OMNI

GAZA ANTHOLOGIES #14
January 12, 2023

   Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.

(#1: 3-3-08; #2 Nov. 16, 2012; #3 Nov. 17, 2013; #4 May 31, 2014; #5 July 28, 2014; #6 August 30, 2014; #7 April 8, 2015; #8 May 13, 2021; #9, October 15, 2023; #10, October 23, 2023; #11, Nov. 4 and Nov. 7, 2023; #12 , Nov. 16, 2023; #13, Dec. 16, 2023).

http://omnicenter.org/donate/

CONTENTS FOR #14
(Because I learned early in its history that social media often resulted in or was even designed to produce polarization via viral images that stimulated adrenaline and dopamine, I have delete all images from the articles l reproduced.  What is lost in excitement and emotion I hoped to gain in argument and reason.   Beginning with this number, however, I am including some larger identification of my sources and in color.)

ANSWER COALITION.  NATIONAL MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR GAZA, JANUARY 13
Local Protest
Tikkun
Continuous Demonstrations
Gaza in The Nation: Five Articles Dec. 18, 2023
Norman Finkelstein’s book, Gaza: an Inquest into Its Martyrdom
 John Mearsheimer.  “Death and Destruction in Gaza.”   
Art Hobson’s Column. “Gaza and Ukraine Wars Have a Context.”
Philip Weiss. “Half of Americans under 35 see Hamas attack as ‘justified…”
October 7: 10 Articles
Chris Hedges.  “The War According to Hamas.”
Andre Damon.  “US-Israeli Lies about ‘Command Center’ at Al-Shifa….”
Merchants of Death War Crimes
Zionists Bombing Hospitals
Chris Hedges.  “Israel Is Shutting Down Its Human Laboratory in Gaza.”
Corinna Barnard.  “Zionist Suppression in Congress.”
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib.  “Aipac targets critics of Israel+US, seeks dismissal of genocide lawsuit.”   
Umar Farooq.  “Israel-Palestine War: Biden Seeks to Dismiss” Genocide Lawsuit.”
“Hugs, Smiles Were Enough to Take Israeli Propaganda Down.”
James Carden.  “Tel Aviv’s Man in Washington.”

TEXTS for GAZA # 14

CEASEFIRE NOW

National March on Washington for Gaza, January 13, 2024

Abel Tomlinson.  “Gaza Ceasefire to Stop Genocide.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (
Posted to me 12-20-23.

Numerous experts are calling the Israeli attacks on Gaza a genocide, with around 20,000 civilians killed thus far and counting.  Jewish Israeli genocide scholar Raz Segal and top U.N. official Craig Mokhiber called it a “Textbook Case of Genocide.” The charge of genocide is based not just on the indiscriminate carpet bombing of civilians, but the explicit policy of cutting off food, water and energy to the entire population.  Humans can die of thirst within a few days.

Typically, the hardest part to prove in a genocide case is intent, yet several top Israeli officials have made open, public statements declaring genocidal intent. One of the most explicit statements comes from Prime Minister Netanyahu when he described Israel’s assault on Gaza as a “holy mission” against “Amalek.”  In the Hebrew Bible, Amalek was the archenemy of Israelites and God commanded that they “Smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, (and all their animals).”  

We are also being misled about the causes of the conflict, suggesting this all started on October 7^th with Israel being attacked for no reason.  We are misled to ignore over 75 years of well documented history of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, occupation, the brutal blockade, home demolition, land theft, illegal settlements, repeated carpet bombings, destructions of olive orchards, poisoning of livestock, abusive checkpoints and roadblocks, etc.  We also must remember what happened to the massive uprