war in Syria. So it comes as a terrible disappointment to hear Gabbard buying into the propaganda and spreading war machine talking points about Israel and the war on Gaza. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhg8OBz0zLQ
2023-11-20 Merkley Just Second US Senator to Demand Gaza Cease-Fire U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley on Monday became just the second member of the Senate to demand a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, over six weeks into Israel’s brutal bombardment and ground operations that have killed over 13,000 Palestinians, including 5,500 children.
The Oregon Democrat’s move, which he explained in a lengthy post on Medium, follows a cease-fire call from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the number two Senate Democrat, earlier this month, and demands from a couple dozen Democratic House members.
Merkley, who first visited Israel in 1978, wrote that by his fifth visit earlier this year, “far-right extremists were now helping to drive Israeli government policy,” with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu having “formed a government with Bezalel Smotrich as minister of finance and Itamar Ben-Gvir as minister of national security.”
“Under such a government, attacks by Israel’s settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank have become more frequent and violent, often condoned by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF),” he pointed out. “Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority (PA), which had worked closely with the IDF to prevent violence by Palestinians, was losing its legitimacy.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/jeff-merkley-gaza-ceasefire
2023-11-19 California Democrats are divided on Senate race, Gaza war None of the leading candidates — Reps. Lee, Katie Porter, Adam Schiff and tech executive Lexi Reese — reached the 60% threshold needed, according to results ratified today. Still, Lee led with 41% — far more than her third-place standing among Democrats in recent polls — while Schiff had 40% of delegate votes and Porter received 16%.
But her show of support was overshadowed by hundreds of demonstrators both inside and outside the convention hall, who chanted “Ceasefire Now,” waved Palestinian flags and disrupted the proceedings. They drowned out the remarks of Schiff and Porter, shut down Reese’s speech and compelled party officials to cancel all Saturday night events and step up security for today.
In his opening statement this morning, party Chairperson Rusty Hicks called the protest “unacceptable” and vowed to hold accountable any delegates who violated the party’s code of conduct. “Antisemitism and Islamophobia has no place in our party or in our communities,” he said. “We condemn acts of violence that bring harm to our neighbors and divide us from one another, both here at home and abroad.” https://calmatters.org/politics/2023/11/california-senate-democrats/
2023-11-17 Hillary Clinton Is Lying About the History Between Hamas and Israel Hillary writes in The Atlantic, that “the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a secure, democratic, Jewish state is by achieving two states for two peoples. … There is no other choice.” She repeatedly claims that it’s been Palestinians who have stood in the way of any kind of permanent peace. She cannot acknowledge, however, the historical events that have led to the present situation, which clearly show that the primary obstacle to a two-state solution is not any Palestinian faction: It’s the government of Israel.
Israel had, in collaboration with Egypt, imposed a brutal blockade on Gaza since 2007. Blockades are arguably acts of war, and one place you can find it argued is on the website of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “The blockade is by definition an act of war, imposed and enforced through violence. Never in history have blockade and peace existed side by side.”
In the years leading up to Operation Pillar of Defense, Hamas leaders said over and over that they were willing, at a minimum, to accept a long-term truce with Israel. Even the U.S. Institute for Peace, a think tank funded by federal government, acknowledged that Hamas had “sent repeated signals that it may be ready to begin a process of coexisting with Israel.” This did not interest the Israeli government. On November 14, 2012, Israel assassinated Ahmed Jabari, the head of Hamas’s military wing. Gershon Baskin, an Israeli peace activist, had been in communication with Jabari long before the assassination. According to Baskin, Jabari had come to believe that it was in the best interest of Palestinians for Hamas to negotiate a long-term truce.
Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, another bombing and invasion of Gaza, on July 8. Several days later, Hamas proposed a 10-year ceasefire, on the condition that Israel would release the Palestinian prisoners, and the blockades of Gaza in the Mediterranean Sea and along its border with Egypt would be lifted. Israel studiously ignored this proposal and went on to kill over 2,000 people in Gaza, about two-thirds of whom were civilians. Seventy-two Israelis died during the operation, nearly all of them soldiers. https://theintercept.com/2023/11/17/hillary-clinton-hamas-israel/
2023-11-16 Krystal CLASHES With 2024 Candidate Dean Phillips On Gaza Ceasefire | Breaking Points Krystal interviews presidential candidate Dean Phillips on Israel and the prospects of a ceasefire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAFq1qC01QI
2023-11-15 AOC Leads New Cease-Fire Push as Gaza Children Suffer Twenty-four House members led by Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mark Pocan, and Betty McCollum sent a letter to President Joe Biden Wednesday renewing calls for a cease-fire in Gaza.
The letter writers emphasized in particular how Israel’s ongoing bombardment has impacted Gaza’s 1 million children. The attack has killed 4,506 children and injured at least 7,695, while at least 1,755 are missing, most likely trapped beneath rubble. Israeli soldiers and settlers have also killed at least 51 children in the West Bank in the last 39 days.
“We are profoundly shocked by the grave violations of children’s rights in the context of armed conflict in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the representatives wrote. “International norms require that all parties to an armed conflict protect children and prevent the commission of grave violations against them, including killing and maiming, attacks on schools and hospitals, recruitment and use of children, abduction of children, and denial of humanitarian access.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-cease-fire-gaza-children
2023-11-10 Bernie Sanders Disappoints With Cease-Fire Refusal Given the makeup of the US Senate, one would assume that the senator who would go out on a limb and become the first, and still the only one, to call for a ceasefire would be progressive firebrand Bernie Sanders. But it wasn’t. Instead, it was Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.
Durbin is known as a relatively liberal senator, but he’s never been a leader on the issue of Palestine. Sanders, on the other hand, has been the most outspoken member of the Senate on Palestine, although that is a pretty low bar. Still, in the past, he has been willing to speak out.
During his 2016 presidential run, Sanders offered some mild criticism of Israeli policies, but did so in Brooklyn, New York, defying fears that this would cause his Jewish supporters to bolt. But nothing of the kind happened. Sanders has also spoken about enforcing US law on arms sales to Israel, a subject so controversial in Washington that it is seen as politically toxic. He has repeatedly criticised Israel’s policies; but on Gaza, he has absolutely refused to call for a ceasefire.
When asked, Sanders supported the Israeli view that military action must continue until Hamas is destroyed. “I don’t know how you can have a ceasefire, a permanent ceasefire, with an organisation like Hamas, which is dedicated to turmoil and chaos and destroying the State of Israel,” Sanders told CNN. “I think what the Arab countries in the region understand is that Hamas has got to go.”
Ignoring demands. Two weeks ago, more than 300 former Sanders staffers and campaign workers published an open letter calling on him to support a ceasefire, an end to the blockade of Gaza and “US military funding for war crimes against the Palestinian people, the expansion of settlements, and the occupation of Palestinian lands.” https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/bernie-sanders-gaza-cease-fire
2023-11-10 Congress’ Censure of Rep Tlaib Shows There’s a ‘Palestine Exception’ to Free Speech “I find it horrific that the politicians have the nerve to censure righteous voices for peace and for the lives of Gazans, who are being murdered,” Holocaust survivor Marione Ingram said.
In the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, the nation’s founding documents are on display, including the Bill of Rights, which enshrines free speech. As Israel subjects Gaza to a massive air and ground assault, Congress has reminded us of what has come to be known as “the Palestine exception” to free speech.
On Tuesday, 22 Democrats joined with the Republican majority to censure Palestinian-American Congressmember Rashida Tlaib. Just before the rare vote, Tlaib addressed the House, surrounded by her progressive colleagues including the two other Muslims in Congress, André Carson and Ilhan Omar–herself the only African refugee in Congress, their fellow African American Congressmembers Ayanna Pressley, Summer Lee, Jamal Bowman, and Cori Bush, along with the chair of the Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal.
“I’m the only Palestinian American serving in Congress, Mr. Chair, and my perspective is needed here now more than ever. I will not be silent, and I will not let you distort my words,” Tlaib said. “Trying to bully or censor me won’t work, because this movement for a cease-fire is much bigger than one person. It’s growing every single day. There are millions of people across our country who oppose [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu’s extremism…They are done watching our government, Mr. Chair, supporting cutting off food, water, electricity, and medical care to millions of people with nowhere to go. Like me, Mr. Chair, they don’t believe the answer to war crimes is more war crimes.”https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/tlaib-palestine-free-speech
2023-11-08 Hillary Clinton: Israel, Palestinians Need New Leadership for Peace “I think there needs to be new leadership of the Israelis and the Palestinians in order to have any chance at some kind of peace deal, especially a two-state solution.” Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talks about the Israel-Hamas war. She speaks with John Micklethwait via video conference for the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore. (Excerpt)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iorNGSeazk
2023-11-07 ‘Palestinian People Are Not Disposable,’ Says Rashida Tlaib During House Censure Debate “Speaking up to save lives—no matter faith, no matter ethnicity—should not be controversial in this chamber. The cries of the Palestinian and Israeli children sound no different to me.” “I’m the only Palestinian American serving in Congress… and my perspective is needed here now more than ever,” Tlaib asserted. “I will not be silenced and I will not let you distort my words.” “Folks forget I’m from Detroit, the most beautiful, blackest city in the country where I learned how to speak truth to power even if my voice shakes,” she added. “Trying to bully or censor me won’t work because this movement for a cease-fire is much bigger than one person. It’s growing every single day.”
U.S. House lawmakers voted Tuesday night to censure Tlaib. The vote was 234-188, with 22 Democrats joining almost all Republicans in approving the resolution. Four GOP lawmakers voted against the measure.
Many Republicans and Democrats have accused Tlaib of antisemitism, especially for calling Israel’s war on Gaza a “genocide”—an assessment with which many experts concur—and for using the phrase, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Tlaib has explained that, to her, the phrase—which is also a core component of the original platform of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party—”is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/censure-rashida-tlaib-2666179441
2023-11-05 Sanders Blasts AIPAC After Group Thanks Him for Not Demanding Cease-Fire in Gaza After the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Sunday publicly thanked U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders for declining to join global calls for a cease-fire in Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, the Vermont Independent rebuffed the lobbying group.
The senator—under progressive pressure to change his position on Israel’s war—noted that AIPAC “has supported dozens of GOP extremists who are undermining our democracy” and is “now working hard to defeat progressive members of Congress.”
“AIPAC endorsed scores of January 6th insurrectionists. They are no friend to American democracy. They are one of the more racist and bigoted PACs in Congress as well, who disproportionately target members of color. They are an extremist organization that destabilizes U.S. democracy.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/aipac-bernie-sanders
2023-11-04 Psychopathic Liar Nikki Haley Pushes War With Iran! Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign Republican Nikki Haley has emerged as perhaps the most ardent and bloodthirsty warmongering candidate, and that’s saying something among a group who are not shy about threatening military force all over the globe, from Russia to Israel to Mexico. Haley in particular wants to point U.S. military capabilities at Iran, which she blames for the recent Hamas attacks. Guest host Craig Jardula and Americans’ Comedian Kurt Metzger discuss Haley’s brazen lies about how Iran and Hamas are determined to kill Americans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KlguVEaIIc&t=4s
2023-11-04 Republicans Admit Gaza Is A “Concentration Camp” Video footage shows that decades ago Republicans like Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul were acknowleding that Gaza is a “concentration camp.” Today you likely won’t hear elected Republicans saying anything of the kind, but among the larger community, even in the United States, the Israeli narrative depicting themselves as the innocent victims of the horrible terrorists of Hamas is rapidly breaking down. Guest host Craig Jardula and Americans’ Comedian Kurt Metzger speak with columnist George Szamuely about the failures of Israeli propaganda, also known as “hasbara.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caPJdImn6JY
2023-11-03 Mike Johnson went to Palestine with Jim Jordan and said citizens aren’t oppressed: report Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) took a trip to the Palestinian Territories with Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH), where he met up with extremist groups and proclaimed that there’s no oppression in the area, reported Mother Jones on Friday. The trip took place in 2020, when the two lawmakers were in the minority and Johnson was an obscure backbencher.
“In February of that year, Johnson traveled to Israel with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio),” reported David Corn. “The sponsor for this trip was the New York-based 12Tribe Films Foundation, a small outfit that that describes itself as ‘online warriors for truth about Israel and the Jewish people.’ The organization spent $34,520 — about one-quarter of its revenue that year — to fly the two lawmakers and their wives to Israel and host them for the week-long trip.” https://www.rawstory.com/johnson-and-jordan-go-to-palestine/
2023-11-03 Palestine, Israel, and the US war machine w/Dennis Kucinich | The Chris Hedges Report Israel’s ongoing massacre in Gaza has stirred worldwide calls for a ceasefire to stop the genocide unfolding. The United States has been no exception, which countless demonstrators taking to the streets in recent weeks. That hasn’t stopped the US government from backing Israel’s horrific campaign in Gaza to the hilt. The White House has refused to heed calls for a ceasefire and even deployed two aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean—not to defend Palestinians, but to dissuade regional powers from joining the fray to defend Palestine. As the possibility of a regional war looms with the entry of Yemen into the conflict, many wonder how the US might respond to such a scenario. Former US Congressperson Dennis Kucinich joins The Chris Hedges Report for a discussion on the US war machine—what it is, how it works, and how it might respond should the war in Palestine spiral into a wider conflagration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTP-W9VoFKA
2023-11-02 Ron DeSantis Comes Out AGAINST Free Speech! Ron DeSantis may have stood up to the Pharma lobby — somewhat — during the height of COVID, but one powerful interest he’s NOT standing up to today is the Israel lobby. In fact, DeSantis has responded to the latest flare-up in Israeli-Palestinian violence by sending weaponry from the state of Florida directly to Israel while echoing the most bloodthirsty language embracing violence against Hamas and Palestinians. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3BJBGBHnyc&t=46s
2023-11-01 ‘Squad’ members face Democratic primary challenges over Israel stances St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell announced this week he was dropping his months-long bid to unseat one of the country’s most outspoken Republican senators, Josh Hawley, to launch a primary campaign to oust fellow Democrat Rep. Cori Bush. When asked to explain his switch, Bell pointed to Bush’s criticism of Israel. Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Summer L. Lee (D-Pa.) also drew primary challengers who cite their criticism of Israel as an issue. George Latimer, the executive of Westchester County, N.Y., said he is weighing a challenge to Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), another member of the Squad, with Israel as a potentially defining issue in the race. “It might be that this becomes a proxy argument” between “the left and the far left,” Latimer told The Washington Post.
Support for Israel by the United States is a source of growing tension within the Democratic Party. While party leaders and establishment figures have largely been united in support of the 75-year-old democratic nation, the liberal wing of the party has grown louder in challenging the Israeli government over its treatment of Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee — which has helped fund challenges to incumbents it considers insufficiently supportive of Israel — declined, for now, to comment on the brewing congressional races. “There will be a time for political action,” Marshall Wittmann, a spokesman for group, said in a statement Tuesday, “but right now our priority is building and sustaining congressional support for Israel’s fight to permanently dismantle Hamas, which perpetrated this barbaric, terrorist attack on the Jewish state.”
Liberal political action committee Justice Democrats said AIPAC is targeting Democrats who criticize Israel and who also challenge economic policies that hurt poor and middle-class people. “What they really are is a vehicle for Republican dollars to be spent in Democratic primaries to elect Republican-adjacent Democrats,” Usamah Andrabi, spokesperson for the PAC, said in an interview Tuesday. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/squad-members-face-democratic-primary-challenges-over-israel-stances/ar-AA1jcWFq
2023-10-28 Tell Senator Bernie Sanders: Ceasefire Now -Petition As American Jews and allies, many of us have looked to Bernie Sanders for years as the political leader who best embodies our values.
Right now, many of us are also grieving Israeli and Palestinian loved ones who have been murdered in recent weeks. Over 1400 Israelis and over 5700 Palestinians are already dead, with more Palestinians killed by bombs that rain on Gaza by the hour, and over 200 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. This genocidal violence cannot be allowed to escalate or continue.
2023-10-26 Eight Progressives Vote Against House Israel Resolution That Ignores Palestinian Suffering Eight members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Wednesday voted against a bipartisan House resolution that expresses unconditional support for the Israeli government as it carries out massive war crimes in Gaza—atrocities that aren’t once mentioned in the newly passed measure.
The seven CPC members who joined Bush in voting no were Reps. Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), André Carson (Ind.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), and Delia Ramirez (Ill.). Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who is not a CPC member, also voted no, as did Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). Six Democrats, including CPC chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), voted present.
The resolution, titled H. Res. 771, passed late Wednesday in a 412 to 10 vote, the House’s first act under newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). Led by Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the resolution states that the House “stands with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists” and “stands ready to assist Israel with emergency resupply and other security, diplomatic, and intelligence support.”
2023-10-25 These 16 lawmakers did not vote for a House resolution supporting Israel after the Hamas attacks The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a resolution in support of Israel by an overwhelmingly 412-10-6 margin following the October 7 attack by Hamas. The bipartisan resolution, drafted by Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas and Democratic Rep. Greg Meeks of New York, is a largely symbolic gesture. It was the first legislative action that the House took after electing Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana as the next speaker of the House, ending the lower chamber’s 3 weeks of deadlock.
The resolution states that the House “stands with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists” and “reaffirms the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security.” But to progressives’ dismay, the resolution makes relatively little mention of civilian casualties in the Gaza strip, which have steadily mounted as Israel has carried out aerial bombings since the Hamas attack. “Whereas since October 7, 2023, Hamas is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians,” the statement reads.
Over a dozen progressive Democrats — and one Republican — voted “nay” or “present.” [MEK Note: The few who won’t support genocide of Palestinians are listed below. Not one California Representtive]
Here are the 10 lawmakers who voted against the resolution:
2023-10-25 Ilhan Omar BLASTS Ritchie Torres (clip) Torres supports Israel and not Palestinians and is exposed here! Ritchie John Torres (born March 12, 1988) is an American politician from New York. A member of the Democratic Party, Torres is the U.S. representative for New York’s 15th congressional district. The district covers most of the South Bronx. It is one of the smallest districts by area in the country, covering only a few square miles. Torres represents the poorest Congressional district in New York State. https://sabbysabs.substack.com/p/ilhan-omar-blasts-ritchie-torres
2023-10-25 More Than 300 Former Sanders Staffers Urge Him to Lead Cease-Fire Resolution in Senate “Your voice is needed now more than ever, because cooler heads must prevail and prevent further suffering and bloodshed.”
More than 300 former staffers from Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns released an open letter Tuesday urging the Vermont Independent to sponsor a cease-fire resolution in the U.S. Senate as Israel’s bombing campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip continues unabated.
Sanders said last week that “the bombs and missiles from both sides must end” and has accused Israel of violating international law with its blockade on Gaza, but he has yet to express support for the cease-fire resolution led by progressive Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) in the House.
The senator’s former campaign staffers want him to spearhead a similar cease-fire effort in the Senate, where the Democratic leadership has thus far been in lockstep with the Biden administration’s unwavering support for Israel’s attack on Gaza. https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-cease-fire-resolution
2023-10-25 Obama Warns Israel Former U.S. President Barack Obama has endorsed Israel’s right to defend against “wanton violence” by Hamas, but warned that a strategy that |ignores the human cost” would be counterproductive. In an essay released on Medium on Monday, Obama endorsed President Joe Biden’s call for the U.S. to “support our long-time ally in going after Hamas, dismantling its military capabilities,” and freeing the hostages taken in the October 7 attack. However, Obama argued, it is important that Israel’s strategy “abides by international law” and minimize the death and suffering of civilians. Not just because it is “morally just and reflects our belief in the inherent value of every human life” but because it is “vital for building alliances and shaping international opinion – all of which are critical for Israel’s long-term security.” https://countercurrents.org/2023/10/obama-warns-israel/
2023-10-24 Congressional Press Releases Over two weeks since Hamas attack and Israel’s Geocide Against Gaza Palestinians. (pending ongoing research)
Ceasefire Now Resolution urges support for an end to violence in Israel and Occupied Palestine. Today, 10-16 Representatives Cori Bush (MO-01), Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), André Carson (IN-07), Summer Lee (PA-12), and Delia C. Ramirez (IL-03), alongside Representatives Jamaal Bowman (NY-16), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), Jesús “Chuy” García (IL-04), Jonathan Jackson (IL-01), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), and Nydia Velázquez (NY-07) a
These 7 signed and initiated the Ceasefire statement Barbara Lee (CA-12), Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Greg Casar (TX-35), James P. McGovern (MA-02), Joaquin Castro (TX-20), Veronica Escobar (TX-16), and Jesús G. “Chuy” García (IL-04)
2023-10-23 Over half of House Democrats endorse Biden’s backing for Israel in war against Hamas
MEK Note: Rep DeSaulnier signed this letter]
More than half of Democrats in the US House of Representatives sent a letter to President Joe Biden endorsing his policy of backing Israel in its war against Hamas, mounting a firewall against calls from the party’s left to pressure Israel into a ceasefire. The signatories include several outspoken critics of Israel, as well as all 24 Jews in the House Democratic caucus.
The letter, dated Friday, was spearheaded by three Jewish members, Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman of New York and Jamie Raskin of Maryland, and was signed by 131 lawmakers. “We stand with you in supporting Israel and are ready to provide whatever assistance the state and people of Israel need to defend themselves and to ensure that hostages return home and those who perpetrated these crimes against humanity are held accountable,” the letter says.
2023-10-21 RASKIN, NADLER, GOLDMAN LEAD LETTER FROM MAJORITY OF HOUSE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS TO PRESIDENT BIDEN IN SUPPORT OF THE ADMINISTRATION’S RESPONSE TO TERRORISM IN ISRAEL, THE CONFLICT IN GAZA AND THE IMPERATIVE OF HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
[MEK Note: Rep Mark DeSaulnier signed this letter. Again, there is no mention of a ceasefire.]
Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-08), Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-12) and Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10) led a letter signed by every Democratic Jewish Member and 128 other Democrats in Congress to President Joe Biden expressing support for the Biden administration’s strong leadership in addressing conflict in the Middle East.
The lawmakers continued, “We are grateful as well for your clear statements regarding the fundamental importance of ensuring that the humanitarian needs of the civilian population of Gaza are met, and that all possible steps are being taken to ensure the safety of civilians and noncombatants in the Strip. Reportedly, more than 3,000 people have been killed and more than 9,700 wounded in Gaza, making it imperative that we act immediately to prevent further loss of innocent lives. We agree with you that Israel’s response must be in accordance with international law and our shared democratic values.”
2023-10-19 Rep. Ro Khanna Loses Political Director Over Not Sponsoring Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Resolution Khanna’s political director reportedly quit after only two weeks on the job citing the congressman’s refusal to call for a ceasefire. The political director for Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., resigned over Khanna not co-sponsoring a resolution calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, according to a new report. “I will be doing everything in my power to stand against war & for Palestinian justice,” said the political director Adam Ramer in a social media post reported by The Intercept.
2023-10-17 Sanders Statement on Horrific Violence in Israel and Gaza WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement today on the horrific violence in Israel and Gaza: The slaughter of over a thousand Israelis by Hamas in a terrorist attack is an unspeakable crime. The bombing of a Palestinian hospital is an unspeakable crime, as is the displacement of a million people without water, food, and medicine. These unspeakable crimes must stop now. The bombs and missiles from both sides must end, massive humanitarian aid must be rushed to Gaza, and the hostages must be returned to their families. https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-statement-on-horrific-violence-in-israel-and-gaza/
2023-10-14 Has Israel’s govt recruited a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee? Brian Mast, a member of the United States Congress seated on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, showed up for work this October 13 clad in the uniform of the Israeli military. “As the only member to serve with both the United States Army and the Israel Defense Forces, I will always stand with Israel,” the evangelical Christian Republican posted on X around 10:30 in the morning. Mast went on to attack his Palestinian American colleague, Rep Rashida Tlaib, declaring, “Tlaib’s got her flag. I got my uniform. ‘Global Day of Rage’ my ass.”
Is it appropriate that someone who has served in a foreign military be allowed to return to the United States and serve on such a sensitive government committee, earning a security clearance along the way? “Anyone who has worked with the Israelis is briefed that they will attempt to elicit, collect, and recruit from Americans,” a former US Special Operations officer who asked to remain anonymous explained to The Grayzone. “He should not have security clearance. That’s just common sense.”
Having previously served the US military in Afghanistan, Mast volunteered as a bomb disposal specialist for the Israeli army during its 2014 assault on the Gaza Strip. The 51-day assault known as “Operation Protective Edge” resulted in widespread destruction of civilian homes as well as the death of 2202 Palestinians including 526 children. https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/14/israels-govt-foreign-affairs-committee/
2023-10-11 Sanders Statement on Continuing Violence in Israel and Gaza Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday issued the following statement on the continuing violence in Israel and Gaza following Hamas’ horrific attack on Saturday: Hamas’ terrorist assault on Israel will have horrific short- and long-term consequences.
As a result of this attack, thousands of Israelis and Palestinians – including many women and children – have been killed and injured. That toll will rise. The gunning down of young Israelis at a music festival is an image the world will not soon forget.
Longer term, this attack is a major setback for any hope of peace and reconciliation in the region – and justice for the Palestinian people. For years, people of good will throughout the world, including some brave Israelis, have struggled against the blockade of Gaza, the daily humiliations of occupation in the West Bank, and the horrendous living conditions faced by so many Palestinians. For many, it is no secret that Gaza has been an open-air prison, with millions of people struggling to secure basic necessities. Hamas’ terrorism will make it much more difficult to address that tragic reality and will embolden extremists on both sides, continuing the cycle of violence.
Right now, the international community must focus on reducing humanitarian suffering and protecting innocent people on both sides of this conflict. The targeting of civilians is a war crime, no matter who does it. Israel’s blanket denial of food, water, and other necessities to Gaza is a serious violation of international law and will do nothing but harm innocent civilians. The United States has rightly offered solidarity and support to Israel in responding to Hamas’ attack. But we must also insist on restraint from Israeli forces attacking Gaza and work to secure UN humanitarian access. Let us not forget that half of the two million people in Gaza are children. Children and innocent people do not deserve to be punished for the acts of Hamas. https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-statement-on-continuing-violence-in-israel-and-gaza/
2023-10-10 Israel’s apartheid caused Hamas massacre, kidnapping, says US Rep. Tlaib Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog condemned the statement. Herzog attached a photo of Tlaib’s comments, which read: “I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday, today and everyday. I am determined as ever to fight for a just future where everyone can live in peace, without fear and with true freedom, equal rights and human dignity.
“The path to that future must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance. https://www.jpost.com/international/article-767383
2023-10-10 US, Israeli Lawmakers Call for Genocide of Palestinians in Gaza Lawmakers in the US and Israel have called for the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza in response to the Hamas attack on southern Israel that has killed at least 1,000 Israelis. So far, Israeli retaliation has killed 900 Palestinians, a number that’s growing amid Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Revital “Tally” Gotliv, a member of Israel’s Knesset and the Likud party, called for Israel to use its nuclear weapons, which Israel has never formally acknowledged exist. Over in the US, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) also called for mass slaughter in Gaza. https://www.activistpost.com/2023/10/us-israeli-lawmakers-call-for-genocide-of-palestinians-in-gaza.html
2023-10-07 Graham Statement on Israel Attacks U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today made this statement following Hamas’ unjust invasion and attack on Israel. “Our thoughts and prayers are with our friends and allies in Israel as they defend their homeland from this unjust invasion and attack by the terrorist group Hamas. “It would serve Israel and the world well to respond to this outrage by launching an operation that will destroy the Hamas organization – not just contain it. “I am convinced that this unprecedented and brutal attack by Hamas is not only supported by Iran, it was designed to stop peace efforts between Saudi Arabia and Israel. A peace agreement between those two nations would be a nightmare for Iran and Hamas. “Israel has lived long enough in the shadow of the Hamas terrorist organization. Israel has always been pressed by the international community to make a proportional response to any attacks and the world was ready to condemn any Israeli excesses in defending their citizens and homeland. That kind of thinking and criticism needs to come to an end. “We should support Israel’s ability to eradicate this terrorist threat by any and all means necessary.” https://www.lgraham.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=52F9D091-A3A0-4A34-826E-8167538A8632
2023-10-07 Kennedy Condemns Terrorist Attacks Against Israel “This ignominious, unprovoked, and barbaric attack on Israel must be met with world condemnation and unequivocal support for the Jewish state’s right to self-defense. We must provide Israel with whatever it needs to defend itself — now. As President, I’ll make sure that our policy is unambiguous so that the enemies of Israel will think long and hard before attempting aggression of any kind.
“I applaud the strong statements of support from the Biden White House for Israel in her hour of need. However, the scale of these attacks means it is likely that Israel will need to wage a sustained military campaign to protect its citizens. Statements of support are fine, but we must follow through with unwavering, resolute, and practical action. America must stand by our ally throughout this operation and beyond as it exercises its sovereign right to self-defense.”https://www.kennedy24.com/kennedy_condemns_terrorist_attacks_against_israel
United States Politicians before October 7, 2023
2023-10-00 Palestine and Empire After Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Pramila Jayapal, accurately if perhaps accidentally, publicly called Israel a “racist state,” a bipartisan Concurrent Resolution 57 repudiating such a heresy was rushed to the House of Representatives, where the vote passed 412-9-1. We pause briefly for the honor roll of those opposing the resolution: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Rashida Tlaib (MI), Jamaal Bowman (NY), Summer Lee (PA), Ilhan Omar (MN), Cori Bush (MO), Andre Carson (IN), Delia Ramirez (IL) and Ayanna Pressley (MA). Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), author of a bill (HR 3103) against U.S. aid for Israel’s large-scale administrative detention of Palestinian children, voted “present.”
Congressional Representative Betty McCollum has reintroduced the above-mentioned “Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act,” which her website describes as a bill “to prohibit Israel from using U.S. taxpayer dollars on the military detention, abuse, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention; to support the seizure and destruction of Palestinian property and homes in violation of international humanitarian law; or on any support or assistance for Israel’s unilateral annexation of Palestinian territory in violation of international humanitarian law.” https://againstthecurrent.org/atc226/palestine-and-empire/
2021-05-16 28 Democratic Senators Call for ‘Immediate Ceasefire’ in Gaza As Biden Admin Urges ‘Calm’ A majority of the Senate Democratic Caucus on Sunday called for an “immediate ceasefire” in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, a move that President Joe Biden’s administration has not yet made. Earlier today, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged returning to “calm” and an end to the violence in Gaza.
Twenty eight senators, led by Georgia’s Jon Ossoff, issued a joint statement calling for a ceasefire in the Middle East. “To prevent any further loss of civilian life and to prevent further escalation of conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories, we urge an immediate ceasefire,” the senators wrote.
The statement’s signatories include Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Angus King of Maine, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Mark Warner of Virginia, Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
The Biden administration has repeatedly supported Israel’s “right to defend itself” despite calls from progressives to condemn Israel’s actions toward the Palestinians amid the region’s escalating violent conflict.
Sanders, a Jewish-American independent who caucuses with Democrats, urged the Biden administration to denounce “Israeli extremists.” Warren called for the federal government to “make clear to the Israeli government” that evicting Palestinians from their homes is “illegal and must stop immediately.”
2021-05-12 AOC’s Attack on Yang’s Meaningless Israel Statement Shows Her Role: Protect Dem Leaders There are three interrelated political factions that wield actual power to change blind U.S. support for Israel: the U.S. Congress, the Democratic Party, and the Biden Administration. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who claims to oppose this U.S. posture toward Israel, has significant influence in and responsibility for each: she is a member of Congress, one of the party’s most popular elected officials, and was a vocal supporter of the Biden campaign in the general election and is now a key surrogate for his administration.
After the Biden State Department’s defense of Israel, one key Democratic leader after the next has issued one-sided statements pledging continuation of endless and unconditional U.S. support to Israel that are virtually identical to those issued by every pro-war, pro-Israel Republican, from Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) to Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX). The long-time Democratic Congresswoman representing Manhattan, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, praised Price’s comments and added her own: “This is terrorism,” the New York Democrat said of the Gazan response, adding: “Rocket fire is never the answer.”
U.S. officials reflexively defend Israel’s use of violence. Indeed, support for this foreign nation is such a high priority in U.S. politics that GOP governors have championed laws to prohibit American citizens from supporting a boycott of Israel if they want to keep their jobs (courts have struck down those laws as an obvious violation of the First Amendment).
So when AOC decided on Monday to finally use her massive platform to condemn specific political figures expressing this pro-Israel mentality, which of those powerful targets did she choose? None. AOC said nothing about the State Department’s ongoing defense of Israel. She condemned none of her powerful colleagues in Congress who did the same. She refused to call on the Biden administration explicitly to change its policies or denounce Biden’s fanaticism on this issue. Her only previous utterance was a mealy-mouthed, barely cogent tweet in which she randomly threw the Israel/Gaza conflict into a laundry list along with “paramilitary violence in Colombia” and “the detention of children on our own border and the militarization of US police departments” to say: “the United States must seriously assess its role in state violence and condition aid.” So when she finally worked up the courage on Monday to single out a political official for public scolding and shaming on the issue of Israel, she decided that it should be Andrew Yang. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/aocs-attack-on-yangs-meaningless
2021-04-08 Lawmakers Embracing Fantasy of Being Both “Pro-Israel” and “Pro-Palestine” IT’S BEEN WELL-DOCUMENTED that many Democrats are increasingly willing to criticize Israeli policies and place conditions on U.S. aid to the country. This way of thinking, however, is largely confined to the rank and file of the party, and rarely reflected in the way Democratic legislators speak and vote. Even many self-styled “woke” progressive politicians, who advocate for a wide-range of leftist policies, are reluctant to go all-in when it comes to holding Israel accountable to the law. While such progressives typically distinguish themselves from “mainstream” Democrats by speaking of Palestinian rights, they do so while also regurgitating many traditional pro-Israel talking points. The result is a new brand of Democrat that incongruently seeks to appease both sides of the Israel-Palestine divide.
The “liberal Zionist” group J Street, on the other hand, serves as a natural home for progressives seeking to distinguish themselves from the status quo while also not pushing too many buttons. Street’s slogan, “pro-Israel, pro-peace,” presents a safe, respectable middle ground. Unlike AIPAC, J Street speaks of Palestinian rights, supports the Iran nuclear deal, all while still espousing a deep commitment to Israel. The J Street platform can be sold as new and progressive, while simultaneously offering political cover from charges of anti-Semitism and blind hatred of Israel. While one cannot deny that J Street is progressive in comparison to AIPAC, the organization’s “pro-Israel, pro-peace” mantra reveals the fatal flaw at the heart of liberal Zionism: How does supporting the oppressor facilitate peace? https://www.wrmea.org/2021-may/lawmakers-embracing-fantasy-of-being-both-pro-israel-and-pro-palestine.html
2020-11-28 Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Misguided Defense of John Brennan and The Logan Act: a Dangerous and Unconstitutional Law Foreign policy dissidents have the greatest interest in repealing the Logan Act, not wielding it as a weapon to shield ex-CIA Directors while heralding it as a clearly defined criminal statute.
I am glad that there are now members of Congress such as Congresswomen Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan who so vocally and unflinchingly dissent from this general foreign policy orientation and especially from those policies which most members of Congress either cannot or do not want to denounce.
For that very reason, I was quite surprised to see that late Friday night, Congresswoman Omar, in response to something I wrote, defended not only former CIA Director John Brennan — who as Obama’s CIA Director presided over the bombing of numerous countries including Somalia — but also The Logan Act. The Logan Act is nothing more than an unconstitutional attempt to criminalize foreign policy dissidents, like her, and is so dangerous in the hands of the CIA, FBI and federal prosecutors precisely because it lacks any clear definition or meaning. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/rep-ilhan-omars-misguided-defense
2019-10-19 Rashida Tlaib A member of “The Squad,” Rashida Tlaib, joins Ralph to talk about her aborted trip to the Occupied Territories, Israel and Palestine, poverty in Southern Michigan, and of course, impeachment.
Rashida Tlaib is currently the Congresswoman for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, which includes the city of Detroit and many surrounding communities. Representative Tlaib is a well-known progressive warrior who made history in 2008 by becoming the first Muslim woman to ever serve in the Michigan Legislature. She is beloved by residents for the transformative constituent services she provides, and for successfully fighting the billionaires and corporations that tried to pollute her district. https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/p/rashida-tlaib-e24#details
2024-06-12 They’re Arresting the Wrong People Inside of Congress While they are arresting peace activists for exercising First Amendment rights, they are making plans to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a war criminal with an actual arrest warrant request.
I was arrested again inside of Congress for speaking out against U.S.-backed genocide. Myself and others were brutally tackled and carried out of the room by Capitol Police. I was charged with “crowding, obstructing, or incommoding” for speaking out and holding a sign as the secretary of state and the secretary of defense testified in Congress for more money for the endless U.S. war machine. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/congress-arresting-wrong-people
This is only a partial explanation of the US-Israel alliance. A far more formidably entrenched factor is that Israel and the U.S. have overlapping Empires – one in the Middle East and the other globally – with deep common purposes. Here are some examples of how these empires operate in tandem.
Both Empires violate international laws with impunity. Both Empires consider every military operation defensive. Both Empires have collaborating military-industrial complexes and are major arms exporters. Both Empires wield “force projection” as atomic bomb powers. Both incurred a rare counter-attack (9/11 & October 7) when advance warnings by advisors were ignored. Both Empires lie repeatedly regarding their tactics and strategies. Both Empires control the United Nations Security Council with the U.S. veto shielding whatever Israel does. Both occupy or control land that is not theirs, violating international laws. Both Empires vio, late their legal duty as occupiers to protect the civilian population’s well-being. Both Empires’ leaders, Biden and Netanyahu, profess to practice their respective religions, though they are violating the basic precepts of both their religions in implementing their violent wars. Both Empires spend little time pressing for ceasefires, peace negotiations, and the stability of peace treaties. Both Empires, contrary to their fundamental juridical documents, in the case of the U.S., our Constitution, operate as elected dictatorships in conducting military and foreign policy. Both Empires have a so-called free mainstream media that mostly toes the Empire party line. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/israel-and-u-s
2024-03-27 How Biden Could Radically Alter the U.S.-Israel Relationship On February 1, the Biden administration issued an executive order on violent extremism by settlers in the West Bank, which has been increasing over the past several months with the world watching the war in Gaza. The Biden administration accompanied this order with sanctions on four settlers who, it charged, had directly carried out violence or intimidation. This month, the Biden administration expanded the sanctions, adding three more settlers and two illegal outposts, which it said were bases used to “perpetuate violence against Palestinians.”
Elsewhere, it was heralded as a potentially major development, a warning to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, particularly given that U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal that they were considering sanctioning two of his coalition’s extremist members, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. https://newrepublic.com/article/179968/biden-executive-order-west-bank-us-israel-relationship
2024-03-03 Netanyahu Was Right: Israel Acts Like a US Aircraft Carrier That is how Israel, as a military colony, serves its imperial master. Although it may seem puzzling why the United States supports and provides cover for Israel’s most outrageously authoritarian, lawless, and even brutal actions, the reason is hiding in plain sight. It is not, as many speculate, primarily because of AIPAC. It is because Israel is a military colony of the United States.
From its inception, Zionism viewed a Jewish state as the handmaiden of colonialism. The founder of the Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl, described his proposed Jewish state in his 1896 book, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) as “a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.” (Astute readers will find echoes of this racism in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent justifications for Israel’s conduct in Gaza; one can decide for oneself if the echo is intentional.)
In 1947, the United Nations—controlled by European colonial powers such as France and England and their ally, the United States—voted to create a Jewish state. The new state was surrounded by victims of European colonialism: Jordan, which became independent from Britain in 1946; Syria and Lebanon, which became independent from France in 1946 and 1941, respectively; and Egypt, which did not become independent from Britain until 1952. In 1956, when Egypt dared to declare itself the owner of the Suez Canal, which ran entirely through Egyptian territory, Israel joined its colonial sponsors France and England in making war on a country which had been a former colony of both, fulfilling Zionism’s promise to be “a wall of defense.” https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/israel-us-aircraft-carrier
2024-03-02 The US Backs Israel Because of a Perceived Strategic Interest—How Can That Be? The need to challenge U.S. support of the Israeli war and occupation is more important than ever, but it’s not as simple as just defeating the pro-Israel lobby.
The United States has long been an international outlier in supporting Israel’s far-right government. On February 20, the Biden Administration cast its third veto in four months to block a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, one of forty-eight vetoes in which it was the only dissenting vote of resolutions challenging Israeli policies in recent decades. The United States was among ten out of the 193-member U.N. General Assembly to oppose the measure. The United States is an outlier even among our closest allies: Only one other member of NATO, the Czech Republic, directly opposes a ceasefire.
The United States’ support for Israel validates a fifty-six-year-long occupation coupled with unprecedented violations of international law and human rights standards.
The close relationship between the United States and Israel has been one of the most consistent features in U.S. foreign policy for nearly five-and-a-half decades. The more than $3 billion in military aid sent annually to Israel by Washington—cumulatively far more than the United States has provided any other single country in the world, despite Israel’s small size—is rarely questioned in Congress, even by liberals who normally challenge U.S. aid to governments that engage in widespread violations of human rights or by conservatives who usually oppose foreign aid in general. Earlier this month, a large bipartisan majority in the Senate voted to send an additional $14 billion in military aid to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/israel-us-strategic-interest
2024-01-29 Israel Cannot Hide From the International Court of Justice It is easy to be cynical about the international rule of law. No sooner had the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Israel is plausibly committing genocide against the Palestinian people than the U.S. State Department declared, “We continue to believe that allegations of genocide are unfounded and note the court did not make a finding about genocide or call for a ceasefire in its ruling…”
Yet the ruling has started the clock on Israel’s future. If Israel continues to act with impunity and finds itself declared as genocidaire in the ICJ’s final ruling, Israel will become a pariah state. Young Americans in particular will pull the plug on U.S. backing for Israel. Israel will stand utterly alone, condemned by the world.
Most of the 193 governments in the United Nations already disdain Israel’s behavior. Most see a country that has occupied the neighboring territories of Palestine for 57 years (since the 1967 war), that has scorned and failed to act on dozens of votes by the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly, and illegally and blatantly settled more than 700,000 Israelis in the occupied territories. Most UN member states hear clearly the expressions of visceral hatred by many Israeli leaders toward the people of Palestine.
Israelis should understand that the U.S. cannot—and will not—save Israel in the long run. American military force is useless or worse in sustaining regimes that lack broad international support and legitimacy. America tires of each misguided military adventure and moves on, and will eventually do so vis-à-vis Israel if Israel becomes a pariah and outlaw state.
Nor will U.S. money and weapons systems carry the day with the Arab neighbors. The U.S. is at the end of its financial largesse. The U.S. public debt is already 122.9 percent of GDP and rising rapidly. Even access to advanced U.S. weapons systems will not persuade Arab nations to abandon the cause of a Palestinian state. In any event, Russian, Iranian, North Korean, Chinese, and other advanced weapons systems will be on highly competitive offer in future years, and with better financing terms.
At the moment, the Israeli public ardently backs Israel’s brutality and slaughter in Gaza. The public is gripped by a combination of overwhelming fear, religious zealotry, and state propaganda. Israelis widely believe that the Arab nations are implacably out to destroy Israel. Israeli society is immeasurably traumatized by the Nazi Holocaust, which remains the central fact of modernity and memory of every Jewish family of European roots in any part of the world.
Palestine will survive the current horrific ordeal, deeply wounded but with strong worldwide backing. Israel’s future, by contrast, hangs in the balance, as it could soon find itself banished by the community of nations as a stark violator of international law. Israel—no less than the United States—must come to understand the self-destructive futility of deploying military force to deny justice and political rights for the Palestinian people. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/international-court-of-justice-israel-genocide
2023-11-08 How & why of total US backing for Israel. As war rages, evidence from 7 June 1981 to this week Why has the US emerged as a staunch supporter of Israel amid its much-condemned offensive on Gaza, which followed the Hamas’ 7 October terror attack? Washington has voted against a UN General Assembly resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire, even as several allies voted for or abstained, and also vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for the same. In Ep 1343 of Cut The Clutter, Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta dives into the history of US-Israel ties to explain how & why they got so close, and bust some popular conspiracy theories. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXQHVds1Woo
2023-10-27 Here’s Why U.S. Elites Support Israel No Matter What Why does the US gov’t support Israel no matter what? Hint: it has to do with imperialism. BT’s Kei Pritsker explains the crucial role Israel plays in US domination of the Middle East and geopolitics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH8d7UJNmaA
2023-10-00 Palestine and Empire THE BRUTALITY OF the Israeli Occupation, the scale of Israel’s continuing political turmoil, the undisguised Ku Klux Klan-ish murderous Israeli settlers’ attacks on Palestinian civilians and towns, the deepening rage within the Palestinian population of the Occupied Territories and inside Israel — and the visible unease among the rulers of the United States’ Middle East Arab allies — have pressured the U.S. government to pretend that it cares about Palestine. The key word here is “pretend.”
As chilling as it is, the vicious military and settler violence is also having an impact on sectors of U.S. society. While the Democratic Party leadership remains unshakably committed to the Israeli-partnership, sympathy with Palestine is growing among the voting base and especially young people.
More of the U.S. Jewish community is becoming alienated and angry, particularly as the pillar of the Zionist lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) turns more and more to supporting rightwing politicians including election-denying Trump Republicans. In the face of state-level attempts to criminalize Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions activism, support for the BDS movement is gaining ground. https://againstthecurrent.org/atc226/palestine-and-empire/
2021-05-23 The US Isn’t An Israel Puppet, Israel Isn’t A US Puppet: It’s One Empire The US is not a puppet of Israel, and Israel isn’t a puppet of the US. Saying one puppets the other is like saying Ohio puppets Nevada; they’re both member states of the same undeclared empire ruled by uncrowned kings who use governments as weapons to kill and steal. The lines between nations within the US-centralized empire are no more real than the official elected governments of those nations. It’s just a single unified power structure which uses whatever narratives it requires to justify its continued campaign to rule the entire planet. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-us-isnt-an-israel-puppet-israel
2020-08-31 You Can Have Peace Or The US Empire. You Can’t Have Both In order for Israel to continue existing as the imperialist apartheid state that it is, it needs to wage war in all directions at all times, both against its neighbors and against the increasingly brutalized Palestinian population. If the bombings end, so too does Israel as we know it, because the regional population will never stand for its oppression, tyranny, and multiple illegal occupations. Peace and Israel are therefore two mutually exclusive concepts. You can have peace or you can have today’s Israel; you can’t have both.
This is true of Israel, and on a larger scale it is true of the globe-spanning, empire-like oligarchic world order that is loosely centralized around the United States. This US-centralized empire, of which Israel is a part, is entirely dependent upon endless war for survival. If military violence ceased to be a tool which power structures could use to enact their agendas, this empire would necessarily cease to exist, because there’d be nothing to stop nations from exercising their sovereignty on the world stage. Currencies, resources and commerce would begin moving along completely different channels. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/you-can-have-peace-or-the-us-empire
2018-05-30 The Occupation of the American Mind (original 84-minute version) Over the past few years, Israel’s ongoing military occupation of Palestinian territory and repeated invasions of the Gaza strip have triggered a fierce backlash against Israeli policies virtually everywhere in the world — except the United States. The Occupation of the American Mind takes an eye-opening look at this critical exception, zeroing in on pro-Israel public relations efforts within the U.S.
Narrated by Roger Waters and featuring leading observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. media culture, the film explores how the Israeli government, the U.S. government, and the pro-Israel lobby have joined forces, often with very different motives, to shape American media coverage of the conflict in Israel’s favor. From the U.S.-based public relations campaigns that emerged in the 1980s to today, the film provides a sweeping analysis of Israel’s decades-long battle for the hearts, minds, and tax dollars of the American people in the face of widening international condemnation of its increasingly right-wing policies.
Narrated by Roger Waters / Featuring Amira Hass, M.J. Rosenberg, Stephen M. Walt, Noam Chomsky, Rula Jebreal, Henry Siegman, Rashid Khalidi, Rami Khouri, Yousef Munayyer, Norman Finkelstein, Max Blumenthal, Phyllis Bennis, Norman Solomon, Mark Crispin Miller, Peter Hart, and Sut Jhally.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP0-YohJR-g&list=PLcKTcNwy7BrF2fsCRkNDSpVvfpG6_RKiW&index=3
2014-02-14 A Dishonest Broker Consider that the top recipient of U.S. foreign aid over the past three decades isn’t some impoverished land filled with starving kids, but a wealthy nation with a per-head gross domestic product on par with the European Union average, and higher than that of Italy, Spain, or South Korea.
Consider also that this top recipient of such aid—nearly all of it military since 2008—has been busily engaged in what looks like a 19th-style colonization project. In the late 1940s, our beneficiary expelled some 700,000 indigenous people from the land it was claiming. In 1967, our client seized some contiguous pieces of real estate and ever since has been colonizing these territories with nearly 650,000 of its own people. It has divided the conquered lands with myriad checkpoints and roads accessible only to the colonizers and is building a 440-mile wall around (and cutting into) the conquered territory, creating a geography of control that violates international law.
“Ethnic cleansing” is a harsh term, but apt for a situation in which people are driven out of their homes and lands because they are not of the right tribe. Though many will balk at leveling this charge against Israel—for that country is, of course, the top recipient of American aid and especially military largesse—who would hesitate to use the term if, in a mirror-image world, all of this were being inflicted on Israeli Jews?
2024-03-17 Is ‘Cultural Erasure’ Only Wrong When Our Enemies Do It? “What’s happening in Gaza is a multi-layered act that extends far beyond the physical destruction of artifacts or the killing of individuals,” according to Mariam Shah, writing at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “These actions are part of broader destructive processes that undermine a community’s heritage, identity, and existence—with profound symbolic and psychological implications for Palestinians not only in Gaza but globally…”
“This destruction, both physical and symbolic, serves a larger political agenda—the erasure of Palestinian identity and collective memory, which may amount to cultural genocide.”
A few months ago—well into the Israeli assault on Gaza, with U.S support and weaponry—U.S. State Department Undersecretary Uzra Zeya spoke about “cultural erasure” at a conference in Prague. “We are at a critical juncture in history,” she said, “where the very fabric of many unique religious and cultural identities is being threatened by authoritarian regimes and extremist groups around the world.”
She proceeded to condemn Russia, China, and ISIS in Iraq for inflicting hell and ethnocide on vulnerable cultures in their domain. She then declared: “The United States will continue to speak clearly and forcefully against attempts to erase the culture and unique identities of vulnerable communities, and we will back up our words with our actions.”
By arming Israel? In a remarkable Al-Jazeera interview, three Palestinians talked about their culture—their art and poetry, theater and song—and how not only is it being bombed and demolished, it’s standing directly against the ethnocide, not simply resisting but transcending it. These are the words of Serena Rasoul, one of the interviewees:
“The most defiant act of resistance is to sing… to one another, to God, to the land. You can level our buildings but you can’t destroy our spirits. The majority of Palestinian folk songs are around joy and love. That’s who we are.” https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/cultural-erasure-united-states-gaza
2023-11-10 Why American politicians are ‘lying’ about Gaza | The Big Picture Are there Hamas tunnels under hospitals? Did Israel give up Gaza in 2005? Did the Palestinians reject their own state? This week on The Big Picture, we examine a widely shared interview with Hillary Clinton, praised as informative and illuminating. Except most of what she says about Gaza isn’t true – so why is she misleading the public? It could be her financial ties to Israel, and influential Israeli lobbies in the United States. She’s not the only one. Subscribe and listen to The Big Picture on all podcast platforms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aI8r70Znvk
2023-10-27 Here’s Why U.S. Elites Support Israel No Matter What Why does the US gov’t support Israel no matter what? Hint: it has to do with imperialism. BT’s Kei Pritsker explains the crucial role Israel plays in US domination of the Middle East and geopolitics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH8d7UJNmaA
2023-10-19 U.S. Vetoes U.N. Resolution Calling for “Humanitarian Pause” of Gaza Assault The United States has vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a humanitarian pause to Israel’s relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and its 2.3 million inhabitants. The resolution, sponsored by Brazil, called for full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access for U.N. agencies to deliver lifesaving aid to the besieged territory. It included a condemnation of Hamas’s attacks on Israel and demanded “the immediate and unconditional release” of hostages. On Wednesday, 12 of the Security Council’s 15 members voted in favor of a humanitarian pause in Gaza; Russia and the U.K. abstained; while the United States used its privilege as a permanent member of the Security Council to exercise its veto. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/19/headlines/gaza_death_toll_nears_3_800_as_israels_siege_and_bombardment_enters_13th_day
2023-10-14 The Punishment of Gaza Ralph welcomes Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy to discuss recent attacks by Hamas and the Israeli military in Israel and Palestine. Then, international law expert Bruce Fein speaks with Ralph about the recent violence, America’s response, and America’s historical culpability. https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/p/the-punishment-of-gaza#details
2023-10-13 The US Is Just As Culpable As Israel For The Atrocities Committed In Gaza The Israeli government dropped thousands of leaflets on Gaza telling everyone who lives in the northern part of the strip that they have 24 hours to evacuate to the southern part, and then bombed the people who were trying to evacuate. United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric denounced the evacuation order, saying the UN “considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences.” Many Palestinians have said they’re going to stay where they are because they have nowhere safe to go, despite being told by Israel they must leave if they want to “save their lives”. We’re about to see the death and destruction get much, much worse in Gaza, and it’s already very, very bad.
And top-down commands are being issued within the US government to support this massacre unconditionally. The Huffington Post reports that the State Department has been circulating internal emails telling staff to avoid calls for peace, instructing them to refrain from using phrases like “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm.” Asked about progressive congressional members calling for a ceasefire, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “we believe they are wrong, we believe they’re repugnant, and we believe they’re disgraceful.” https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-us-is-just-as-culpable-as-israel
2023-10-11 Biden Does Not Urge Restraint in IDF Attacks Against Gaza as New U.S. Weapons Arrive in Israel President Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday. He did not urge restraint in Israel’s response to Hamas’s attack. President Biden did not refer to slain Palestinians or the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in his remarks. The first shipment of advanced weaponry from the U.S. arrived in Israel Tuesday, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to land in Israel Thursday. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/11/headlines/death_toll_in_israel_and_gaza_tops_2_200_as_gazans_face_total_energy_blackout_and_no_safe_refuge
2023-08-25 A Visit to Jenin Shows the Consequences of Performative US Policies The assault in July was executed using weapons from U.S. arms deals, despite tightened restrictions issued by President Joe Biden in February. Despite the use of the Apache helicopter by Israel to breach the Geneva Conventions in 2002, the U.S. government has taken no action to halt future arms sales to Israel. These actions clearly violate both the CAT policy and international law, but the arms deals are still being authorized, implicating the U.S. in the ongoing occupation and emphasizing the lack of accountability.
Biden’s CAT policy was just released February of this year, specifically to include tighter restrictions on arms deals, but somehow Israel is evading accountability yet again. It begs the question, are policies written in a way to allow exceptions when it benefits U.S. interests? The tighter restrictions take form in the language used to define the standards by which the recipient of arm sales will be assessed. The previous policy uses the phrase “actual knowledge,” which Biden replaced with “more likely than not.” This is in reference to the standards by which the recipient of the arms sales will be assessed in their likelihood of using the weapons to commit atrocities. https://codepink.substack.com/p/a-visit-to-jenin-shows-the-consequences
2024-08-20 Thousands March on DNC in Chicago to Demand End to War on Gaza On the opening day of the Democratic National Convention, Democracy Now! was on the streets of Chicago during the March on the DNC as thousands of protesters held a rally and march to call on Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party to end U.S. support for Israel amid its ongoing assault on Gaza. We bring you the voices of some of the protesters. Transcript: https://www.democracynow.org/2024/8/2… Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMixGvHh5nY
2024-08-12 Palestine Post: SF DA Charges Golden Gate Protesters; Plus Linda Sarsour and Sahar Francis on Latest News On today’s Palestine Post, we begin in conversation with Wassim Hage about the San Francisco District Attorney’s decision to level charges against 26 Bay Area pro-Palestine protesters who blocked the Golden Gate Bridge on April 15th of this year, charging eight of them with significant felonies including conspiracy and false imprisonment. Those protesters turned themselves in on Monday, with all released on their own recognizance. Their legal team is prepared to fight those charges.
Then, after more than 300 days of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and following a report from Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem on treatment of Palestinian prisoners by the zionist state called “Welcome to Hell” we speak with Linda Sarsour, a Brooklyn-born Palestinian Muslim American activist, author, and community organizer. She is the author of her memoir We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders. We’re also joined by Sahar Francis, is the General Director of Ramallah-based Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, a Palestinian organization providing legal and advocacy support to Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli and Palestinian prisons. She is also an attorney. https://kpfa.org/episode/law-disorder-august-12-2024/
2024-08-04 Why the Left Must Resist Unconditionally Backing Harris “Leftist leaders hope to prevent a wholesale abandonment of the transformative vision that has energized millions of voters, particularly young people.” In the wake of President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside, the Democratic Party finds itself at a crucial crossroads. As Vice President Kamala Harris emerges as the presumptive nominee for the 2024 presidential election, a complex debate is unfolding within progressive circles.
While the threat posed by Republican nominee Donald Trump’s potential return to power looms large, some prominent progressives, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, are hesitating to offer their immediate and unconditional endorsement of Harris. This reluctance has sparked criticism from certain quarters, but a closer examination reveals that this measured approach may be both strategically sound and necessary for the long-term health of the progressive movement. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/why-the-left-must-resist-unconditionally-backing-harris
2024-7-30 Whoever Wins in November, Our Movement Must Make Palestine Nonnegotiable While the world has become transfixed by the unfolding political crisis in the U.S. presidential election, Israel continues to lay waste to Gaza, expand settlements in the West Bank and massacre Palestinians in skyrocketing numbers.
In this exclusive interview for Truthout, Eman Abdelhadi — an academic, activist and writer who thinks at the intersection of gender, sexuality, religion and politics — discusses the ceasefire negotiations, Israel’s ongoing genocidal war, the Palestinian resistance, the upcoming U.S. presidential elections and the tasks of the Palestine solidarity movement.https://truthout.org/articles/whoever-wins-in-november-our-movement-must-make-palestine-nonnegotiable/
2024-07-24 “Not in Our Name”: 400 Jewish Activists Arrested Protesting Netanyahu Address Hundreds of Jewish activists were arrested in the U.S. Capitol complex on Tuesday after staging a sit-in to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the U.S. and address to Congress this week, carrying signs and wearing shirts with slogans like “Not in Our Name” as they demanded an end to Israel’s U.S.-backed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Protesters with Jewish Voice for Peace called for Biden to stop sending weapons to Israel and to push for an immediate ceasefire, occupying the Cannon House Office building rotunda — the same place protesters occupied in October to demand a ceasefire as Israel was first embarking on its genocide.
2024-07-24 Despite Protests, Netanyahu Solidifies Support From the Right During US Trip Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands accused of war crimes, and the popular political consensus within the U.S. and Israel suggests he is thwarting an attempted ceasefire in the horrifying war on Gaza for his own personal gain. But he received a hero’s welcome this week from the U.S. Republicans who are eager to stoke divisions among Democrats and animate evangelical voters during an election year.
Thousands gathered at the capitol for protests as Netanyahu prepared to address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, including Palestinian activists and Israelis frustrated with Netanyahu’s failure to end the war and bring the remaining hostages home.
House Speaker Mike Johnson joined Netanyahu for a press conference to reiterate U.S. support for Israel after previously warning that any Democrats or activists who attempt to disrupt the prime minister’s speech would be arrested. “Our dear ally Israel is in an existential fight for its very existence, and that fight extends to every one of its borders,” Johnson said. https://truthout.org/articles/despite-protests-netanyahu-solidifies-support-from-the-right-during-us-trip/
2024-06-23 Two US military airmen seek to become conscientious objectors over Gaza war Two active members of the United States Air Force wish to leave military service and become conscientious objectors over Washington’s support for the Israeli military in Gaza.
Larry Hebert and Juan Bettancourt say they no longer wish to serve in the US military due to its role in the war, which has killed more than 37,400 Palestinians, mostly children and women. They have officially requested, through an existing procedure in the military, to become conscientious objectors, people who refuse to participate in military service on ethical or moral grounds.
Hebert, a senior airman on active duty in the US Air Force, told Al Jazeera there is a long history of conscientious objectors from the US, including in protest against the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. He said he hopes to highlight that becoming a conscientious objector is an option for other active-duty US soldiers. He says he’s speaking for himself – not the military – and could not see what is happening in Gaza without protesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHfkzWdid20
2024-06-13 NY governor calls vandalism at the homes of Jewish board members of the Brooklyn Museum ‘an abhorrent act of antisemitism’ The Hate Crimes Task Force of the New York Police Department is investigating several reports of antisemitic vandalism at the homes of Jewish board members of the Brooklyn Museum – including its director, a New York City law enforcement official told CNN Wednesday. Five homes – three in Manhattan and two in Brooklyn – were vandalized Tuesday night, police said.
2024-06-11 Political leaders condemn protest at Nova exhibit in NYC as “repulsive and vile” Leaders are speaking out to condemn a protest outside an exhibit commemorating the victims of the Hamas terror attack on the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7 that sparked the current Israel-Hamas war. On Monday night, pro-Palestinian demonstrators lit smoke canisters and flares outside The Nova Music Festival Exhibition in Lower Manhattan, which pays tribute to the victims of the terror attack.https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/political-leaders-condemn-protest-at-nova-exhibit-in-nyc-as-repulsive-and-vile/ar-BB1o30VU?ocid=BingNewsSerp
2024-06-09 Thousands Protest Gaza Genocide in ‘Red Line’ White House Rally “We as the people are drawing the red line today to say enough is enough,” said a protester from the Palestinian Youth Movement. “It’s time for an arms embargo, and it’s time to end this.”
The rally marked not only eight months of the war but also called out U.S. President Joe Biden for his seemingly empty threat to cut off American arms and diplomatic support for the Israeli military campaign, which has killed more than 36,800 people and wounded over 83,600 in Hamas-governed Gaza since October. https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-s-red-line
2024-06-08 Why I Am Hunger Striking for Gaza I am on day 10 of a voluntary hunger strike while Palestinians in Gaza are being starved to death. It is estimated that 3,500 children are at risk of death in the coming weeks due to starvation. Two million people are trapped in the besieged Gaza strip, almost half of them under the age of 18.
There were roughly 1,000 aid trucks entering weekly before May 6, 2024—grossly inadequate for the need—but since the start of Israel’s ground offensive into Rafah, only a trickle of aid trucks have made it through, deepening the humanitarian crisis and man-made famine.
I was recently a participant on the latest Gaza Freedom Flotilla that aimed to bring 5,500 metric tons of lifesaving humanitarian aid to Gaza, but unfortunately that mission was sabotaged by Israeli interference with the country that flagged our ships. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/hunger-strike-for-gaza
2024-05-29 UC Davis students speak out from Palestine encampment We also speak with K, a student at the UC Davis Popular University for the Liberation of Palestine (PULP), about the encampment there now in its fourth week, as well as the students’ calls for the University of California to disclose its investments in Israel and divest from them, and for UC Davis Chancellor Gary May to resign over his ongoing board position with surveillance firm Leidos, which is tied to the Israeli security state. Listeners can find out more about daily programming and teach-ins, and donate and support PULP on their Instagram page at @davispulp and by emailing pulphelp@gmail.com. https://kpfa.org/episode/law-disorder-may-29-2024/
2024-05-11 Palestine Talks | Ashish Prashar on defunding the UK government to stop ‘genocide in Gaza’ British political activist Ashish Prashar joins TRT World to discuss his recently launched campaign that aims to withhold taxpayer money from the UK government in order to end “genocide in Gaza”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfkA2JFR3EA&list=PLUW304lJeu3Vg_nM0WQfWDZTDyu6h6PlD&index=4
2024-04-11 Veterans for Peace with Larry Hebert, Active Duty Airman on Hunger Strike for Palestine Larry Hebert was able to join the show for this in-depth discussion of his hunger strike in support of Palestine and against the Biden foreign policy of Biden’s unconditional support of Israel’s genocide on Gaza. We missed our initially established interview time because Larry was directed to go to Walter Reed Army Hospital for blood work and a mental evaluation. After being cleared, he talked to us from the grounds of the US capital. We talked about his hunger strike, his protest, his frustration that Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation generated more of a response in the Middle East than it did in the US, and his disillusionment about the US Military. We finish with Eddie Mack and The Sound of War https://soundcloud.com/user-55976759/41124-veterans-for-peace-with-larry-hebert-active-duty-airman-on-hunger-strike-for-palestine
2024-04-04 Palestinian Writer Susan Abulhawa, Journalist Prem Thakker + Larry Hebert & Ann Wright Palestinian novelist, poet and activist Susan Abulhawa reports back from her recent trip to Gaza where she observed the fallout of Israel’s genocidal war first hand. After that, journalist Prem Thakker talks about the attacks on Al Shifa and his interactions with the State Department’s spokesperson Matthew Miller. Then active duty Senior Airman Larry Hebert and Anne Wright join to talk about Larry’s hunger strike for Gaza which was inspired by Aaron Bushnell.
Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian American writer and human rights activist. She is the author of Mornings in Jenin, which was translated into 32 languages and sold more than a million copies, The Blue Between Sky And Water and Against the Loveless World. She is the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine and the executive director of Palestine Writes (palestinewrites.org/).
Prem Thakker is a politics reporter at The Intercept, and is a former reporter at The New Republic. His work has also appeared in The American Prospect, Washington Monthly, CNN podcasts, and his newsletter Better World. You can find him on Twitter ( twitter.com/prem_thakker ), Instagram, and TikTok.
Air Force Active Duty Air Force Larry Hebert Stationed at Naval Station Rota, Spain Larry Hebert is a 26-year-old active duty senior airman in the United States air force stationed at Naval Station Rota, Spain. He is on hunger strike calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. His actions were inspired by Aaron Bushnell.
2024-03-29 “Blood Is on Your Hands”: Cease-Fire Protests Disrupt Biden Fundraiser Pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted Joe Biden’s exclusive multimillion-dollar fundraiser on Thursday, repeatedly interrupting the bougie event to criticize Biden’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza.
More than 32,600 Palestinians have been killed and more than 75,000 wounded in Israel’s constant bombardment of Gaza since October 7. The majority of the victims have been women and children. Biden’s repeated refusal to call for a permanent cease-fire has become a major sticking point with Democratic voters, particularly younger people.https://newrepublic.com/post/180253/pro-palestine-ceasefire-protests-biden-fundraiser
2024-03-24 Rally and march today in San Francisco. The speakers were mostly young people (our future)❣️There was lots of positive energy and also righteous anger 😡. March down Market Street from the Ferry Building to the Federal Building. Free Palestine 🇵🇸 Ceasefire Now ‼️ Stop genocide of Gaza😰 https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10219813664610949&set=pcb.10219813678571298
2024-03-23 22-mile-long Ceasefire Pilgrimage loop in Nevada City and Grass Valley This Saturday: Please walk any part of the 22-mile-long Ceasefire Pilgrimage loop in Nevada City and Grass Valley with your neighbors, in solidarity with Palestinian families fleeing ethnic cleansing in Gaza. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10229089958086113&set=a.10209117508867365
2024-03-20 Prominent Jewish Americans Condemn AIPAC Effort to ‘Dominate’ US Primaries More than 100 prominent Jewish Americans signed a statement released Wednesday condemning the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s increasingly aggressive interventions in U.S. elections, particularly Democratic Party primaries in which the powerful lobbying group is spending big to unseat progressives.
The statement’s list of signatories includes well-known scholars, rabbis, anti-war activists, journalists, and filmmakers who have “agreed to come together to highlight and oppose the unprecedented and damaging role of AIPAC” and its allied organizations in the American electoral process. The statement calls on Democratic candidates to reject all funding from AIPAC’s political network.
“We recognize the purpose of AIPAC’s interventions in electoral politics is to defeat any critics of Israeli government policy and to support candidates who vow unwavering loyalty to Israel, thereby ensuring the United States’ continuing support for all that Israel does, regardless of its violence and illegality,” reads the new statement from Jewish Americans, which can be read in full below. https://www.commondreams.org/news/jewish-americans-oppose-aipac
2024-03-19 Dem Donors Warn Biden’s Support for Israeli War on Gaza May Hand Trump the White House More than 100 Democratic donors and activists on Monday warned U.S. President Joe Biden that his administration’s “unconditional support” for Israel’s catastrophic war on Gaza “is increasing the chances” that former President Donald Trump will win this year’s election.
In a letter, the Biden supporters—who according to The New York Times include some six-figure donors… “However, the ongoing military actions by the [Israel Defense Forces] are not achieving those goals,” the signatories argued. “Instead, nearly all civil structures in Gaza, including hospitals, schools, mosques, and civilian accommodation are being systematically destroyed. Food, temporary shelter, and medical aid are being prevented by the Israeli government and Israeli extremists from being delivered to the civilian population. Gaza has become a humanitarian catastrophe.”
“Regrettably, President Biden has provided what appears to be unconditional support for the Israeli operation,” the letter states. “The Biden administration has been providing armaments, including 2,000-pound bombs which have been used to flatten entire civilian neighborhoods, causing massive casualties with a high ratio of women and children.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-support-for-israel
2024-03-15 Protests and Parody Paper Decry New York Times’ Pro-Israel Bias in Gaza Coverage More than 100 pro-Palestine demonstrators were arrested Thursday after staging a protest at The New York Times’ Midtown Manhattan headquarters, where activists handed out copies of a satirical knockoff of the newspaper that skewered what organizers called its biased coverage of the Gaza genocide.
After surrounding the Times’ printing plant in College Point, Queens, members of Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG), Palestinian Youth Movement, and other groups shut down the paper’s Midtown West headquarters, where they chanted, “New York Times you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” “free, free Palestine,” and “from the river to the sea.” Around 150 demonstrators occupied the Times building, where they called on passersby to “boycott, divest, and unsubscribe.”
“The Times is not unique among media in manufacturing consent for war, for exploitation, for genocide. It is, rather, exemplary.” Indeed, perhaps the deadliest weapon of all is the Times’ sense of its own importance, its self-appointed role as the arbiter of what counts as good journalism.”
“If the Times says it, it must be true; if they print it, it must be fit to print,” the publication adds. “The Times’ reputation for liberalism, for rigor, for nonpartisan independence is precisely what makes it so dangerous, because it hides what it really is: media that serves the interests of U.S. imperialism.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/journalism-gaza
2024-03-14 100+ Musical Acts Boycott SXSW Over US Army, Defense Contractor Ties More than 100 musical acts have pulled out of the music and cultural festival South by Southwest in protest of the event’s close ties to the U.S. Army and numerous defense contractors which have displayed exhibits at the week-long gathering, with one hip hop trio from Northern Ireland saying they would face a “significant financial impact” due to the decision.
The financial loss, said the Belfast-based band Kneecap, “isn’t an iota of hardship when compared with the [unimaginable] suffering being inflicted every minute of every day on the people of Gaza.” The Austin For Palestine Coalition (AFPC) has been campaigning in the Texas state capital for several weeks to push bands and speakers to boycott the festival, which is commonly known as SXSW and has been based in Austin since 1987. https://www.commondreams.org/news/musicians-boycott-sxsw
2024-03-13 25 Groups Demand Biden ‘Urgently Comply With US Law’ and End Israel Arms Sales More than two dozen human rights groups on Tuesday implored U.S. President Joe Biden “urgently comply” with domestic law by suspending arms sales to Israel and pressuring its far-right government to end its genocidal policy of blocking aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza.
In a joint letter to Biden, the 25 organizations asserted that his administration’s “unconditional arms transfers and other security assistance” to Israel apparently “violate Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act (22 U.S.C. § 2378-1), which prohibits the United States from providing security assistance or arms sales to any country when the president is made aware that the government ‘prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.'”
“U.S. weapons, security assistance, and blanket political support have contributed to an unparalleled humanitarian crisis and possible war crimes in Gaza,” the groups wrote. “We demand that you urgently comply with U.S. law, end U.S. support for catastrophic human suffering in Gaza, and use your leverage to protect civilians and ensure the impartial provision of humanitarian assistance.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/u-s-arms-sales-to-israel-2667506147
2024-03-12 Jewish Progressives Stage Sit-In at Hakeem Jeffries’ Office to Protest AIPAC Influence Sharpening their focus on the influence that pro-Israel lobbyists have had for decades on U.S. policy regarding Palestinians, Jewish progressives on Tuesday held a sit-in at the Capitol Hill office of U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, one of the largest recipients of campaign funds from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
The protesters, who are members of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action, prominently displayed a sign reading, “AIPAC gave $829,835 to Hakeem Jeffries, who opposes cease-fire,” before proceeding to the New York Democrat’s office. https://www.commondreams.org/news/hakeem-jeffries-aipac
2024-03-11 Groups Form ‘Reject AIPAC’ Coalition to Fight Israel Lobby’s Attacks on Progressives U.S. progressive groups “working together to take on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its affiliated dark money super PACs” on Monday announced the launch of the Reject AIPAC coalition, which is urging candidates for federal office to not accept endorsements or contributions from the nation’s most prominent Zionist lobby.
Reject AIPAC says it “will organize Democratic voters and elected officials to reject the destructive influence of the Republican megadonor-backed AIPAC on the Democratic primary process and our government’s policy towards Palestine and Israel.”
“We have watched as AIPAC has done everything it can to silence growing dissent in Congress against [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s assault on Gaza—which has killed over 31,000 Palestinians—even as Democratic voters overwhelmingly support a cease-fire and oppose sending more blank checks to the Israeli military,” the coalition said in a statement.
“Now, AIPAC’s Republican donor-funded super PAC is threatening to spend $100 million targeting the handful of Black and brown members of Congress who have led the calls for a cease-fire and the equal protection of Palestinian and Israeli lives,” the groups continued. https://www.commondreams.org/news/reject-aipac
2024-03-08 30+ Arrested in Chicago Protest Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire Organizers said over 30 protesters were arrested in Chicago on Friday morning for blocking rush-hour traffic to demand a cease-fire in Israel’s U.S.-backed war on the Gaza Strip. “We can’t go on acting as if the genocide isn’t happening,” said Deborah Adelman, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Chicago who blocked traffic at W. Jackson Boulevard and S. Dearborn Street. “We’ve been out on the streets for five months and we’re not going anywhere.”
The demonstration capped off a 24-hour vigil backed by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Chicago Educators for Palestine, Chicago Teachers Union Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators, Dissenters, Jewish Fast for Gaza, Tzedek Chicago, U.S. Palestinian Community Network, and local chapters of American Muslims for Palestine, IfNotNow, and JVP. https://www.commondreams.org/news/chicago-gaza-protest
2024-03-08 CODEPINK Coachella Valley Disrupts Business As Usual on International Women’s Day Today, CODEPINK Coachella Valley demonstrated their unwavering commitment to peace and solidarity on International Women’s Day. Taking a stance against the genocide in Gaza, the group unfurled a sizable banner off the Cook Street Overpass on I-10, capturing the attention of passersby and attendees of the BNP Paribas Open. In the face of relentless violence and loss of innocent lives in Gaza, CODEPINK refuses to remain silent. The banner, prominently displaying the message “Feminists Say No To Genocide,” serves as a powerful reminder of the urgent need for action this International Women’s Day. Feminists in the United States who claim to be for reproductive justice must call for an immediate ceasefire. https://www.codepink.org/coachellaiwd
2024-03-07 Biden Motorcade Blocked Hundreds shut down President Biden’s motorcade route in a Palestinian-led civil disobedience last night as he attempted to reach the State of The Union, successfully delaying the start of his speech by 25 minutes.
We represent the vast majority of American people in calling for a permanent ceasefire and an end to U.S. military funding to Israel. There will be no business as usual for @POTUS until he answers to the people he was elected to serve and stops funding and arming the war on Gaza. https://www.instagram.com/p/C4PBSpUtfMl/
2024-03-07 Pro-Palestinian protesters attempt to disrupt SOTU near Capitol: ‘Biden’s legacy is genocide’ Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside President Biden’s State of the Union on Thursday night in an apparent attempt to disrupt proceedings. About 100 protesters showed up at the intersection of Constitution Avenue and 3rd Street in Washington, D.C. on Thursday night, about an hour before Biden was set to deliver his State of the Union address. Protesters could be seen holding up a sign that said, “Biden’s legacy is genocide.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/pro-palestinian-protesters-attempt-to-disrupt-sotu-near-capitol-biden-s-legacy-is-genocide/ar-BB1jwmDB?
2024-03-07 ARRESTED: Two Nancy Pelosi Constituents Arrested Outside Her D.C. Office Two CODEPINK members from California were arrested outside Rep Nancy Pelosi’s office today in D.C. after Pelosi refused to talk with them. They have been requesting meetings for months to speak with the California representative about the urgent need for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and that her constituents do not want their tax dollars going to Israel to sustain the genocide and occupation of Gaza.
“I’m full of grief that Nancy Pelosi, one of the most powerful people in the government, continues to fund lethal weapons to kill Children in Gaza with our tax dollars,” said Cynthia Papermaster, who flew from California in an attempt to get Pelosi to listen. “It fills me with grief to think that my tax dollars are being used to buy hellfire missiles, white phosphorus, F-35 fighter jets that are killing people who are in an open-air concentration camp in Gaza.”
2024-03-07 Governor Green, Genocide Is Not Aloha On February 29, 2024, 15 organizations in Hawaii at a press conference at the Hawaii State Capitol called for Hawaii Gov. Josh Green to terminate any relationship the State of Hawaii has with Israel, citing the Israeli genocide being conducted in Gaza.
On February 22, 2024, the Green’s office issued a letter stating his commitment to “unbreakable bonds” between the U.S. and Israel and the enduring commitment to Israel’s security.
Over 2,600 persons have signed a petition demanding that the “strategic partnership” with the State of Israel signed by Ige in October, 2022 be terminated. Considering the genocide the Israeli government is conducting on Palestinians in Gaza, with over 100,000 confirmed killed, injured, or missing at the hands of Israeli forces in what was then 145 days, and in light of the violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, 15 organizations in Hawaii demanded at the press conference an end of Hawaii’s “strategic partnership” with the State of Israel.
The 15 organizations calling for a termination of all “strategic partnerships” with Israel to be immediately terminated are: Jewish Voice for Peace-Hawaii, Hawaii for Palestine, Rise for Palestine, Kona 4 Palestine, Maui for Palestine, Kauai for Palestine, Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine at the University of Hawaii, Veterans For Peace-Hawaii, Seed of Love Hawaii, Humanists of Hawaii, Weaving Our Stories, AF3IRM Hawaii, Sabeel-Hawaii, World Can’t Wait-Hawaii, and Hawaii Peace and Justice. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/genocide-is-not-aloha
2024-03-07 Multiple Arrests After Peace Activists Shut Down General Dynamics for Five Hours General Dynamics’ Garland plant is a major manufacturer of MK-80 bombs, including the metal bodies for the MK-80 bomb series. These bombs are frequently used by Israel in its military operations, particularly in Gaza. The action today aims to emphasize that the Garland plant’s production directly contributes to the genocide in Gaza, where over 30,000 lives have been lost due to the ongoing genocide. The Garland plant also builds BLU-109 bombs, like the one dropped on Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza in October, killing more than 100 people. Over $35 billion in United States taxpayer’s money went to Garland for these bombs in 2023. General Dynamics directly profits off war by manufacturing weapons, bombs, and shells.
“Our community’s family members, our people in Gaza are the ones being murdered by Israel with the bombs being made right here in this facility and we are here today to make it harder for them to commit a genocide,” says one of the protesters at the action today, “Today’s action isn’t only about this specific General Dynamics plant which is where the weapons being used to kill Palestinians are being manufactured, but it’s also about interrupting the military industrial complex which is responsible for death and destruction around the world.” https://www.codepink.org/shutdowngendynamics
2024-03-06 ‘Uncommitted’ Wins Nearly 20% of Democratic Primary Vote in Minnesota “Tonight’s numbers showed that President Biden cannot earn back our votes with just rhetoric.” Nearly 20% of Minnesotans who took part in their state’s Democratic presidential primary on Super Tuesday voted “uncommitted,” the latest warning to President Joe Biden that his unwavering support for Israel’s assault on Gaza risks eroding his base ahead of November’s high-stakes general election.
Roughly 46,000 Democratic primary voters in Minnesota, which Biden won in 2020, marked the uncommitted option on their ballots just a week after more than 100,000 Michiganders registered their own protest votes against the incumbent president.
2024-03-06 CODEPINK and Peace Activists to Raise Issue of the Forced Starvation of Gaza Outside Senate Global Food Security Hearing Tomorrow, Wednesday, March 6, CODEPINK, Doctors Against Genocide, and the International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Gaza (ICSGP) will attend the Senate hearing on Global Food Security at Dirksen Room 419. The hearing starts at 10am but the group will be available to talk to the press from 9am-9:45am, right before they enter the hearing.
Attendees of the Senate Global Food Security will force the Senators to acknowledge the forced starvation of Gaza at the hands of Israel, supported and sustained by the United States. They will have a strong visual presence, representing the starvation many in Gaza are now experiencing. https://www.codepink.org/foodsecurityhearing
2024-03-05 Groups Forge Emergency Coalition to Pressure US on Gaza Cease-Fire “It is long past time for the United States to use its leverage and uphold U.S. law to end Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza and have this war come to an end.”
A broad coalition of advocacy groups on Tuesday launched an emergency online campaign to pressure U.S. lawmakers to support an immediate and permanent cease-fire in Gaza. Demand Progress, Oxfam America, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Win Without War, Common Defense, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and 23 partner groups started CeasefireAction.com, which includes a searchable database of each member of Congress and where they stand on the cease-fire issue, as well as a tool for contacting lawmakers to urge them to publicly support a cease-fire. https://www.commondreams.org/news/cease-fire-now?
2024-03-04 Israel Tech conference Today’s disruption at the @google sponsored Israel Tech conference featuring NYC Mayor @ericadamsfornyc and Jerusalem Mayor @moshe.lion promoting global surveillance tech investment.
Asher of @jvpny directly addresses the Mayor of Jerusalem: “You do not speak for Jews. You will not speak for those of us who do not stand behind genocide and oppression of Palestinians.” These weapons directly fund violence against Palestinians, and are part of a deadly exchange with the #NYPD. Support tech workers who are standing up against their labor being used for violence and war crimes. https://www.instagram.com/p/C4GtXMTuwam/
2024-03-01 As Outrage Over Gaza Grows, Biden Hides From Protests Amid High-Stakes Election “A Democratic campaign that is scared of college campuses is not a campaign that can win given today’s coalitions,” said one journalist.
Public opposition to U.S. President Joe Biden’s support for Israel pushed more than 100,000 primary voters in the key state of Michigan this week to vote “uncommitted” instead of backing him, but while the Biden campaign brushed the protest votes off with promises to “listen to what folks’ concerns are,” the president is reportedly intent on avoiding contact with pro-Palestinian constituents as much as possible. https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-hiding-gaza
2024-02-29 Targeting the sponsors of genocide The President is not welcome in New York City.
Jewish New Yorkers are taking to the streets to make it clear that Biden is not welcome in New York for as long as he refuses to call for a ceasefire. Biden was in town for a series of elite private fundraisers and an appearance on the Seth Meyers show: Both events were shut down by JVP-NYC direct actions. 50 protesters were arrested at NBC’s headquarters, and dozens more after blocking the Presidential motorcade outside an exclusive fundraiser on the Upper East Side. https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2024/02/29/targeting-sponsors-of-genocide/
2024-02-29 Actor Hunter Schafer among protesters arrested during President Biden’s appearance on ‘Late Night’ Actor Hunter Schafer was among dozens of war protesters arrested at NBC’s headquarters in Manhattan during President Joe Biden’s appearance on “Late Night with Seth Myers” earlier this week, organizers confirmed Wednesday. The 25-year-old “Euphoria” star was part of a group of more than 100 demonstrators who packed the lobby at 30 Rockefeller Plaza on Monday afternoon to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, the group Jewish Voice Peace said.
2024-02-22 N.Y.C. Protest Calling for Gaza Cease-Fire Targets Pro-Israel Senators Demonstrators marched to the Manhattan headquarters of the lobbying group AIPAC, then to the offices of senators who have accepted donations from the group, where some were arrested.
More than a dozen people were arrested Thursday evening during a peaceful pro-Palestinian protest inside a Manhattan building where Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrats of New York, have offices. Wearing black T-shirts reading “Cease Fire Now” and holding up signs demanding that the senators “stop funding genocide,” the protesters linked arms and sat on the floor in front of elevators in the lobby of the building at 780 Third Avenue, singing slogans and ignoring instructions to leave until police officers arrested them. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/nyregion/aipac-gaza-protest-nyc.html
2024-02-19 SF Protest for Ceasefire -Blood on Your Hands The Presidents’ Day Bay Area residents and voters shut down the freeways and streets of San Francisco, to send a message to #GenocideJoe and #ButcherBlinkin
2024-02-15 Brooke Anderson Photography: Stills of Our Stories & Struggles is at Ybca. Tonight, eight artists from Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ (@ybca ) Bay Area Now 9 exhibition altered their own works in the exhibi to speak out against YBCA’s silence on the genocide of Palestinians. The artists say that YBCA’s funders and museum leadership have censored artists calling out Israel’s campaign of collective punishment in Palestine. The artists’ demands included an immediate and permanent ceasefire and for the US to stop arming Israel, an end to YBCA’s censorship of artists, the removal of Zionist YBCA funders and board members, and YBCA’s compliance with its vision to be a space that “empowers artists, inspires community and drives lasting social change.” #Gaza #Rafah # Palestine #Ceasefire https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=790982126403703&set=pcb.790982259737023
2024-02-14 Shutdown Golden Gate Bridge Good morning Bay Area‼️ Today voters and residents shut down the Golden Gate Bridge to send a strong message to lawmakers demanding an end to Israel’s bombing of Rafah and U.S. weapons, and to call for an immediate ceasefire.
#Gaza #Palestine #CeasefireNow #SaveRafah #SF #BayArea #ShutItDown #HandsOffRafah #StopArmingIsrael #NoJusticeNoPeace #knowjusticeknowpeace #PalestineIsMyValentine Photos by Brooke Anderson Photography: Stills of Our Stories & Struggles @movementphotographer 🍉❤️🔥✌🏽 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10163261915793222&set=pcb.10163261915853222
2024-02-13 VETERANS DEMAND TERMINATION OF WEAPONS TO ISRAEL In a letter to the Inspector-General of the U.S. State Department, a national veterans’ organization today demanded the State Department terminate weapons shipments to Israel and called on the Inspector General to investigate alleged criminal acts by senior Biden administration officials in violation of U.S. law, including ratified treaties, which are the supreme law of the land. The letter from Veterans For Peace alleges violations by the U.S. government and its officials of:
2024-02-09 At Northwestern U, Distributing a Parody Paper Gets You Threatened With Prison Students at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, produced a parody edition of the school’s paper, the Daily Northwestern, to call out the school’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza. Some folks wrapped the fake front pages around some 300 copies of the actual school paper.
2024-02-08 Chicago area activists shut down weapons manufacturer implicated in Gaza genocide Activists shut down Woodward MPC manufacturing facility in Niles, Illinois, on Wednesday, February 7, to protest the company’s role in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Woodward is responsible for creating the parts of war equipment and bombs used to drop on Gaza. On its website, Woodward says it provides “control and actuation solutions on air superiority and air defense missiles, direct attack missiles, guided bombs and rockets, anti-ship missiles, guided artillery and mortar rounds, hypervelocity vehicles, training and target missiles, and launch boosters.” https://mondoweiss.net/2024/02/chicago-area-activists-shut-down-weapons-manufacturer-implicated-in-gaza-genocide/
2024-02-07 Shut Down Travis Airforce Base: No US Weapons for Genocide Hundreds Rally at Travis Air Force Base, Demanding End to Support for Gaza Bombing
Fairfield, CA – CODEPINK joins Youth4Palestine and other others for an act of nonviolent resistance with hundreds set to gather at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, CA, on February 7, from 5:30 AM to 9:00 AM, demanding an immediate cessation of military aid to Israel and an end to the relentless bombing of Gaza. Endorsed by numerous advocacy groups, the rally aims to halt the complicity of Travis Air Force Base in what many see as genocide and ethnic cleansing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S56e_jHCUxs,
2024-02-07 We Mothers Call for Ceasefire When some would tell us that our identities—Palestinian and Israeli—should make us enemies, we have known that another identity binds us together. We are both mothers, dedicated to keeping our children and all children safe and assured of a future. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/we-mothers-call-for-ceasefire
2024-02-07 100 Jewish Cease-Fire Supporters Arrested Blocking Biden’s NYC Motorcade Route “As Jewish New Yorkers we want to make crystal clear that President Biden is not welcome in our city while he continues to fund and arm the Israeli government’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,” said one protester. https://www.commondreams.org/news/jewish-protest-cease-fire
2024-01-30 Federal Workers Plan Daylong Fast in Solidarity With Gaza Feds United for Peace said their second action this month “aims to shed light on the humanitarian crisis faced by the people of Gaza and promote dialogue around lasting solutions.” A group of workers at over two dozen U.S. government agencies are planning a “Day of Fasting” on Thursday in what they called “a powerful display of solidarity with the people of Gaza,” who are enduring a genocidal Israeli assault supported by the Biden administration.
Feds United for Peace—who earlier this month held a “Day of Mourning” to mark 100 days of the war—said Monday that the planned daylong hunger strike is meant “to raise awareness and support those affected” by the relentless Israeli onslaught and “aims to shed light on the humanitarian crisis faced by the people of Gaza and promote dialogue around lasting solutions.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/feds-united-for-peace
2024-01-06 Large group pro-Palestine protesters march in Westwood A large group of pro-Palestine protesters marched in Westwood Saturday, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. One protester was captured spraying graffiti on the Los Angeles National Cemetery. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acwErMXSTtQ
2024-01-02 A ROUNDUP OF THE LONDON PROTESTS FOR PALESTINE We’ve spoken to many activists who have constantly showed up on demonstrations to demand a ceasefire for Gaza in and around London. Here are some of the highlights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFEXezG15Mw
2024-01-02 PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTS: THE WORLD IS UNITED IN ITS DEVASTATION ON WHAT’S HAPPENING IN PALESTINE A round up of the various protests around the globe as people from different communities call for a ceasefire in Gaza and end the brutal occupation of Palestine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtDvbdKE-ho
2023-12-30 ‘Doctors Against Genocide’ Scraps Event At Holocaust Museum, Apologizes After Uproar: ‘Misunderstanding’ A group of doctors, “Doctors Against Genocide,” planned an event at the U.S. Holocaust Museum to raise awareness about the violence in Gaza. However, the announcement sparked backlash, leading to the event’s cancellation. The group clarified that the intention was to express empathy for Holocaust victims and learn from the museum’s genocide education initiatives. They emphasized their stance against all forms of hate, including antisemitism.
“As Doctors Against Genocide we wish to address misconceptions surrounding our Holocaust Museum event which has been misrepresented as an anti-Semetic gathering,” the group wrote. “We had recently announced a planned visit to the Holocaust Memorial Museum as a way to educate and engage the medical community.” “We wanted to learn from the Museum’s initiatives in genocide education and prevention to inform our own efforts as an organization dedicated to preventing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide around the world,” the group said. “It was not our aim to protest inside or outside the museum, nor is it our intent to minimize the important work done by the Holocaust Memorial Museum. We are deeply affected by the horrors of the Holocaust and are moved to prevent similar atrocities.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/doctors-against-genocide-scraps-event-at-holocaust-museum-apologizes-after-uproar-misunderstanding/ar-AA1mdFHq
2023-12-28 Pro-Palestinian protesters shut down World Trade Center building entrance in NYC [MEK Note: 9/11 Military Industrial Complex 9/11 Story is a 100% lie even worse than the Israel’s MIC story about October 7th ] On December 28, 2023, pro-Palestinian protesters staged a demonstration at the entrance of the World Trade Center in New York City, causing a temporary shutdown of the area. The protesters’ actions have sparked controversy and drawn attention to the site’s historical significance as the location of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
2023-12-28 14 arrested during Gaza ceasefire protest at Travis Air Force Base The protesters, numbering about 150, began their rally around 6 a.m., at which time the Fairfield Police Department and representatives of the Travis Air Force Base said they met with the organizers to allow them their constitutional right to protest while also ensuring service members were able to get on base. Organizers said groups and attendees at the protest included Youth4Palestine-Sacramento, SF Bay Area CODEPINK, the Peace & Justice Center of Nevada County and Veterans For Peace.
2023-12-28 ARRESTED: Peace Activists Arrested After Shutting Down Travis AFB In a demonstration of dissent, East Bay CODEPINK, in collaboration with other local peace organizations, executed a shutdown of Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, CA, on Tuesday, December 28th. The coalition rallied to draw attention to the base’s alleged active involvement in shipping military supplies directly to Israel, thereby contributing to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The protest, which unfolded at the North Gate road entrance, saw participants blockading the entrance as they voiced their concerns about the base’s complicity in supporting actions leading to a devastating impact on Palestinian lives. Fairfield Police, in conjunction with military police, initially issued warnings for the protesters to disperse, and it wasn’t until approximately half an hour later that arrests were made for unlawful assembly.
At least a dozen peace activists were taken into custody. They were transported to Solano County Jail in Fairfield and charged with unlawful assembly. https://www.codepink.org/travisshutdown; more, more, more, more announcing action.
2023-12-27 Dozens arrested in pro-Palestinian protests at two major US airports Pro-Palestinian protesters blocked morning traffic on Wednesday around Los Angeles International Airport and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport – two of the nation’s busiest – in coast-to-coast demonstrations that ended with dozens of arrests. Thirty-six people were taken into custody at LAX. Airport police said the entrance to the complex was reopened within about 45 minutes with “no impacts to fights,” the Los Angeles City News Service reported.
Across the country, the Port Authority Police Department of New York said 26 people were arrested for disorderly conduct and impeding vehicular traffic during a protest along the Van Wyck Expressway inside JFK Airport in Queens.
2023-12-27 Israeli Teen Jailed for Refusing to Take Part in Army’s ‘Criminal Attack’ on Gaza A young Israeli man was sentenced Tuesday to 30 days behind bars for refusing to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces as it wages a genocidal assault on Gaza, a war the teen condemned as “a revenge campaign… not only against Hamas, but against all Palestinian people.”
Tal Mitnick, an 18-year-old from Tel Aviv, entered the Tel Hashomer enlistment center with other members of the Mesarvot Network—a group of young conscientious objectors—and announced his refusal to enlist in the IDF, citing the war on Gaza and Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. “I believe that slaughter cannot solve slaughter,” he said outside the base. “The criminal attack on Gaza won’t solve the atrocious slaughter that Hamas executed. Violence won’t solve violence. And that is why I refuse.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/conscientious-objector-israel
2023-12-25 Anti-Hamas billboard in Worcester vandalized, message reversed A billboard with an anti-Hamas message in central Massachusetts was found vandalized Christmas morning with a statement about Israel. The billboard on Route 290 west in Worcester originally read, “Let’s be clear: Hamas is your problem too.” It now says, “Let’s be clear: Hamas is freeing Palestine” with an added footnote reading, “Israel murdered 25,000 people.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/anti-hamas-billboard-in-worcester-vandalized-message-reversed/ar-AA1m2NHX
2023-12-24 ‘No Christmas as usual’: Pro-Palestinian protestors storm city streets on ‘Super Saturday’ ro-Palestinian protestors took to the streets on “Super Saturday” en masse, protesting on the day before Christmas Eve, which is often a time shoppers try to pick up last-minute gifts before the holidays. The “Shut it Down for Palestine” movement, made up of pro-Palestinian groups, had plans to “organize actions to boycott, disrupt, and rally at commercial centers on Dec. 23,” according to the website of the ANSWER Coalition activist group.
“The genocidal Israeli assault on Gaza is continuing with incredible cruelty,” the activist group’s website read. “This Christmas, occupation forces are sniping Christians sheltering in their besieged churches in Gaza and Christians in Bethlehem have declared that their celebrations are canceled. People everywhere must continue to declare that there can be no Christmas as usual during a genocide!”
2023-12-20 “Fu*k the Police, Free Palestine!” Protesters ARRESTED Outside IDF Fundraiser Following our Livestream covering the Global Protest for Palestine in NYC, they continued their protests at a DKNY Fundraiser for the IDF (Israeli Defense Force). Here they chanted and yelled at attendees, while police arrested them and protected the various guests. SUPPORT Status Coup’s ON-THE-GROUND and investigative reporting on the stories the corporate media COVERS UP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rkGkLj-QvU
2023-12-20 The Palestine Exception to Campus Free Speech On Nov. 9, 2023, I and nine of my peers organized and participated in a sit-in at our high school’s annual Veterans Day ceremony to protest Israel’s attack on Gaza, challenge United States military and political funding of the genocide of Palestinians, and show our solidarity with the Palestinian cause. We filled rows of our gym wearing white shirts that read “Stop Israel, Stop Genocide” and held signs reading “We Are the Resistance” and “Free Palestine” during the event.
The aftermath of our disruption was swift and serious. We were humiliated by our administration, removed from leadership positions for not “reflecting school values,” and given referrals from our district for “printing political propaganda.” our school principal told us, “This is already in your permanent record”—and that there was nothing we could do to get it expunged. As seniors applying to colleges, it appeared that the marks on our records were meant to jeopardize our futures.
Schools are also cracking down on what students can discuss inside the classroom. Ali says, “I try to discuss it as much as possible in class, but recently Loudoun County Public Schools have banned a lot of pro-Palestine slogans and symbols, so there are definitely some restrictions from the admin.”
As I processed my “punishment,” I learned that our situation wasn’t unique. In response to the constant Israeli bombings of the Gaza Strip, which, as of this writing, have killed more than 20,000 people—many of whom are children—students in high schools across the country have held pro-Palestine demonstrations, sit-ins, and walkouts, and called for an end to Israel’s violence.
Despite attempts to censor and intimidate young organizers at U.S. high schools, students, including myself, are determined to organize against the occupation from the “Belly of the Beast,” to quote Che Guevara. The biggest tool for young Americans is social media, which has been vital not only in educating, but in circulating news from inside Gaza into the heart of the U.S. empire. https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2023/12/20/campus-speech-palestine-gaza
2023-12-09 80+ Groups Descend on DC Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire, Migrant Right “We stand together… to say no to more weapons for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, no more money to imprison children and families seeking safety at our border, no more money to destroy lives,” said one protest leader. Activists from more than 80 advocacy groups took to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to protest what they called the Israeli genocide in Palestine and “cruel” immigration policies here in the United States.
The demonstrators demanded a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, an end to American military aid for Israel, and protection for migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. “As the Biden administration and Senate Democrats indicate a willingness to advance cruel immigration proposals in order to pass a spending package that will send billions of dollars to Israel to continue its genocide in Gaza, we come together as a coalition of immigrant, Palestinian, and allied organizations dedicated to fighting for justice and liberation to categorically oppose all proposals fueling violence against our communities at home and abroad,” a joint statement from the groups taking part in Tuesday’s demonstration said. 6https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-protests-2666663134s
2023-12-18 Protesters March on NYC Transit Hubs Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire A coordinated wave of demonstrations against what activists called Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza targeted New York City transit hubs Monday afternoon, with protesters demanding an immediate cease-fire as heavy Israeli bombardment of the besieged strip pushed the death toll from 73 days of attacks to nearly 20,000. Protesters marched from Grand Central Station to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and then on to Penn Station, where at least hundreds of activists gave police the slip and occupied Moynihan Hall. Many participants prayed for peace before leaving the station.
“We must stand up and not be silent to this injustice,” Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss toldamNewYork Metro outside Grand Central Station. “We hurt and cry with the people who are dying and suffering under the stranglehold of the Zionist occupation. We want the world to know that we hurt because we are Jews, we will not be silent because we are Jews.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-protests-nyc
2023-12-18 Prosecutors begin charging 80 protesters who blocked Bay Bridge while demanding Gaza cease-fire San Francisco prosecutors on Monday began charging 80 protesters who last month blocked traffic for hours on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge while demanding a cease-fire in Gaza. The protest came as San Francisco was hosting President Joe Biden and other world leaders for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
Seventeen people appeared in court on Monday to face charges of false imprisonment, refusing to comply with a peace officer, unlawful public assembly, refusing to disperse, and obstruction of street, sidewalk or other place open to public. Their arraignments were continued to February. Hundreds of demonstrators holding signs that read “Biden: Ceasefire Now,” “Free Free Palestine” and “Drop the Charges!” held a news conference outside the court before the arraignments of those charged began. Aisha Nizar, of the Palestinian Youth Movement, said she was among those who were arrested and charged but doesn’t plan to stop demonstrating. https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/bay-bridge-pro-palestinian-gaza-cease-fire-protesters-sf-da-begins-prosecutions/
2023-12-07 UK Union Workers Blockade Plants Arming Israel More than 1,000 union members with Workers for a Free Palestine blockaded four weapons factories in the United Kingdom Thursday that make components for planes being used by Israel to bomb Gaza. The workers, who include teachers and healthcare and hospitality professionals, said they had shut down plants in Bournemouth, Lancashire, Brighton, and Glasgow.
“As healthcare workers, we are tired of mourning the deaths of our colleagues—fellow nurses, doctors, dentists, medical students, and other health workers—along with all of the Palestinians massacred by the Israeli regime,” a participating doctor named Mesh of Health Workers for a Free Palestine toldTribune. “We stand here ashamed that the weapons used in the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine are partly made on our own doorstep.” UK Union Workers Blockade Plants Arming Israel (commondreams.org)
2023-11-28 Manhattan Bridge is closed Jewish Voice for Peace leads 1200+ people activated by human solidarity to close Manhattan Bridge in opposition to the massacre of Gaza. 11-26-23. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFsXUOVa99U
2023-11-27 Hunger Strikers Demand Permanent Cease-Fire at White House As Israel and Hamas on Monday agreed to extend their temporary pause of fighting in the Gaza Strip, advocacy group leaders, U.S. state lawmakers, and actor and activist Cynthia Nixon were among those who launched a hunger strike demanding a permanent cease-fire in Washington, D.C. outside the White House.
“As the mother of Jewish children whose grandparents are Holocaust survivors, I have been asked by my son to use my platform to project as loudly as possible that ‘never again’ means never again for everyone,” said Nixon, one of more than 260 artists who signed a letter asking U.S. President Joe Biden and Congress to call for a cease-fire in Gaza.
“As an American, I am here to demand that our president stop funding the mass killing and starvation of thousands of innocent Palestinians, the majority of whom are children and women,” she continued. “President Biden must use this moment to negotiate a permanent cease-fire that will bring all the hostages and political prisoners home and start to lay the foundation for a lasting peace.”
Other supporters of the five-day hunger strike include Palestinian organizer and activist Linda Sarsour, Delaware state Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton (D-26), Oklahoma state Rep. Mauree Turner (D-88), Virginia state Rep. Sam Rasoul (D-11), Adalah Justice Project (AJP), the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Democratic Socialists of America, Dream Defenders, IfNotNow, the Institute for Middle East Understanding, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR). https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-ceasefire-hunger-strike
2023-11-27 Activists Shut Down Manhattan Bridge; Demonstrators Disrupt Macy’s Parade Over Protest-Filled Weekend Here in New York, over 1,000 peaceful protesters held a sit-in protest Sunday at the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge, halting traffic to downtown Brooklyn. Protesters, led by Jewish Voice for Peace, unfurled banners reading “Let Gaza Live” and “The Whole World Is Watching” as they sat in the roadway chanting, “Up with liberation! Down with occupation!” Their protest came three days after protesters disrupted the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to demand an end to U.S. support for Israel’s occupation and bombardment of Gaza. Protesters wore jumpsuits covered in fake blood and glued themselves to the street, briefly displaying banners reading “Free Palestine” and “Genocide then, Genocide now,” before police moved in to arrest them.
In Seattle, the City Council passed a resolution backing a ceasefire, the largest U.S. city to do so. But Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, who proposed the resolution, called it “watered down” after it removed condemnation of the Israeli military, the occupation of Palestine and U.S. funding for Israel.
2023-11-26 1,500 Block Manhattan Bridge Demanding Lasting Gaza Cease-Fire “We will make business as usual impossible until the U.S. stops funding and fueling a genocide,” Jewish Voice for Peace said. The action, organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, began around 2 pm Eastern Time, and traffic began moving again around 5:30 pm, The New York Times reported. The group included 1,500 Jews, Palestinians, religious leaders, and elected officials, Jewish Voice for Peace said on social media. “These kind of things where you stop traffic brings more attention to the issue,” 74-year-old participant Joan Glickman, who lives in Westchester, toldGothamist. “I do think there are many Americans who don’t really pay attention to how serious this is.”
“There are only two days left before the Israeli government resumes its genocidal onslaught against the people of Gaza—funded and fueled by the U.S. Netanyahu has said, ‘We will come back to annihilate them,'” Jewish Voice for Peace tweeted Sunday. https://www.commondreams.org/news/protest-manhattan-bridge-cease-fire?
2023-11-21 Cops baton-charge pro-Palestinian student demo Police in Florence on Tuesday baton-charged a pro-Palestinian demonstration by university students to prevent it from reaching a synagogue in the Tuscan capital. Police said there were no injuries. About a hundred people took part in the demonstration, promoted by the University Students’ Collective and authorised under the Rector’s Office in Piazza San Marco. It was not clear if the demonstrators had been meaning to get to the synagogue. https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/cops-baton-charge-pro-palestinian-student-demo/ar-AA1ki1j3
2023-11-20 Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest Israel-Hamas war outside Union Station A pro-Palestinian group gathered outside Union Station Friday evening to protest the Israel-Hamas war. News4’s Walter Morris reports the rally grew to the point where Metro trains bypassed that stop for a time Friday evening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoIcnNGQJc4
2023-11-19 Dissent Over U.S. Policy in the Israel-Hamas War Stirs Protests From Federal Employees Federal government workers from the State Department to NASA are circulating open letters demanding that President Joe Biden pursue a cease-fire in Israel’s war against Hamas. Congressional staffers are picking up microphones in front of the Capitol, speaking out to condemn what they say is the silence of lawmakers about the toll on Palestinian civilians.
As the deaths soar in Gaza, Biden and Congress are facing unusually public challenges from the inside over their support for Israel’s offensive. Hundreds of staffers in the administration and on Capitol Hill are signing on to open letters, speaking to reporters and holding vigils, all in an effort to shift U.S. policy toward more urgent action to stem Palestinian casualties.
“Most of our bosses on Capitol Hill are not listening to the people they represent,” one of the congressional staffers told the crowd at a protest this month. Wearing medical masks that obscured their faces, the roughly 100 congressional aides heaped flowers in front of Congress to honor the civilians killed in the conflict. https://time.com/6337379/us-policy-israel-hamas-war-dissent/
2023-11-19 Protesters Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire Shut Down California Democratic Convention Thousands of protesters demanding an immediate Gaza cease-fire forced an early shutdown Saturday of California’s Democratic Convention in Sacramento in a resounding rebuke of national party leaders’ support for what the demonstrators called Israel’s “genocidal” war on the Palestinian people. Protesters chanted “cease-fire now” and waved Palestinian flags as they marched through the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center, where California Democrats were set to vote on their state party platform. The flood of demonstrators prompted security guards to lock down entrances to the building, ending the day’s official events well ahead of schedule.
Outside the convention center, activists from Jewish Voice for Peace laid out 500 pairs of shoes representing the more than 5,000 children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel that left around 1,200 people dead and about 240 others kidnapped. https://www.commondreams.org/news/california-democratic-convention-2023
2023-11-17 NATO Member’s Pro-Palestine Move; Chaos At Biden’s Party HQ; South Korea’s ‘Shoe’ Stir | Israel War US ally and NATO nation Norway’s parliament adopts a resolution calling on the government to be ready to recognise an “independent” Palestinian state. The resolution, brought by the ruling coalition, was passed after eight out of the 10 parties in parliament voted in favour of it. Another US key partner in East Asia, South Korea, witnessed symbolic protests against war in Gaza. About 2000 shoes were put on display to honour the deaths in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and Israel. Anti-Israel protests also erupted in the US, Spain, Mexico, and the Netherlands. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYTdcf1ud7o
2023-11-17 New York police makes arrests at Fox News HQ as Gaza protests spread More protests demanding a ceasefire in Gaza were under way in the US on Friday morning, with police breaking up crowds and arresting demonstrators in various locations. Such demonstrations come as recent polling shows that US public support for Israel is dropping, while the Hamas authorities in Gaza reported on Friday that more than 12,000 Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians and mostly women and children, had now been killed since Israel declared war on Hamas in October. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-york-police-makes-arrests-at-fox-news-hq-as-gaza-protests-spread/ar-AA1k6oMm
2023-11-11 Hundreds of Thousands Join London March to Demand ‘Cease-Fire Now’ in Gaza Described as one of the largest political demonstrations in U.K. history, the march moved ahead despite criticism from British Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who suggested earlier in the week that the protest should have been banned by London police given that it coincided with Armistice Day. Braverman accused the police of giving favorable treatment to “pro-Palestinian mobs.”
“I am horrified by the tone, language, and incitement our own government is using to whip up hatred against its own citizens—citizens who are standing up in solidarity with the besieged and bombed citizens of Gaza,” British Army veteran and march participant Nadia Mitchell wrote for OpenDemocracy. “Personally, I cannot think of a more appropriate day to demand a cease-fire than on the day we remember the mother of all cease-fires, to remember and honor those who sacrificed their lives in pursuit of peace and an end to war.”
Some U.K. lawmakers, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Labour MP John McDonnell, joined Saturday’s march alongside hundreds of thousands of peace activists, union members, and people of all faiths.https://www.commondreams.org/news/national-march-for-palestine
2023-11-06 Statue of Liberty Hundreds of Jews and allies are taking over the Statue of Liberty, staging an emergency sit-in and refusing to leave until Biden calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. https://www.instagram.com/p/CzUHeN4AQTx/
2023-11-06 The Next Target for Protests Against Israel: Ports Hundreds of protesters took action at ports in Oakland and Tacoma to try and stop the Cape Orlando’s progress. Meanwhile, dockworkers in Barcelona called for a cease-fire and announced they would not work on ships carrying weapons. https://inthesetimes.com/article/ports-protests-tacoma-oakland-orlando-israel-gaza
2023-11-05 This Weekend’s DC Protest Was Largest Pro-Palestine Mobilization in US History Over 300,000 people gathered at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. on Saturday for the National March on Washington for Palestine. The march was the largest in support of Palestine in the history of the United States.
The event was organized by a coalition that included the Palestinian Youth Movement, ANSWER Coalition, American Muslim Alliance, The People’s Forum, National Students for Justice in Palestine, Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), and Maryland2PalestineOrganizers. Organizers said in a statement that the march was “the culmination of weeks of protests in cities across the country.”
2023-11-05 Hundreds of Thousands March Against Israel’s War Reports from around the world on Saturday as popular opposition explodes against Israel’s war and Western support for it. Huge crowds of protesters filled the streets of Washington, D.C. and other U.S. cities on Saturday joining hundreds of thousands around the world to demand a cease-fire in Israel’s war on Hamas, which has killed and wounded more than 40,000 Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip in just one month. https://consortiumnews.com/2023/11/05/hundreds-of-thousands-march-against-israels-war/
2023-11-04 Montreal today – we were ~50,000!! Speakers from the Mohawk community, CSN, a Haitian community organization, and many others. Ended with a rally in front of the CBC/RadioCan building! People of many ages and backgrounds. Chants in French, English and Arabic. Banners and flags from many groups. Loads of homemade signs. https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=7459460704082390&set=pcb.7459462407415553
2023-11-04 ‘Let Gaza Live!’: A Month Into Israeli War, Massive US Protests Demand Cease-Fire Huge crowds of protesters filled the streets of Washington, D.C. and other U.S. cities on Saturday to demand a cease-fire in Israel’s war on Hamas, which has killed and wounded thousands of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip over the past month.
“We came here to let our voices be heard and our hearts and hoping we’ll change the way people see this conflict,” 70-year-old Manar Ghanayem toldThe Washington Post in the nation’s capitol, where demonstrators gathered in and around Freedom Plaza. “Every human is entitled to basic human rights, not killing kids, not torturing people,” added Ghanayem, who traveled from North Carolina to march in D.C. with more than a dozen friends and family members, including young grandchildren. Ghanayem also said that she voted for U.S. President Joe Biden in 2020 but was outraged by his response to the war. As she put it, “I can’t believe Biden is turning a blind eye to this and gave Israel the green light.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-protests
2023-11-03 Gaza peace activists chain themselves to ladder on ship at Oakland port A large demonstration calling for a ceasefire in Gaza was held at the Port of Oakland Friday as activists attempted to prevent a federal ship from leaving the port. A banner displayed at the protest read, “No US military aid to Israel.” “Cease Fire Now Action” activists held up Palestinian flags as they marched on a dock beside Cape Orlando, a reserve U.S. military vessel.
Videos sent to KRON4 by the Arab Resource and Organizing Center show the crowd standing on the dock and chanting toward crew members on the moored ship. The crowd chanted, “Oakland Port blood on your hands,” and, “We charge you with genocide.” Law enforcement officers responded to the protest scene, including members of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Organizers with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center said they believe the ship is bound for Israel. A spokesperson for AROC wrote, “Community members demanding a ceasefire in the Israeli war against Gaza are blocking the entrance to Berth 20 at the Port of Oakland, where the Cape Orlando, a US military supply vessel bound for Israel is currently waiting to depart. Three protestors locked themselves to the ladder leading onto the ship contributing heavily to the delay of the ship.” https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/gaza-peace-activists-chain-themselves-to-u-s-ship-at-oakland-port/
2023-11-02 Palestine Action VS Israel w/Lowkey & Huda Ammori Lowkey catches up with Palestine Action founder Huda Ammori to discuss the revelations in The Guardian of Israeli Embassy intervention in Palestine Action court cases. They also examine Huda’s upcoming court case and the possibility of going to prison for shutting down the Israeli war machine in Britain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW34WLYg9QI
2023-10-31 Sec. Blinken was repeatedly interrupted by multiple protesters Sec. Blinken was repeatedly interrupted by multiple protesters during a congressional hearing on President Biden’s request for more than $100 billion in funding for Ukraine, Israel and U.S. border security. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=6685307214919357
2023-10-30 “Not in Our Name”: 400 Arrested at Jewish-Led Sit-in at NYC’s Grand Central Demanding Gaza Ceasefire We bring you the voices of Jewish Voice for Peace and their allies who shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour Friday in one of New York’s largest acts of civil disobedience in 20 years to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. The multiracial, intergenerational movement says about 400 people were arrested, including rabbis, famous actors and elected officials from the New York State Assembly and Senate and the City Council. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30/grand_central_protest
2023-10-29 Pelosi to protesters outside her house: “Go back to China where your headquarters is!” Code Pink Someone enhanced the sound on this Peter Menchini video of us trying to talk to Pelosi. So now we know what she was saying. There was so much noise from the young woman yelling “We know it was an inside job” (she’s referring to Oct. 7). That young woman was lying in front of the car, preventing Pelosi from leaving her house. I don’t know if Pelosi was responsible for Oct. 7, but I do know that she thinks we work for the Chinese government. She’s referencing the New York Times article about CODEPINK being tools of the Chinese. And now she’s accusing us, JVP, the Palestinian groups who’ve been gathering in front of her house to implore her to stop the genocide, of being Putin puppets, saying we’re financed by Russia. I’m just saying “Democrats want a ceasefire” over and over to remind her that almost 80% of Democrats support a ceasefire. Susan keeps her head “stop the genocide” “stop the holocaust” Cynthia Papermaster https://twitter.com/halalflow/status/1752021755995025689
2023-10-28 Gaza: College Students Walk Out Calling for Israel Ceasefire College students at more than 100 campuses across the country plan to walk out today to protest for a ceasefire in Gaza and for their universities to sever their close ties to arms manufacturers providing Israel with its weapons, like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon. The national walkout was organized by a broad coalition of groups including the Palestinian Youth Movement; the anti-war youth organization Dissenters; Anakbayan, the national organization for Filipino students and young people; the National Students for Justice in Palestine organization; the Muslim Students Association; and others. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/gaza-college-students-walkout-calling-for-israel-ceasefire
2023-10-28 As Gaza War Enters ‘Second Stage,’ Hundreds of Thousands March for Cease-Fire The day after Israel unleashed its most intensive bombing campaign against Gaza since October 7, hundreds of thousands of protesters marched in cities around the world calling for a cease-fire and the protection of Palestinian lives. PSC estimated on social media that half a million people attended the London march, which went from Embankment past U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s official residence at Downing Street to Westminster. Aerial footage showed streets and bridges thick with crowds. Sunak has stopped short of calling for a cease-fire, and Great Britian has emphasized Israel’s right to defend itself after the surprise October 7 attack by Hamas that killed around 1,400.
“The superpowers at play are not doing enough at the moment. This is why we’re here: we’re calling for a cease-fire, calling for Palestinian rights, the right to exist, to live, human rights, all our rights,” London marcher Camille Revuelta toldReuters. “This is not about Hamas. This is about protecting Palestinian lives.”
2023-10-27 ‘Never Again for Anyone’: Jewish Protesters Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire Arrested in Grand Central Station As Israel intensified a war that’s already killed more than 7,300 Palestinians and displaced a majority of Gaza’s residents, hundreds of Jewish American protesters and allies were arrested after taking over New York’s Grand Central Station Friday evening for a sit-in demanding an immediate cease-fire.
Chanting slogans including “no more weapons, no more war, cease-fire’s what we’re fighting for” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” human rights defenders took over the station’s Grand Concourse, while others hung banners reading “Never Again for Anyone” and “Palestinians Should Be Free” from the stairway to the East Balcony.
“While Shabbat is typically a day of rest, we cannot afford to rest while genocide is unfolding in our names,” said Rabbi May Ye. “The lives of Palestinians and Israelis are intertwined, and safety can only come from justice, equality, and freedom for all.”
The demonstration was led by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), with the participation of IfNotNow and other groups, as well as unaffiliated Jews and allies. “We refuse to allow our own pain and trauma to be used to justify attacks against another people,” said Jay Saper of JVP. “We are here to say: Not in our name.”
JVP said New York state Sens. Jabari Brisport (D-25), Robert Jackson (D-35), and Julia Salazar (D-18); State Assembly Members Zohran Mamdani (D-36) and Emily Gallagher (D-50); and New York City Council Members Tiffany Cabán (D-22), Alexa Avilés (D-38), Sandy Nurse (D-37), and Chi Ossé (D-36) took part in the protest. https://www.commondreams.org/news/jewish-led-protests
2023-10-27 ‘Stop Arming Israel’: Protesters Target Weapons Makers Supplying the Gaza Bombardment Protesters with Palestine Action on Thursday disrupted three different weapons factories in the U.K. that send arms to Israel as the country continues its siege and bombardment of Gaza that has killed thousands of people and prompted warnings of genocide.
In the largest gathering, more than 100 people blockaded both entrances to the Instro Precision factory in Sandwich, Kent, which is owned by Israel’s largest arms company Elbit Systems. Elbit has also been targeted by activists in the U.S. since Israel began its latest assault on Gaza following an October 7 attack by Hamas. https://www.commondreams.org/news/protesters-target-israel-weapons-makers
2023-10-26 Gaza: College Students Walk Out Calling for Israel Ceasefire College students at more than 100 campuses across the country plan to walk out today to protest for a ceasefire in Gaza and for their universities to sever their close ties to arms manufacturers providing Israel with its weapons, like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon. The national walkout was organized by a broad coalition of groups including the Palestinian Youth Movement; the anti-war youth organization Dissenters; Anakbayan, the national organization for Filipino students and young people; the National Students for Justice in Palestine organization; the Muslim Students Association; and others. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/gaza-college-students-walkout-calling-for-israel-ceasefire
2023-10-25 UC Berkeley students hold demonstration to support people of Gaza Thousands of students across the Bay Area walked out of classes Wednesday as part of a planned demonstration to show support for the people of Gaza during the ongoing conflict. One of the largest demonstrations was at UC Berkeley where more than a thousand people gathered in Sproul Plaza.
Many of the people holding signs and flats at the demonstration were wearing some type of mask. “Out of concern for my future and a concern for my family’s wellbeing, I don’t want to be identified,” one protestor said.
The Berkeley student did not want to give KPIX 5 his name, saying he fears the repercussions of attending the rally. “There’s a lot of backlash coming at people who are in support of this and mischaracterizations of their opinions. And that mischaracterization leads to people losing jobs, getting kicked out and expelled from school, having future job offers completely wiped off the board,” said the unnamed student.
He points out the irony of the current situation given that the Free Speech Movement started at UC Berkeley in the 1960s, yet many of the students who attended Wednesday’s rally say they are afraid of publicly supporting Palestine.
2023-10-25 College students across New York participate in walkout in support of Palestinians As death and destruction continues in the Middle East, students at campuses in New York waved Palestinian flags, wore keffiyehs and walked out of campuses in support of Palestinians. New York University students marched onto city streets and into Washington Square Park, where a rally was held. “This administration has been complicit in the genocide by spreading disinformation, by creating a hostile environment on campus, by investing in the weapons corporations that are arming the genocide of Palestinians,” an NYU law student said. “We demand that NYU divest from supporting Israel’s seize on Gaza, and we demand that NYU stand up and support the students, close NYU Tel Aviv,” another NYU student said.https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/new-york-student-walkout-for-palestinians/
2023-10-25 Thousands of people “walkout” at UC Santa Barbara in protest of the siege on Gaza A campus-wide walkout took place at UC Santa Barbara Wednesday afternoon. Over a thousand students, faculty, and community members peacefully demonstrated to raise awareness about the tragedy unfolding in the Gaza Strip. Chants of “Gaza, Gaza don’t you cry. We will never let you die.” echoed throughout the campus. Protestors say solidarity here transcends race and age, and seeing the large number of supporters gives them hope that they have the power to end the humanitarian crisis overseas. https://keyt.com/news/santa-barbara-s-county/2023/10/25/thousands-of-people-walkout-at-uc-santa-barbara-in-protest-of-the-siege-on-gaza/
2023-10-25 Ilhan Omar BLASTS Ritchie Torres (clip) Torres supports Israel and not Palestinians and is exposed here! Ritchie John Torres (born March 12, 1988) is an American politician from New York. A member of the Democratic Party, Torres is the U.S. representative for New York’s 15th congressional district. The district covers most of the South Bronx. It is one of the smallest districts by area in the country, covering only a few square miles. Torres represents the poorest Congressional district in New York State. https://sabbysabs.substack.com/p/ilhan-omar-blasts-ritchie-torres
2023-10-22 SF CODEPINK Meets Congresswoman Pelosi at her SF Home: Minutes later the garage door opened. Pelosi rushed to Susan’s side of the vehicle. As she hurriedly and annoyingly entered the vehicle with her suitcases (on her way back to DC presumedly), Susan said to her: “I’m a constituent and most U.S. Jews want a ceasefire now. Thousands of children are dying, we need a ceasefire now.” Pelosi could only offer this snarled reply, “What about the hostages?” She showed no interest to talk further.
By that time I joined Susan, able to see Pelosi through the dark glassed window. I politely and urgently asked the Congresswoman to please accept our letter. We were ignored and Pelosi’s vehicle drove off. Susan and I both agreed afterwards that the continued bombing of GAZA puts both civilians and Israeli hostages in grave danger, and that if Pelosi really was concerned about the hostages she should take the time to ask family members of the hostages what they want. Before leaving we chalked this last message at the entrance path to her home (see photo): https://progressiveissuesblog.com/2023/10/25/sf-codepink-meets-congresswoman-pelosi-at-her-sf-home/
2023-10-20 ART FOR INT’L HUMANITARIAN LAW in SF join artists, grandmothers and friends to paint a giant STREET MURAL calling for: END BIDEN-PELOSI AIDING AND ABETTING ISRAEL’S WAR CRIMES IN GAZA
Friday October 20, 1pm-6pm (come anytime–group photo at 5:30pm
2023-10-20 Protests from Paris to Pakistan Demand Gaza Ceasefire, End to Israel’s Occupation Thousands of protesters rallied in Paris Thursday to demand a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The protest came only after officials granted permission following a weeklong ban on pro-Palestine protests in France. “We see pro-Israeli demonstrations going on without any problems, with political leaders at their head. But when you try to defend Palestine, that’s forbidden.” Pro-Palestine demonstrations have also continued in Pakistan, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Algeria and across the Middle East and North Africa. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/20/headlines/protests_from_paris_to_pakistan_demand_gaza_ceasefire_end_to_israels_occupation
2023-10-19 BAY AREA: EMERGENCY PROTEST IN SAN FRANCISCO Join us outside of the SF Federal Building as we demand an end to the siege on Gaza and DEMAND an immediate end to US aid to the Zionist state.🚨 In the past few days alone over 4,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military. Just yesterday over 500 Palestinians were martyred after Zionist Occupation Forces bombed Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza. And still the US vetoed a UN resolution demanding a cease fire for humanitarian aid, and maintains their unconditional support for these genocidal war crimes. The genocide of Palestinians must end. Join us and make your voice heard, Bay Area! https://progressiveissuesblog.com/2023/10/25/2023-10-19-bay-area-emergency-protest-in-san-francisco/
2023-10-19 Ceasefire Now! Rashida Tlaib, Naomi Klein Join Thousands in Jewish-Led D.C. Protest Against Gaza War Thousands rallied at the U.S. Capitol this week calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, in what organizers with IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace called the largest-ever protest of Jews in support of Palestine. Hundreds were also arrested during a sit-in of the Cannon House Office Building. We feature addresses by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, and author Naomi Klein. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/19/rashida_tlaib_naomi_klein_dc_rally
2023-10-19 Protests from The Hague to Cape Town Condemn Israeli “Genocide” in Gaza Thousands of protesters took to the streets around the world following Tuesday’s attack on the Al-Ahli Hospital. In the Middle East and North Africa, major protests were seen in Ramallah, Beirut and across cities in Tunisia, Iraq and Iran, among others. Large actions against what protesters are calling Israel’s genocide in Gaza have also been seen across Europe. In The Hague, demonstrators rallied outside the headquarters of the International Criminal Court to demand Israel be held accountable for its war crimes. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/19/headlines/gaza_death_toll_nears_3_800_as_israels_siege_and_bombardment_enters_13th_day
2023-10-19 Colombia and Spain Anger Israel by Condemning War Crimes in Gaza In Colombia, President Gustavo Petro triggered a diplomatic row with Israel after comparing its assault on Palestinians to Nazis during World War II — a comparison that has also been drawn by progressive Jews who have spoken out against Israel’s actions. Meanwhile, Spain has rejected Israeli claims that two of its lawmakers are aligned “with ISIS-style terrorism” because they called for Benjamin Netanyahu to be brought before the International Criminal Court for committing war crimes in Gaza. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/19/headlines/gaza_death_toll_nears_3_800_as_israels_siege_and_bombardment_enters_13th_day
2023-10-17 Progressive American Jewish Groups Lead Cease-Fire Rally Near White House “We’re calling on the U.S. government to do everything in its power to stop a genocide from unfolding in Gaza,” said Simone Zimmerman, co-founder of IfNotNow, one of the two American Jewish organizations hosting the demonstration at the White House on Monday. The event, featuring over 1,000 protesters calling for a de-escalation of tensions in the Middle East. On Monday afternoon, The Intercept reported that 13 progressive Democratic lawmakers had signed on to a resolution urging the White House to call for an “immediate deescalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine.” The demonstration gave an outside voice to those efforts.
Around 1,500 demonstrators arrived in front of the White House, carrying signs with slogans such as “My Grief Is Not Your Weapon,” “No to War, No to Apartheid,” and “Stop Genocide in Gaza.” The protesters spread to the edges of the White House’s gated compound, blocking entrances frequently used by federal employees and members of the White House press corps. For example, demonstrators blocked Fox News’s Peter Doocy from exiting the White House grounds.
2023-10-16 Protests Across the U.S. Call for Israel to End Its Siege and Genocide in Gaza Across the U.S. and around the world, protests calling for an end to the genocide of Palestinians continued over the weekend. Here in New York, a protest in Brooklyn organized by Jewish Voice for Peace led to the arrests of dozens of people, including two New York State Assembly members, as well as rabbis and descendants of Holocaust survivors. The group If Not Now is calling on American Jews and allies to protest in front of the White House today. More protests by Jewish groups calling for an end to violence and the Israeli occupation of Palestine are planned throughout the week. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/16/headlines/protests_across_the_us_call_for_israel_to_end_its_siege_and_genocide_in_gaza
2023-10-13 Competing Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine Demonstrations Raise Tensions on College Campuses Here in New York, Columbia University closed its campus to the public Thursday in response to two separate demonstrations led by pro-Palestine and pro-Israel student groups. In Massachusetts, the names and photos of several Harvard students who signed a pro-Palestinian letter were displayed on a billboard truck on campus Wednesday with a banner that read “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.” https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/13/headlines/competing_pro_israel_and_pro_palestine_demonstrations_raise_tensions_on_college_campuses
2023-10-12 Colleges students across the U.S. clash over Israel-Palestine conflict The Israel-Hamas war has caused protests across the U.S. at various college campuses, some holding competing protests. The protests come as some universities are coming under fire for releasing statements showing support for either side. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiLJPkHFkYI
2023-11-20 US Marine Corps Officer Scott Ritter EXPOSES TERRIFYING TRUTH About Israel Eye-opening exploration as a US Marine Corps Officer, Scott Ritter, reveals shocking truths about the war in Israel. This video delves into the complex dynamics of life in Gaza, Israeli security setbacks, and the intricate geopolitics shaping the rise of Hamas. We uncover the unintended consequences of Israel’s strategies, the intense PLO vs. Hamas conflict, and the escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. Witness how these events intertwine with US strategies in the Middle East and contemplate the future of this volatile region. Scott Ritter’s insights provide a stark reminder of the realities of modern warfare and intelligence. #usnavy #israel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD5Lymz9Ci0
2023-11-03 Palestine, Israel, and the US war machine w/Dennis Kucinich | The Chris Hedges Report Israel’s ongoing massacre in Gaza has stirred worldwide calls for a ceasefire to stop the genocide unfolding. The United States has been no exception, which countless demonstrators taking to the streets in recent weeks. That hasn’t stopped the US government from backing Israel’s horrific campaign in Gaza to the hilt. The White House has refused to heed calls for a ceasefire and even deployed two aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean—not to defend Palestinians, but to dissuade regional powers from joining the fray to defend Palestine. As the possibility of a regional war looms with the entry of Yemen into the conflict, many wonder how the US might respond to such a scenario. Former US Congressperson Dennis Kucinich joins The Chris Hedges Report for a discussion on the US war machine—what it is, how it works, and how it might respond should the war in Palestine spiral into a wider conflagration.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTP-W9VoFKA
2023-11-03 Hamas Is Underground So Why Is Israel Leveling Gaza Buildings? Israel insists it is leveling buildings in Gaza in an effort to “root out” Hamas. Anyone with even a cursory understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict knows, however, that Hamas keeps most of its activities hidden well underground in tunnels, so what’s the real reason for the carpet bombing campaign that has claimed thousands of civilians’ lives? Jimmy, along with The Convo Couch host Craig Jardula and Americans’ Comedian Kurt Metzger, discusses the possibility that Israel will use “bunker buster” bombs on Gaza. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE1h7WNrbgs&t=2s
2023-11-01 US Marine Corps Officer Scott Ritter Reveals TRUTH About Israel War Scott Ritter is a former United Nations Weapons Inspector and US Marine Corps Intelligence Officer with extensive knowledge of Israel War. Today we explore the problems with the Israel Hamas War and share insights into how it could end soon.
0:00 – Intro
2:37 – Welcome Scott Ritter
3:19 – The Truth About Life in Gaza
7:44 – How Israel Security Plans Failed
11:22 – How Israel’s Government Helped Create Hamas
2023-10-10 If Americans Knew (The Truth About Israel/Palestine) Israeli airstrikes have also already made 187,500 Palestinians in Gaza homeless, internally displaced by the destruction of their homes. For many Gazans, this is a second, or third displacement, as the majority of Gaza residents are refugees from across Palestine. Most recently, the Israeli Defense Minister referred to Palestinians in Gaza as “human animals” and declared that in addition to cutting off any electricity, Israel would block access to food, water, or fuel to the more than 2 million Palestinians living there, more than half of which are children. These facts apprise us of the crux of the matter: Palestinians live and die at the whim of the Israeli state, which has worked toward our elimination as early as 1947. The threat that Gazans, entrapped in a tiny enclave ¼ the size of London, will die en masse as a result of the Israeli decision to disrupt access to basic human needs, illustrates exactly the massive power difference between the Palestinian resistance fighters and the state.https://cindysheehan.substack.com/p/if-americans-knew-the-truth-about
2023-10-09 The True Face of Israel Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant has announced a “complete siege” of all of Gaza in response to the Hamas attack on Saturday, justifying the deliberate targeting of civilians with siege warfare by the claim that Israel is at war with “human animals”. “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Gallant said Monday, adding, “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” So there you have it, folks: they’re attacking civilians, which is fine, because they’re not actually attacking human beings. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-true-face-of-israel
2023-05-02 The Critical State of Israel
0:00 Israel’s many issues
2:52 How ugly could Israel’s judicial reform crisis get?
11:11 Are Palestinian citizens of Israel really under “apartheid”?
18:10 The demographic and ideological sources of Israel’s instability
32:44 If the two-state solution is dead, now what?
43:40 How might an increasingly multipolar world affect Israel?
59:22 Why climate change makes Israel-Palestine even more dire
2023-10-12 Israeli Intelligence Suddenly Knows Exactly Where Hamas Is When you live under an empire of lies you’ll be asked to believe a lot of very stupid things. The dumbest thing we’re being asked to believe this week is that Israel’s intelligence services are simultaneously so incompetent that Saturday’s Hamas attack took them completely by surprise, but also so competent that all the buildings they’re destroying with their relentless bombing campaign on Gaza are directed solely at Hamas. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israeli-intelligence-suddenly-knows
2023-10-10 How Hamas duped Israel as it planned devastating attack A careful campaign of deception ensured Israel was caught off guard when the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas launched its devastating attack, enabling a force using bulldozers, hang gliders and motorbikes to take on the Middle East’s most powerful army.
Saturday’s assault, the worst breach in Israel’s defences since Arab armies waged war in 1973, followed two years of subterfuge by Hamas that involved keeping its military plans under wraps and convincing Israel it did not want a fight. While Israel was led to believe it was containing a war-weary Hamas by providing economic incentives to Gazan workers, the group’s fighters were being trained and drilled, often in plain sight, a source close to Hamas said.
In one of the most striking elements of their preparations, Hamas constructed a mock Israeli settlement in Gaza where they practiced a military landing and trained to storm it, the source close to Hamas said, adding they even made videos of the maneuvers. “Israel surely saw them but they were convinced that Hamas wasn’t keen on getting into a confrontation,” the source said. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-israel-was-duped-hamas-planned-devastating-assault-2023-10-08/
2023-10-08 Hamas Attack Raises Questions Over an Israeli Intelligence Failure American officials said Hamas had achieved a complete tactical surprise, reflected in a death toll of at least 700 Israelis. The Palestinian militant group sent hundreds of fighters through breached walls, breaking through with bulldozers and then killing civilians and soldiers in shooting sprees that went on for hours.
None of Israel’s intelligence services had specific warning that Hamas was preparing a sophisticated attack that required coordinated land, air and sea strikes, according to an Israeli defense official and American officials. While the attack also surprised many Western intelligence agencies, they do not track Hamas’s activities as closely as Israel or Egypt do. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/08/us/politics/israel-hamas-intelligence.html
2023-10-07 How did Israel and the U.S. miss what Hamas was planning? “This is Israel’s 9/11. Not since 1973 has there been such a catastrophic intelligence failure in Israel,” said one U.S. intelligence expert. A senior U.S. official said, “We were not tracking this.” The Hamas assault by air, land and sea also raised questions about why U.S. intelligence agencies apparently did not see it coming, experts and former intelligence officials said. U.S. officials said that if the Israelis knew an attack was imminent, they did not share it with Washington.
“This is Israel’s 9/11. Not since 1973 has there been such a catastrophic intelligence failure in Israel,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, who worked for 26 years for the CIA, where he specialized in counterterrorism, the Middle East and South Asia. Israel’s intelligence services have long been seen as some of the most capable in the world, with an array of human intelligence, eavesdropping and other technical means blanketing the West Bank and Gaza. “It is almost inconceivable how they missed this,” said Polymeropoulos. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/israel-us-miss-hamas-was-planning-rcna119335
2023-10-31 For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group. The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.
Additionally, since 2014, Netanyahu-led governments have practically turned a blind eye to the incendiary balloons and rocket fire from Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel has allowed suitcases holding millions in Qatari cash to enter Gaza through its crossings since 2018, in order to maintain its fragile ceasefire with the Hamas rulers of the Strip. Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.
According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
2023-10-24 THE MYSTERIES OF OCTOBER 7 Gaza and Hamas—the Islamist group that has led the territory since 2007—remain murky, confounding subjects today. Why did Hamas stage an early morning raid on October 7 in what turned out to be a series of unguarded kibbutzim in Israel south? Why were only a few Israelis Israeli soldiers on duty that morning?
We in the media do not know the full story. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is saying nothing about Israel’s failure to defend its citizens, although a number of leading generals have publicly apologized for their lapse, and Hamas has insisted that the mission it authorized was solely aimed at the capture of a few Israeli soldiers to be used for a possible prisoner exchange. Hamas operatives began the operation early on the morning of October 7 by blowing up the unguarded fences separating Gaza from Israel.
Hamas also has claimed that the bulk of the mayhem was caused by other terrorist groups and the aggrieved citizens of Gaza who flooded across the downed gates and fences, with no Israeli soldiers to stop them. It has been widely reported that Israel, at the instigation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was financing Hamas, via funds supplied by Qatar, in the belief that a strong Hamas would make a two-state solution, long sought by some in Washington, unlikely.
One serious complication that has not been publicly discussed since the October 7 attack is that the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, were not the sole attackers or collectors of hostages on a day in which there was no Israeli Army presence in the kibbutzim and villages under attack for at least eight hours.
“We know,” the American official told me, “that the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade participated.” He was referring to a coalition of Palestinian armed groups that have been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, the European Union, and a number of other nations worldwide. (Hamas has also been designated a terrorist group by the US and the EU.)
“The goal of the Palestinian operation,” he told me, “was exactly what happened—a shocking and inspired military operation that humiliated the Israelis and shook them to their foundation. Hamas military commanders had a map of bases [inside Israel] and wanted to take computer servers with all of the potentially compromising information they contained and would probably have sent them to Iran for analysis.”
Another Hamas goal, I was told, was to take Israeli Army prisoners and force Israel to trade for the release of thousands of Gazan and West Bank prisoners, break the siege of Gaza, and continue to compete with the Palestine Liberation Organization that was initially designated by the 1993 Oslo Accords to control the West Bank and Gaza. “A further bonus of a successful attack,” the expert said, “would have been to stifle the ongoing normalization talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel.”
The expert said that the critical issue for the Israeli military today, in the view of the Hamas leadership, is that a planned Hamas commando raid aimed at seizing IDF soldiers “turned into a prison break.” News of the unchallenged penetration of the initial Hamas attackers quickly spread throughout Gaza, and spontaneous groups of Gazans and hastily formed martyr hit teams poured through the downed fence. The result, said the expert, turned “the operation into a catastrophic success.”
There are scores of videos providing evidence of what clearly was a fly-by-night attack that succeeded because of a stunning Israeli Defense Force failure that thus far has not led to the punishment of a single Israeli army officer. That possibility—that the initially limited Hamas goal turned into the horror that took place essentially because of the IDF failure—has yet to be acknowledged by Israel’s military and political leadership. (for full article will require membership) https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/the-mysteries-of-october-7?
2023-10-09 Wikileaks Cable = Hamas and IDF Remember when Wikileaks revealed cables indicating Hamas might be working with/for the IDF to further Israel state policy? 👇🏻
HAMAS–RELATIONSHIP WITH ISRAEL
——————————-
20. MANY WEST BANKERS BELIEVE THAT ISRAEL ACTIVELY SUPPORTS HAMAS IN AN EFFORT TO DIVIDE PALESTINIANS AND WEAKEN THE INTIFADA. THEY POINT TO THE FACT THAT HAMAS OPERATIVES ACT BOLDLY IN DISTRIBUTING THEIR LEAFLETS. SHOPKEEPERS IN JERUSALEM AND NABLUS REPORT THAT, WHEREAS UNLU LEAFLETS ARE DISTRIBUTED SECRETLY FOR FEAR OF ISRAELI SECURITY FORCES, HAMAS OPERATIVES WALK INTO SHOPS AND PRESENT THEIR LEAFLETS DIRECTLY TO THE OWNERS. MAYOR FREIJ OF BETHLEHEM CLAIMS THAT MEMBERS OF SOME WELL KNOWN FAMILIES WHO COLLABORATE WITH ISRAELI OFFICIALS HAVE BEEN SEEN AMONG HAMAS STREET GANGS IN BETHLEHEM. FURTHERMORE, DESPITE MASSIVE ARRESTS–AND THE PUBLIC IDENTITY OF MANY MB LEADERS–RELATIVELY FEW HAMAS LEADERS HAVE BEEN DETAINED. IN RECENT WEEKS, FUNDAMENTALIST LEADERS HAVE GIVEN INTERVIEWS TO ISRAELI PUBLICATIONS THAT WOULD HAVE LANDED SECULARIST LEADERS IN DETENTION. WE BELIEVE THAT, WHILE ISRAELI FORCES MAY BE TURNING A BLIND EYE TO HAMAS ACTIVITIES, THERE IS INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO CONCLUDE THAT ISRAEL IS PROVIDING ACTIVE SUPPORT. Source: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/88JERUSALEM3168_a.html#efmDRFDi0
EARLIER IN THE UPRISING, SOME ISRAELI OCCUPATION OFFICIALS INDICATED THAT HAMAS SERVED AS A USEFUL COUNTER TO THE SECULAR ORGANIZATIONS LOYAL TO THE PLO. A NUMBER OF PALESTINIANS LOYAL TO THE PLO ALLEGED THAT THE IDF WAS USING HAMAS FOR SUCH A PURPOSE. Source: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/89TELAVIV14032_a.html#efmAqcAue
Remember when Wikileaks revealed cables indicating Hamas might be working with/for the IDF to further Israel state policy? 👇🏻
HAMAS–RELATIONSHIP WITH ISRAEL ——————————- 20. MANY WEST BANKERS BELIEVE THAT ISRAEL ACTIVELY SUPPORTS HAMAS IN AN EFFORT TO… pic.twitter.com/obMUNKIPAz
— Zach Vorhies / Google Whistleblower (@Perpetualmaniac) October 9, 2023
2014-07-30 How Israel helped create Hamas It also obscures Hamas’s curious history. To a certain degree, the Islamist organization whose militant wing has rained rockets on Israel the past few weeks has the Jewish state to thank for its existence. Hamas launched in 1988 in Gaza at the time of the first intifada, or uprising, with a charter now infamous for its anti-Semitism and its refusal to accept the existence of the Israeli state. But for more than a decade prior, Israeli authorities actively enabled its rise.
At the time, Israel’s main enemy was the late Yasser Arafat’s Fatah party, which formed the heart of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Fatah was secular and cast in the mold of other revolutionary, leftist guerrilla movements waging insurgencies elsewhere in the world during the Cold War. The PLO carried out assassinations and kidnappings and, although recognized by neighboring Arab states, was considered a terrorist organization by Israel; PLO operatives in the occupied territories faced brutal repression at the hands of the Israeli security state.
Meanwhile, the activities of Islamists affiliated with Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood were allowed in the open in Gaza — a radical departure from when the Strip was administered by the secular-nationalist Egyptian government of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Egypt lost control of Gaza to Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, which saw Israel also seize the West Bank. In 1966, Nasser had executed Sayyid Qutb, one of the Brotherhood’s leading intellectuals. The Israelis saw Qutb’s adherents in the Palestinian territories, including the wheelchair-bound Sheik Ahmed Yassin, as a useful counterweight to Arafat’s PLO.
“When I look back at the chain of events I think we made a mistake,” one Israeli official who had worked in Gaza in the 1980s said in a 2009 interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Andrew Higgins. “But at the time nobody thought about the possible results.”
Yassin’s Mujama would become Hamas, which, it can be argued, was Israel’s Taliban: an Islamist group whose antecedents had been laid down by the West in a battle against a leftist enemy. Israel jailed Yassin in 1984 on a 12-year sentence after the discovery of hidden arms caches, but he was released a year later. The Israelis must have been more worried about other enemies. Eventually, the tables turned. After the 1993 Oslo accords, Israel’s formal recognition of the PLO and the start of what we now know as the peace process, Hamas was the Israelis’ bete noire. Hamas refused to accept Israel or renounce violence and became perhaps the leading institution of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation, which, far beyond religious ideology, is the main reason for its continued popularity among Palestinians.
Yassin was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2004. In 2007, after a legitimate Hamas election victory that rankled both the West and Fatah, the Islamist group took over Gaza — a move that led to strict Israeli blockades and the grinding cycle of conflict that is once more repeating itself. https://archive.ph/oZ5oO#selection-449.0-449.30
2014-07-17 Pounding Gaza – World’s Largest Open-Air Prison An already troubling humanitarian crisis has intensified with the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, an area about twice the size of the District of Columbia that has about three times as many residents (1.8 million). Israel has been using its highly touted precise missiles to hit numerous targets. This collective punishment, a war crime per se, wreaks havoc on civilians and their life-sustaining infrastructure.
That is only part of the continuing war against Gaza. For years, Israel has maintained a siege/blockade, restricting the importation of adequate food, medicine, water, electricity, construction materials and other necessities needed by the refugees in the world’s largest open-air prison. These daily deprivations have taken a deadly toll. Fatalities, sicknesses, untreated cancers have resulted. Half of the children are seriously malnourished due to the dire poverty associated with the Israeli air, land and sea encirclement. (There are even harsh restrictions on Gazan fishermen.)
Israel’s complex association with Hamas, the elected governors of Gaza, is rarely reported or discussed. First, the Israelis, with U.S. support, helped start Hamas over thirty years ago to counteract the influence of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) under Yasser Arafat. More recently, Israeli officials have been in regular communication with Hamas over the administrative details of the selective siege, custom duties and transfers of tax revenues by Israeli to pay for Hamas’ 40,000 public employees.
Even when open hostilities commence, the two adversaries remain in close communication to sense how far each can go, given their own internal political struggles, in the ensuing “lopsided battle,” as the New York Times calls it. Without any army, air force or navy, the Gazans have very limited military options. The Israelis have unlimited military options. The military invasion of the Palestinian enclave may unleash forces that may be uncontrollable and move Israel into a civilian catastrophe starting with no drinkable water and other human disasters. In recent years, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have suffered at least four hundred times more civilian causalities – both fatalities and injuries—than Hamas has inflicted on the Israelis whose immensely powerful forces occupy, colonize, brutalize, and loot the land, water and people of the remaining 22% of Palestine that has not already been taken by Israel. https://nader.org/2014/07/17/pounding-gaza-worlds-largest-open-air-prison/
2009-01-24 How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with “Yassins,” primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.
Last Saturday, after 22 days of war, Israel announced a halt to the offensive. The assault was aimed at stopping Hamas rockets from falling on Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hailed a “determined and successful military operation.” More than 1,200 Palestinians had died. Thirteen Israelis were also killed.
Since then, Hamas leaders have emerged from hiding and reasserted their control over Gaza. Egyptian-mediated talks aimed at a more durable truce are expected to start this weekend. President Barack Obama said this week that lasting calm “requires more than a long cease-fire” and depends on Israel and a future Palestinian state “living side by side in peace and security.”
A look at Israel’s decades-long dealings with Palestinian radicals — including some little-known attempts to cooperate with the Islamists — reveals a catalog of unintended and often perilous consequences. Time and again, Israel’s efforts to find a pliant Palestinian partner that is both credible with Palestinians and willing to eschew violence, have backfired. Would-be partners have turned into foes or lost the support of their people. https://archive.ph/jxzhP#selection-1867.5-1867.37
2004-09-13 Spotlight: Hamas Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the creation of an Islamic state in mandatory Palestine. The group is unlikely to moderate its platform or meaningfully participate in the peace process in the foreseeable future. Consequently, Hamas will continue to be a well-positioned obstacle to a lasting settlement in Palestine, and by extension, a danger to American interests in the region and beyond. The Israeli assassinations of senior leaders has both enraged and handicapped Hamas. Nevertheless, as two recent suicide bombings in Beersheba suggest, Hamas remains operationally resilient and determined to make its presence felt as Israel contemplates its “unilateral disengagement” from Gaza and areas of the West Bank. The popularity of Hamas among Palestinians continues to grow, and it is unclear how Israel ’s planned withdrawal will impact its base of support.
Hamas coalesced as an organization in 1987 during the first Intifada. Its birth posed a challenge to Israeli security as well as to the primacy of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in the Palestinian national movement. Hamas established itself as a militant and Islamic alternative to the PLO, expanding into the void left by the expulsion of the PLO from Lebanon, its relative weakness in the occupied territories, and its subsequent participation in the peace process.
Hamas is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement. The Islamic context of its platform has two important implications. First, it provides Hamas with an organic connection to Palestinian society that is not necessarily available to its secular counterparts. Second, it casts the struggle against Israel as jihad (holy struggle), insinuating a connection between the destruction of the Israeli state and religious devotion. This has locked Hamas into a doctrinal position that is difficult to modify for other than tactical reasons. https://www.pogo.org/investigations/spotlight-hamas
2024-07-09 Eyewitness To Genocide in Palestine Today on the Show: The Haiti action center protests the reoccupation of Haiti by US supported and armed Kenyan troupes. Also, Eyewitness to Genocide in Palestine; bay-area activists bare witness to the killing fields https://kpfa.org/episode/flashpoints-july-9-2024/
2024-08-22 “So Horrific”: Doctor Recounts Treating Patients in Gaza Injured in Massacres Enabled by U.S. Bombs Tanya Haj-Hassan is a pediatric intensive care physician who has volunteered in Gaza multiple times over the past 10 months. She joins us to recount what she witnessed there and to explain why she is calling for an end to U.S. support for the Israeli military and the resumption of comprehensive humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Over the course of Israel’s assault, Haj-Hassan has treated victims of “massacre after massacre,” with injuries and casualties “enabled by American bombs.” She joins demands for Palestinian voices to be allowed to address the convention onstage and argues that Democratic Party leadership’s refusal is part of a systematic “process of dehumanization” targeting Palestinians. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsmOCcyl8Gs
2024-08-15 As Gaza Death Toll Tops 40,000, Congress Urged to Block New Weapons to Israel “U.S. arms transfers to Israel have fueled unimaginable suffering in Gaza, including staggering levels of civilian harm,” said one embargo advocate.
As the Palestinian death toll from Israel’s 314-day assault on Gaza passed 40,000—a figure Palestinian and United Nations officials say is made up of mostly women and children and is likely a vast undercount—human rights groups this week decried the Biden administration’s approval of $20 billion worth of new weapons for Israel and renewed pleas for Congress to block further arms transfers to the nation’s far-right government. https://www.commondreams.org/news/arms-embargo-israel-congress
2024-08-11 Palestinians Say US Responsible for Latest ‘Massacre’ of Children in Gaza The office of the Palestinian Authority’s president is holding the U.S. government responsible for a weekend bombing in Gaza that killed an estimated 100 people, including at least 11 children. The victims of the attack on the al-Tabin school were blown to ‘pieces,’ according to video evidence and on-the-ground reporting, when U.S.-provided missiles were fired on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City.
In the wake of the attack that stirred global outrage and condemnation Saturday, the Palestinian presidency’s spokesperson Nabih Abu Rudeineh condemned the massacre and said the PA held the Biden administration “responsible for the massacre due to its financial, military, and political support for Israel.”
Rudeineh demanded the U.S. pressure the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cease indiscriminate attacks that have left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians dead, wounded, and displaced over recent months. In addition, he said, the U.S. must conform to international law by ending its “blind support” to Israel “that leads to the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including children, women, and the elderly.”https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-responsible-for-gaza-massacre
2024–07-31 Unspeakable: We Are Swimming In A Pool of Blood Unimaginably, Gazans continue to endure the atrocities of a heedless Israel: Strikes on schools that kill mostly children, polio-tainted sewage “everywhere,” catastrophic hunger, universal trauma, gutted hospitals, shattered families seeking small bodies rotting under rubble. To many, the ongoing savagery through 10 bloody months marks the moral deterioration of an Occupation increasingly acquiescent to the concept “there are certain groups of people who can be killed…They are not like us.”
While it’s tumbled off most front pages, Israel’s blithe defiance of both world censure and ICJ rulings goes on apace. This week, the U.N’s largest body of human rights experts hailed an earlier “historic” ICJ finding that Israel’s Occupation is “unlawful” and must end; they declared Palestinians’ right to “freedom from foreign military occupation, racial segregation and apartheid is absolutely non-negotiable,” adding, “Israel must stop acting as if uniquely above the law.” But that shift feels woefully distant in the wake of Netanyahu’s chilling, rabid avowal before Congress to press on until “total victory.”
Meanwhile, 86% of Gaza is under ever-unrolling evacuation orders, with thousands perpetually forced to uproot; 96% of Gazans face acute food shortages, with communities “wasting away” and children “sleeping hungry” while often going up to 3 days without food; and public health experts cite the “ticking time bomb” of a polio epidemic from overflowing sewage – “The smell is killing us, we are begging to be saved from the sewers” – along with soaring cases of hepatitis, dysentery, gastrointestinal disease and skin infections. https://www.commondreams.org/further/unspeakable-we-are-swimming-in-a-pool-of-blood
2024-07-31 Report From Gaza Aid Agencies Shows ‘Catastrophe on an Entirely New Level’ Israeli attacks on relief workers and designated “humanitarian zones” in Gaza, as well its tight control over borders and repeated evacuation orders, have devastated the ability to deliver much-needed aid to residents of the beleaguered strip, 20 non-governmental organizations warned in a report released Tuesday.
Israel has now issued “evacuation orders” that cover 86% of the Gaza Strip’s land area, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This means that Gaza’s 2.1 million people are now expected to squeeze into only 14% of Gaza’s 141 square miles.
“We are doing everything we can to save children’s lives in Gaza, but our job becomes more and more challenging by the day,” said Jeremy Stoner, the Middle East regional director of Save the Children, one of the organizations behind the report. “Forcibly displacing civilians into areas that cannot accommodate them is causing a humanitarian catastrophe on an entirely new level.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/aid-agencies-gaza-catastrophe
2024-7-30 Whoever Wins in November, Our Movement Must Make Palestine Nonnegotiable While the world has become transfixed by the unfolding political crisis in the U.S. presidential election, Israel continues to lay waste to Gaza, expand settlements in the West Bank and massacre Palestinians in skyrocketing numbers.
In this exclusive interview for Truthout, Eman Abdelhadi — an academic, activist and writer who thinks at the intersection of gender, sexuality, religion and politics — discusses the ceasefire negotiations, Israel’s ongoing genocidal war, the Palestinian resistance, the upcoming U.S. presidential elections and the tasks of the Palestine solidarity movement.https://truthout.org/articles/whoever-wins-in-november-our-movement-must-make-palestine-nonnegotiable/
2024-06-15 America Crawls Further Into Global Isolation by Backing Gaza Genocide Aside from supplying Israel with the needed weapons to conduct its crimes in the Strip, the U.S. has gone as far as threatening international legal and political bodies that tried to hold Israel accountable, thus ending the “extermination” of Palestinians in Gaza —a term used on May 20 by the International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan.
Washington continues to behave in such a way despite the fact that Israel refuses to concede to a single U.S. demand or expectation regarding peace and negotiations. Indeed, Israel’s political discourse is deeply invested in the language of genocide, while the Israeli military is actively carrying it out.
The West Bank, where the bulk of the Palestinian state would supposedly take shape, is experiencing its own upheaval. Violence there is unprecedented compared to recent decades. Across the West Bank, tens of thousands of illegal settlers are torching homes, cars, and attacking Palestinians with total impunity, in fact, often alongside the Israeli army.
Yet, despite the occasional gentle reprimand and ineffectual sanctions on a few settlers, Washington continues to stand firmly by its declared policy regarding the two states and all the rest. Not a single mainstream Israeli politician, certainly not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government of extremists, is willing to entertain the very thought. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/us-isolation-gaza
2024-06-14 End the Israeli War on Gaza and Palestine Eight months ago, Israel began a genocidal war against Gaza and the further increase of repression in the West Bank including thousands imprisoned, and expansion of the settlements there. Torture is commonplace of Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank and especially of prisoners in Gaza. 90 per cent of the population of Gaza is hungry, famine is occurring. Besides the 15,000 children killed, almost all Palestinian babies and young children are likely to have permanent health problems if they live from Israel’s systematically starving them and destroying the health care and educational system. Over a million Palestinians were forced to move to Rafah in southern Gaza fleeing their homes beginning May 6th. A million Palestinians in Rafah have been forced to flee again, under the threat of immediate murder by Israel, with no safe place to go to, nor to a place that can sustain life.
2024-04-12 ‘Genocidal Actions’ Persist in Gaza as Israel Blocks Aid and US Weapons Flow A week after Israeli officials promised the Biden administration they would open a border crossing and a port to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, relief organizations and the United Nations reported Friday that life-saving supplies are still being blocked, and warned that the White House must take more decisive action to force Israel to stop starving Palestinians.
The U.N. reported that just 212 aid trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday, far lower than the 467 reported by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who promised to “flood Gaza with aid” after a tense phone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden last Thursday.
But as The Guardian reported Friday, the Ashdod port has not been opened yet, and instead of opening the Erez crossing last Sunday as promised, Israel has opened another crossing into northern Gaza but has not yet allowed U.N. agencies to use it. https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-still-blocking-aid
2024-04-30 The student movement for justice in Palestine is exploding peacefully across America Today on the Show: The student movement for justice in Palestine is exploding peacefully across America, despite a violent police crack down on several campuses; we’ll feature live reports from New York City and Los Angles. Also Ziad Abbas is back for a frontline update on the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the west bank: And we’ll also have a rafa update on the threatened israeli invasion https://kpfa.org/episode/flashpoints-april-30-2024/
2024-04-07 World Marks Six Months of ‘Relentless Death and Destruction’ in Gaza Peace and human rights advocates on Sunday renewed calls for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and an increase in lifesaving humanitarian aid for its starving people as the embattled enclave marked six months since the start of Israel’s genocidal retaliation for the October 7 attacks.
In six months of bombardment by air, land, and sea following the Hamas-led attacks that killed more than 1,100 people in Israel—with over 240 people taken hostage—Israeli forces have killed or maimed more than 116,000 Palestinians, including people believed to be dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings. Gazans—especially children—are starving to death as Israel severely restricts the amount of aid allowed to enter the strip. Women are “burying their newborns every day” as they have nothing to feed them.
Around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced, perhaps permanently, in what many Palestinians and international observers are calling a new Nakba, the ethnic cleansing catastrophe perpetrated by Jewish militants during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Gaza’s infrastructure has been obliterated, with reconstruction expected to cost $18.5 billion, or nearly Palestine’s entire annual gross domestic product. https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-genocide-2667714326
2024-03-19 Cornel West slams Joe Biden’s Gaza policy: ‘Most of our politicians are cowards’ | Real Talk Online Our guest this week is US independent presidential candidate Cornel West, and we ask him why he called Joe Biden a “war criminal”. He also explains why he feels Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a “gangster”, why Biden’s Gaza policy makes him a “hypocrite” and how Arab-American voters will turn their backs on him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRz5Bjv9KKM
2024-03-22 On the Blood of the Murdered Mothers and Children Cruelty upon cruelty: Today is Mother’s Day in Gaza, and across the Arab world. Still the slaughter, the wounding, trauma, hunger go on. Israel has killed over 12,000 Palestinian children, with many thousands more injured or orphaned ; each day, 37 more mothers are killed. Those who survive battle to keep their children alive, and mourn those they’ve lost. “The children are always ours,” said James Baldwin. But in Gaza, says one mother, “Today, like all mothers, I feel broken.”
This year, the Mother’s Day marked each March 21 is, for Gazans, a bloody travesty. The numbers still numb: More than 31,988 people have been killed in the ongoing) Israeli assault; another 74,188 have been injured, including over 32,800 children and 25,000 women, and 25,000 children have lost one or both parents. https://www.commondreams.org/further/on-the-blood-of-the-murdered-mothers-and-children
2024-03-12 We Need Feminism Without Condescension to Respond With Clarity to the Gaza Genocide I looked up the definition of “condescending” for this, just to see if it would provide anything I didn’t already know. What we immediately assume the word to mean if we have heard it before is something like patronizing, or talking down to people. But what is also included in the definition of condescension is “disdain.” Disdain is the feeling that someone is unworthy of your respect.
We know how mainstream Western feminists talk about Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim women. Examples include insisting, either directly or indirectly, that war and occupation will help them somehow or that their oppressors treat women better than they do. “Feminists” like Tammy Duckworth or Nancy Pelosi will always agree that Israel treats women great, as if Palestinian women who are murdered and abused at the hands of Israel don’t exist at all. The subtext of this being that Palestinian women couldn’t possibly know what’s good for them. That’s disdain. That’s not feminism.
Having a perspective on feminism that rejects condescension allows us to avoid the same pitfalls so many people didn’t when the U.S. was talking about invading Afghanistan under the guise of “liberating women.”
When The New York Times came out with a story about mass rape on October 7, we were able to ask, “Where is your evidence?” And we were right to ask those questions, right? And we should be asking a lot of questions when the intent of the story was to galvanize feminists in the West to support the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. They didn’t need evidence. They just needed Western women to consent to dropping bombs on Palestinian women to exact revenge for something that they completely made up. It demanded we value Israeli women over Palestinian women because that’s what they do.
Feminism that is free of condescension allows us to act with clarity in these moments. It allows us to act with humility. It allows us to be in genuine solidarity with women all over the world and not just in our hyper-specific contexts https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/feminism-without-condescension-gaza
2024-03-08 With Genocide in Gaza, the Word ‘Never’ Has Been Stripped From ‘Never Again’ The richest, most powerful countries in the Western world, those who believe themselves to be the keepers of the flame of the modern world’s commitment to democracy and human rights, are openly financing and applauding Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Gaza strip has been turned into a concentration camp. Those who have not already been killed are being starved to death. Almost the entire population of Gaza has been displaced. Their homes, hospitals, universities, museums, and infrastructure of every kind has been reduced to rubble. Their children have been murdered. Their past has been vaporized. Their future is hard to see.
Even though the highest court in the world believes that almost every indicator seems to meet the legal definition of genocide, IDF soldiers continue to put out their mocking “victory videos” celebrating what almost looks like fiendish rituals. They believe that there is no power in the world that will hold them to account. But they are wrong. They and their children’s children will be haunted by what they have done. They will have to live with the loathing and the abhorrence the world feels for them. And hopefully one day everybody – on all sides of this conflict – who has committed war crimes will be tried and punished for them, keeping in mind that there is no equivalence between crimes committed while resisting Apartheid and Occupation, and crimes committed while enforcing them. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/genocide-gaza-never-again
2024-03-07 Media Malpractice: Blacking Out Genocide and Disenfranchising Palestinian Pain America’s corporate media serves as a key cog in the machinery of genocide.
Rather than providing the kind of objective, fact-based reporting integral to an informed citizenry, our mainstream press bombards us with explicit and implicit biases, false narratives, dehumanization, and misdirection, serving to stifle public dissent and justify, rationalize, and conceal the systematic oppression and extermination of the people of Gaza.
As dependable propaganda tools for Israel’s aggression, our news censors truth not only by what they choose to cover and how they spin it—but what they deliberately omit. This orchestrated disinformation campaign helps ensure the ongoing and unconditional support of the U.S. government and its continued role as Israel’s dutiful genocidal benefactor.https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/media-malpractice-gaza-genocide
2024-03-06 Why Biden is hiding Biden’s team has taken to hosting smaller events and keeping locations a secret until the President arrives, lest he be heckled by pro-Palestinian protesters — and they’re reportedly considering hiring a private company to screen attendees ahead of a major fundraiser this month.
The facade of unquestioning U.S. support for the Israeli government is crumbling, thanks in large part to the immense pressure being exerted by the Palestine solidarity movement. Biden knows U.S. complicity in the Gaza genocide could cost him the 2024 election, and he’s willing to do just about anything to save face — except cut off the flow of U.S. dollars to Israel’s genocidal military. https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2024/03/06/why-biden-is-hiding/
2024-02-08 Instead of Diplomacy and Peace, US Chooses to Back Genocide and War The horror Americans feel at the plight of people in Gaza and the U.S. role in it is a shocking new low in this disconnect between the humanity of ordinary Americans and the insatiable ambitions of their undemocratic leaders.
At the same time, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been touring the shrinking number of capitals in the region where leaders will still talk to him, playing the United States’ traditional role as a dishonest broker between Israel and its neighbors, in reality partnering with Israel to offer the Palestinians impossible, virtually suicidal terms for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The position of the United States and Israel today is that ending a massacre that has already killed more than 27,700 people is not a serious option, even after the International Court of Justice has ruled it a plausible case of genocide under the Genocide Convention. Raphael Lemkin, the Polish holocaust survivor who coined the term genocide and drafted the Genocide Convention from his adopted home in New York City, must be turning in his grave in Mount Hebron Cemetery.
The United States’ support for Israel’s genocidal policies now goes way beyond Palestine, with the U.S. expansion of the war to Iraq, Syria, and Yemen to punish other countries and forces in the region for intervening to defend or support the Palestinians. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/genocide-ceasefire-war-middle-east
2024-02-08 Expanded Rafah Assault Would Be ‘Stain on Israel’ and Its Backers: Refugee Group Accusing Israel of waging war on a “gigantic refugee camp” where more than 1 million Palestinians have moved to escape air and ground attacks over the last four months, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council on Thursday called on the Israel Defense Forces to stop its shelling of the southern Gaza city of Rafah and halt further plans for an intensified assault.
With Israeli military officials reporting that they have not devised a plan to protect civilian lives in Rafah, NRC Secretary-General Jan Egeland said that a ground offensive in the city—previously designated a “safe zone” where more than 1 million Palestinians were told to go as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched air and ground attacks across the enclave—would be a “stain on both Israel and those nations providing arms,” including the United States.
“It would be a bloodbath, and among children and women, among the innocent,” Egeland told CNN, adding that reports of Hamas’ tactic of “blending in with civilians… does not in any way justify indiscriminate attacks.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-attacks-rafah
2024-02-05 Palestinian Groups Warn of Catastrophe as Israeli Forces Close in on Rafah A coalition of Palestinian human rights groups issued a joint statement Monday warning of impending catastrophe as Israel’s military signaled plans to expand its ground assault to Rafah, the small city near Gaza’s border with Egypt where hundreds of thousands of people have sought refuge from Israeli bombs. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan, and Al-Haq appealed to the international community to intervene and prevent an attack on Rafah, warning that an Israeli incursion “would significantly exacerbate the ongoing genocidal acts perpetrated by the Israeli military and authorities against the Palestinian population in Gaza and blatantly violates the provisional measures order issued by the International Court of Justice on 26 January 2024.”
Roughly half of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million is currently in Rafah, with many living in makeshift tents and struggling to survive without adequate food, medicine, and clean water. The city is so crowded that humanitarian relief officials have said there is just one toilet for every 500 people, conditions that are accelerating the spread of infectious diseases. https://www.commondreams.org/news/rafah-gaza-israel
2024-02-04 Death Toll Rises as Israel Continues to Target Homes, Besiege Hospitals According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 27,238 Palestinians have been killed, and 66,452 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7. Palestinian and international estimates say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.https://www.palestinechronicle.com/death-toll-rises-as-israel-continues-to-target-homes-besiege-hospitals/
2024-02-04 8,000 Missing, Presumed Dead – Gaza Genocide Death Toll Updated The Gaza Ministry of Health reported that the death toll resulting from the ongoing Israeli genocide on the enclave has climbed to 27,365, the majority of whom are women and children. The number of injured individuals has also surged to 66,663.
Medical sources further revealed that at least 8,000 people are unaccounted for, with many of them still trapped under rubble or scattered in the streets, as Israeli occupation forces are blocking access of ambulance crews and civil defense teams to many areas across the enclave.
Worse still, the aggression has resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly 2 million people from all of the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba. https://www.palestinechronicle.com/8000-missing-presumed-dead-gaza-genocide-death-toll-updated/
2024-01-24 In Gaza We Are Witnessing the 21st Century Version of How the West Was Won At least 25,000 Gazans, the vast majority children and women, have been killed or wounded. Twenty-five thousand is one-in-a-hundred Gazans and just over 20 times the number of Israelis killed in October. If we translate that proportionately into U.S. numbers, it’s the equivalent of more than 3 million U.S. people. Three percent of all Gazans have been either killed or wounded, and no end is in sight.
As a Jew, it is also painful to recognize, as I have for many years, that deep and profound Zionist racism lies at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and today’s genocidal war in Gaza. Many who escaped European pogroms, survived the Holocaust and Soviet antisemitism, and the banalities of American life carried Euro-American racism and colonial values with them to Israel and to the lands and people conquered in 1967.
That said, as Thomas Friedman has repeatedly written in The New York Times these last three months, there were other alternative responses that would have reinforced Israeli security and allowed it to retain the moral high ground. Instead, Netanyahu and the most right-wing and racist government in Israel’s history opted with to destroy Palestinian Gaza. Israeli General and War Cabinet member Yoav Gallant’s description of Palestinians as “human animals” announced the IDF’s racist, genocidal campaign. And as the South Africans documented in the Hague, similar expressions of racism and commitments to elimination have flowed from the mouths of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, other cabinet members, military leaders, and military units, as well as in the Israeli press.
One possible Netanyahu escape hatch is to widen the war in order to bring the U.S. more deeply into it on Israel’s behalf. This helps us to explain the drone assassination of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards intelligence chief in Damascus and the ultimatum Israel has delivered to the Lebanese government to contain Hezbollah in Lebanon, or else. Would that it was otherwise. President Joe Biden appears to be falling toward Netanyahu’s trap as our president widens the conflict with an unwinnable war against the Houthis in Yemen.
There is of course a way out: Biden could and should declare, “Enough!”, cease providing diplomatic cover in the United Nations and elsewhere for the IDF’s genocide, and end the deluge of weapons flowing to the IDF that makes the Gaza massacre possible. These and the firm resolve that constructive U.S.-Israel relations depend on an Israeli commitment to engage in credible diplomacy for either a two-state solution or another political framework that guarantees Palestinians national self-determination and the full exercise of their human rights. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/gaza-21st-century-colonialism
2024-01-15 Day 101: 24,100 martyred, 60,834 injured The Ministry of Health in Gaza reported on Monday that the death toll resulting from the Israeli genocidal war on the Strip has reached 24,100 martyrs and 60,834 injuries after 101 days of of war. This death toll, however, remains provisional, as thousands of Palestinians remain missing or under the rubble since October 7. The ministry stated that, in the past 24 hours, the Israeli occupation committed 12 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, resulting in 132 martyrs and 252 injuries.
2023-11-25 Justifying the Unjustifiable in Palestine Ralph is joined by author and human rights activist Miko Peled. They discuss the excuses that Israel uses to defend the atrocities they commit against Palestinians, and the truth behind all the propaganda.
Miko Peled is an author, writer, speaker, and human rights activist living in the United States. He is considered by many to be one of the clearest voices calling for justice in Palestine, support of the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and the creation of a single democracy with equal rights in all of historic Palestine. Mr. Peled was born and raised in Jerusalem. His grandfather was a signer of the Israeli Declaration of Independence and his father was a general in the 1967 war. https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/p/justifying-the-unjustifiable-in-palestine
2023-11-23 “Text-Book Case of Genocide”: Top U.N. Official Craig Mokhiber Resigns, Denounces Israeli Assault on Gaza Hear from Craig Mokhiber, a longtime international human rights lawyer, who previously served as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, on why he left his post while decrying U.N. inaction over what he calls a “text-book case of genocide” unfolding in Gaza. Mokhiber’s letter of resignation went viral last month. He spoke to Democracy Now! shortly after. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/23/dissenters
2023-11-21 Gregory Shupak on Gaza and Genocide US corporate news media’s initial response to Israel’s terror campaign against Palestinians, unleashed in the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas, was characterized largely by legitimization, a rhetorical blank check for whatever Israel might do. Israel, the New York Times editorial board said, “is determined to break the power of Hamas, and in that effort it deserves the support of the United States and the rest of the world.”
We’re more than three months into that “effort.” The death toll for Palestinians is, conservatively, as we record on January 18, over 24,000 people. The UN secretary general calls Gaza a “graveyard for children.” So how does the Times’ assertion that “what Israel is fighting to defend is a society that values human life and the rule of law” stand up now? We talk this week with media critic, activist, and professor Gregory Shupak. He teaches English and media studies at the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto and is author of The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media, from OR Books.
2023-11-20 Israel Vows Extermination, Ignoring World Demand to End Gaza Genocide, w/ As’ad Abukhalil The Israelis and their US sponsors have created a world where it’s normal to fire on hospitals, journalists and UN workers while killing 5,500 children in 45 days. Rania Khalek will be joined by Prof. As’ad Abukhalil for a special live episode of Dispatches to discuss the genocide in Gaza, western double standards and racism towards Palestinians, Israel’s bad propaganda, and growing resistance from the Middle East to the streets of the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsbwUT-p8vo
2023-11-20 ‘Nowhere Safe in Gaza’ as Evidence of Israeli War Crimes Mounts Amnesty International accused Israel of committing war crimes with two recent bombings of a church and a home in a refugee camp.
Palestinians in Gaza and human rights advocates on Monday pleaded with the international community to see the ongoing killing of thousands of people in the blockaded enclave for what it is—a massacre in which Israel has shown “a chilling indifference to the catastrophic toll on civilians,” according to Amnesty International, and has committed numerous war crimes as it bombards civilian targets. https://www.commondreams.org/news/amnesty-israel-war-crimes
2023-11-20 Slaughter in Gaza Continues on World Children’s Day As of Monday, World Children’s Day, Israel’s six-week war on the Gaza Strip has killed at least 5,500 Palestinian children and threatens the lives of about a million more who are enduring the Israeli bombardment and raids of homes, schools, and hospitals. https://www.commondreams.org/news/children-in-gaza
2023-11-19 Intensified Israeli Airstrikes Push Gaza Death Toll Over 13,000 Israeli airstrikes on Gaza reportedly killed more than 100 Palestinians on Saturday—including upwards of 80 people in the hard-hit Jabalia refugee camp—bringing the Palestinian death toll in the 44-day war to over 13,000 as the Biden administration refuted reports of a breakthrough in cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas. https://www.commondreams.org/news/jabalia-bombing
2023-11-10 No more genocide in Gaza. Ceasefire now! w/Medea Benjamin | The Chris Hedges Report Israel’s devastating campaign of collective punishment against the people of Gaza has aroused international condemnation and popular mobilization in support of a ceasefire and an end to Israeli Apartheid. This movement has also spread to the US, where over a hundred thousand people flocked to Washington DC on Nov. 4 for the largest pro-Palestine march in US history. Support for a ceasefire in Gaza is widespread among the US public—with more than half of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans alike in favor of such a measure, according to Data for Progress. Yet the federal government continues to largely ignore calls for a ceasefire and an end to US aid to Israel, with only a minority of House Democrats willing to back a resolution for a ceasefire. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, a key organization in the current Palestine solidarity movement, joins The Chris Hedges Report to explain what the movement is demanding from leaders in Washington to stop Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.
Editor’s note: The death toll in Gaza from Israel’s bombardment campaign has now exceeded 10,000—including over 4,000 children. On Nov. 9, the White House announced Israel would observe a daily four-hour pause in bombing to allow Palestinian civilians to flee from northern Gaza. The Biden Administration continues to resist calls for a full ceasefire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN5FgiwYGp0
2023-11-10 Over 50 Bodies Pulled From Rubble of Gaza School Bombed Amid Israeli Assault Palestinian civil defense officials said Friday that more than 50 bodies were recovered from the rubble of a school in northern Gaza where civilians were sheltering when it was destroyed during overnight Israeli bombardment.
Palestine’s WAFA News Agencyreported civil defense and ambulance rescue teams removed the blasted and crushed remains of victims of Thursday night’s missile and artillery strikes on the al-Buraq School in the al-Nasr neighborhood of Gaza City. The outlet said that most of those killed were women, children, and elders. https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-bombing-schools-and-hospitals
2023-11-10 Global Cease-Fire Call Grows as Israel Wages ‘War Against Hospitals’ in Gaza “Children in Gaza are hanging by a thread,” said a UNICEF director, calling for attacks on healthcare facilities to stop immediately and the urgent delivery of supplies to hospitals. As Israeli forces waged what al-Shifa’s director described as a “war against hospitals” in Gaza on Friday, United Nations officials, human rights groups, and doctors demanded the protection of medical facilities and renewed calls for a cease-fire.
“Half of the Gaza Strip’s 36 hospitals and two-thirds of its primary healthcare centers are not functioning at all,” World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the U.N. Security Council. “Those that are functioning are operating way beyond their capacities. The health system is on its knees, and yet somehow is continuing to deliver some lifesaving care.”
Since the Hamas-led attack on October 7 that killed around 1,200 Israelis, the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) assault of Gaza has devastated civilian infrastructure, displaced about 70% of the strip’s 2.3 million residents—about half of whom are children—and killed over 11,000 Palestinians, including more than 4,500 children. Tens of thousands more are injured or missing. https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-bombs-hospital-in-gaza
2023-10-28 Obscuring Mass Murder As Israeli siege warfare cuts Gazans off from both electricity and communications, we’re seeing the lights go out in Gaza in more ways than one, writes Caitlin Johnstone. “This information blackout risks providing cover for mass atrocities and contributing to impunity for human rights violations,” Human Rights Watch correctly notes. And I’m going to go ahead and say that’s probably not just a convenient coincidence for Israel. A genocidal massacre in total darkness works very much to the advantage of those doing the massacring. https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/28/obscuring-mass-murder/
2023-10-27 With 7,300+ Gazans Dead, Israeli PM Adviser Says ‘Tonight We Are Starting Payback’ One critic declared that “a horrific slaughter is happening in plain sight, while the world watches and the U.S. shamelessly aids and abets it!”
Clearly undeterred by the mounting civilian death toll and global calls for a cease-fire three weeks into Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Friday that “tonight we are starting payback.” Netanyahu adviser Mark Regev said: “You can be sure that if you’re in a Hamas bunker somewhere, if you’re in a Hamas tunnel, if you’re in a Hamas stronghold, then we’re gonna come and find you and we’re gonna eliminate that target. Hamas will pay for its crimes against humanity. Hamas will pay for slaughtering our people.”
After ordering about 1.1 million residents of northern Gaza to move south earlier this month, Israeli forces bombed a fleeing civilian convoy, killing 70 people, mostly women and children, according to Iyad Al-Buzm, a spokesperson for the strip’s Interior Ministry. “They’re taking revenge by killing our children,” said Wael Al-Dahdouh, the chief of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau, after he learned while reporting on-air Wednesday that his wife, son, daughter, and grandson were killed in an Israeli airstrike. “What happened is clear, this is a series of targeted attacks on children, women, and civilians.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-starting-payback
2024-10-24 Zionist think tank publishes blueprint for Palestinian genocide As Israel’s carpet bombing of Gaza entered its third week, leaving over 5000 dead and at least one million residents displaced, a Tel Aviv-based think tank published a blueprint for self-proclaimed Jewish state’s final solution.
In a white paper released over a week after the Hamas-led surprise attack on Israeli military bases and kibbutzes, The Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy outlined “a plan for resettlement and final rehabilitation in Egypt of the entire population of Gaza,” based on the “unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the entire Gaza Strip” that Israel’s latest assault on the besieged costal enclave provided.
Though Egypt has so far rejected Israeli pressure for a mass exodus of Gaza residents through the southern Rafah crossing, Weitman argued Cairo will welcome the mass exodus of Palestinian refugees as “an immediate stimulus” that will “provide a tremendous and immediate benefit to al-Sisi’s regime.”
Weitman claimed that Cairo’s major creditors — including France, Germany and Saudi Arabia — are likely to welcome a revitalized Egyptian economy, courtesy of “Israeli investment” in the Palestinians’ permanent removal. He surmizes that Western Europe will welcome “the transfer of the entire Gaza population to Egypt,” because it will significantly “reduce the risk of illegal immigration…a tremendous advantage.” Meanwhile, he expects Riyadh to embrace the move because the “evacuation of the Gaza Strip means the elimination of a significant ally of Iran.” https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/24/zionist-think-tank-palestinian-genocide/
2023-10-20 Gaza: The Combined West opts for genocide The grand strategy of Israel has been, like other settler-colonial states, incrementalism. Constant pressure on the Indigenous population. Constant encroachment. The use of the law to seize land. The assassination of leaders. The imprisonment of leaders. The suppression of cultural expression. Taking control of the means of survival and using that control. As Canada used the famines of the 1880s to force Indigenous peoples in the West onto reserves, at gunpoint and on pain of starvation, Israel uses aid to refugees whose access to land, water, electricity and food have been taken away (when Palestinians build infrastructure Israel bombs it) as a means of control. Periodically, there are crises – wars, uprisings – for Israel these crises are opportunities to increase the quotient of violence and get closer to the exterminist goal.
For Israel’s strategy to succeed there are a number of things that have to go well for them, and these things appear to have been going well for Israel since 1948. These are:
An unshakeable alliance with the dominant world power, the US (or rather, the US, UK, Europe, Canada, etc.). If US support were to wane for any reason, Israel might be forced to make concessions away from Netanyahu’s map.
Opponents must be divided with some of them working on Israel’s behalf (the Gulf monarchies, the Islamic State, Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority) and others mired in internal wars or invaded by the US (Iraq, Syria). Netanyahu’s map can only be made reality if Israel’s neighbors are disunited.
A “qualitative military advantage” over any of their possible rivals (in the past Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, notably Syria, in recent decades Hezbollah and Iran, and of course the Palestinians). Without military superiority, Netanyahu’s map remains a colonizer’s dream. https://justinpodur.substack.com/p/gaza-the-combined-west-opts-for-genocide
2023-10-19 Israel may kill “600,000 civilians,” says Israel ambassador Israel could kill as many as “600,000 civilians” in Gaza, the entity’s ambassador to the UK suggested on Tuesday. In a blood-curdling TV interview with celebrity presenter Piers Morgan, Tzipi Hotovely compared Israel’s attacks on Gaza to Britain’s attacks against German civilians during World War II.
“There were many, many civilians [that] got attacked from your attacks on German cities,” she said. “Dresden was a symbol, but you attacked Hamburg, you attacked other cities, and altogether it was over 600,000 civilian Germans that got killed.”
2023-10-19 Stop the Ethnic Cleansing & the Genocidal Israeli War on Palestine! India Stands WithPalestine We, the People of India, stand utterly shocked at the depravity & barbarism of the Israeli regime. The missile attack by the Israeli forces on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, which has killed more than a thousand innocent civilians, is more evidence of the genocidal intent of the fascist Neo-Nazi Zionist Netanyahu regime. Moreover, Israel has threatened the 1.1 Gazan population in the North with dire consequences if they do not move towards the South, even as they prepare to invade Gaza yet again. Sections of the Jewish Zionist radical leadership have further threatened the entire population if they do not move out to the Sinai desert in Egypt. The Palestinians know that once they leave their land, they will never be allowed to return back to their homeland and will be reduced to refugees.
2023-10-19 Gaza Death Toll Nears 3,800 as Israel’s Siege and Bombardment Enters 13th Day The human rights group Defense for Children International–Palestine reports Israeli strikes have, on average, killed one child every 15 minutes in Gaza since fighting escalated. This is Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a surgeon in Gaza City who narrowly survived Tuesday’s explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital, a blast Palestinians blame on Israel. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/19/headlines/gaza_death_toll_nears_3_800_as_israels_siege_and_bombardment_enters_13th_day
2023-10-18 U.N. Rapporteur for Palestine: Gaza War Risks “Largest Instance of Ethnic Cleansing” in Mideast History Francesca Albanese, United Nations special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, says the latest violence in Israel and Palestine has shocked even long-term observers of the conflict. She says Hamas atrocities cannot justify Israeli crimes in Gaza, where at least 3,300 people have been killed since Israel began pounding the territory with thousands of bombs. “What we are watching is a catastrophe of Olympian proportions,” says Albanese. “The only reasonable and necessary thing to ask for is an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, which of course must be also accompanied by the release of the civilian hostages that Hamas has taken.” She says the scale of Israel’s response cannot be considered proportional, and warns that the displacement of potentially millions of Palestinians from Gaza would constitute the “largest instance of ethnic cleansing in the history of this tormented land.” https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/18/un_special_rapporteur_palestine_albanese
2023-10-16 “This Is a Genocide”: Gazans Face Constant Israeli Attacks, a Closed Border as Essentials Run Out In Gaza, another half a million people, or one-quarter of its population, have fled their homes in the past few days, as Israel bombards the besieged enclave for the 10th straight day and amid an anticipated ground invasion. Last week, Israel ordered 1.1 million residents of northern Gaza to evacuate to the south of the territory, a virtually impossible task which would also constitute the war crime of forcible transfer. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/16/headlines/protests_across_the_us_call_for_israel_to_end_its_siege_and_genocide_in_gaza
Israel didn’t just cleanse Palestinians in 1948, when it was founded as a Western colonial project, and again under cover of a regional war in 1967. It also worked to ethnically cleanse Palestinians every day between those dates and afterwards. The aim was to move them off their historic lands, and either expel them beyond Israel’s new, expanded borders or concentrate them into small ghettoes inside those borders – as a holding measure until they could be expelled outside the borders. The ‘settler’ project, as we call it, is a misnomer. It’s really Israel’s ethnic cleansing programme. Israel even has a special word for it in Hebrew: ‘Judaisation’, or making the land Jewish. It is official government policy.
Gaza was the largest of the Palestinian reservations created by Israel’s ethnic cleansing programme, and the most overcrowded. To stop the inhabitants spilling out, Israel built a fence-barrier in the early 1990s to pen them in. Then when policing became too hard from within the prison, Israel pulled back in 2005 to the outer perimeter barrier. https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/what-the-media-forgets-to-tell-you
2023-10-13 Noura Erakat: Western Leaders & Media Are Justifying Israel’s “Genocidal Campaign” Against Palestinians The unfolding crisis in Gaza, where relentless Israeli bombardment has killed more than 1,500 people since Saturday, is “a humanitarian catastrophe,” says Palestinian American human rights attorney Noura Erakat. She says Western leaders and the mainstream media have relied on racist, Islamophobic tropes to build a false consensus “that war is inevitable and that whatever consequences come out is the fault of Hamas, thereby further blaming the victims for their own killing and massacres.” https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/13/noura_erakat_palestine_gaza_israel
2023-10-10 Refaat Alareer in Gaza: Israel’s “Barbaric” Bombardment Is Part of Ethnic Cleansing Campaign As hospitals in Gaza are overwhelmed by those killed and wounded in Israel’s massive bombing campaign, we go to Gaza City to speak with Palestinian academic and writer Refaat Alareer about conditions inside the besieged territory. Israel announced Monday it was completely cutting off all food, fuel and electricity to Gaza amid airstrikes of unprecedented intensity, launched in response to Saturday’s surprise attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel. Hamas has threatened to begin killing hostages if civilians inside Gaza are targeted without warning. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/10/refaat_alareer_gaza_israel_bombing
2022-08-21 Gaza: New Killings, Old Narratives To say that Gaza was under attack this August is definitely correct as Israel’s most recent attack left 49 killed, 17 of them children. To say that Gaza is always under attack, as it has been under a brutal siege imposed by Israel and Egypt since 2007, is also correct, even when the hashtag #GazaUnderAttack isn’t trending.
Once again, we have seen images of people being pulled from under the rubble, children without limbs and parents holding the bodies of their dead children. And although these are the faces and the highest human cost imaginable of Israel’s attack on Gaza, they didn’t reveal anything new about the Israeli state-sponsored violence, at least not to the ones who have been following what’s happening in Palestine. https://codepink.substack.com/p/gaza-new-killings-old-narratives
2023-10-24 Justifying Collective Punishment: Israel’s Assault on Gaza For anyone concerned about the moderating restraint international law is meant to offer, especially when it comes to the use of force by states, Israel’s approach against the imprisoned populace of Gaza is bound to cause profound despair and lingering disgust.
In its modern, public relations iteration, Israel’s way of waging war is seen as cleaner, more observant of international rules, than the swarthy, ill-kept barbarians who hold them in such contempt. It is couched in medical, operational terms. The killing is more surgical, more civilised, if you will. This is a reductive, machine morality, dehumanising and deidentifying victims. When slaughtered by shells, missiles and advanced weapons of war, humans are merely unintended targets.
Gaza City, according to Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is a reprobate agglomeration within which a wicked organisation, Hamas, operates. The conflation, which Netanyahu made in his October 7 speech, is effortless, purposeful. It follows that those living in such a morally regressive environment escape for their sake – lest they be tarnished by biblical wickedness. “I say to the residents of Gaza: Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.”
Alian, who serves as Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, went on to state that Hamas had morphed into ISIS, and gravely noted how “the residents of Gaza” had taken delight in their exploits against Israeli citizens. “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity, no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.” https://countercurrents.org/2023/10/justifying-collective-punishment-israels-assault-on-gaza/
2023-10-17 HRW Condemns Israel’s Collective Punishment on Gaza, Urges Biden to Help Restore Humanitarian Aid “People are worried. All of this is unprecedented,” says Sari Bashi, program director at Human Rights Watch in Ramallah. Bashi is co-founder of Israeli human rights group Gisha, which works against apartheid policies that affect Palestinians, and urges U.S. lawmakers to address the human rights violations that led to this conflict. “No U.S. policy toward Israel-Palestine will be successful if it doesn’t address the abuses on the ground.”https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/17/sara_bashi_west_bank
2023-10-16 “Gaza Is Running Out of Life”: Human Rights Watch Sounds Alarm on Israel’s Collective Punishment As the humanitarian crisis worsens, we get an update from Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, who says conditions in Gaza are dire, as Israel has cut off access to electricity and safe water, and many disabled and ill residents are physically unable to obey the evacuation order. This comes as Israeli President Isaac Herzog said his government holds the entire population of Gaza, including civilians and children, responsible for Hamas’s attack. Shakir also discusses Israel’s use of white phosphorus, an illegal weapon of war. “People in Gaza are saying their goodbyes to the world,” says Shakir. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/16/omar_shakir_israel_gaza_hrw
2023-10-13 U.N. Warns of “Devastating Humanitarian Consequences” as Israel Orders 1.1 Million to Evacuate Gaza Israel’s army has ordered 1.1 million civilians in the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate “southwards” within just 24 hours — an order the United Nations called “impossible” without “devastating humanitarian consequences.” The Norwegian Refugee Council condemned what it called “the collective punishment of countless civilians, among them children, women, and the elderly,” which it said “would amount to the war crime of forcible transfer.” https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/13/headlines/competing_pro_israel_and_pro_palestine_demonstrations_raise_tensions_on_college_campuses
2023-10-12 Report from Gaza: Two Palestinians Describe “Horror” on 6th Day of Israel Bombing Besieged Enclave We speak with two Palestinians in Gaza City about Israel’s devastating bombing campaign while blocking all food, water and fuel from entering the besieged territory. The U.N. reports that all of Gaza’s 13 hospitals are only partially operational due to a lack of fuel and medical supplies as the International Red Cross warns “hospitals are going to be turned into graveyards.” The territory’s only power plant has stopped operating due to a lack of fuel, yet Israeli authorities are vowing to continue the siege of Gaza until Hamas releases the over 100 hostages it seized during its unprecedented attack on Saturday. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/12/gaza_update
2023-10-11 Death Toll in Israel and Gaza Tops 2,200 as Gazans Face Total Energy Blackout and No Safe Refuge The majority of Palestinian deaths are in Gaza; at least 18 deaths were reported in the West Bank. Israel is amassing some 300,000 reservists close to Gaza as it continues to pound the besieged enclave with airstrikes. Officials warn Gaza is on the cusp of a humanitarian catastrophe as the territory’s power plant is running out of fuel. The scale of atrocities committed against civilians continues to come to light. In Gaza, rescuers are still pulling bodies from the rubble as desperate residents seek refuge. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/11/headlines/death_toll_in_israel_and_gaza_tops_2_200_as_gazans_face_total_energy_blackout_and_no_safe_refuge
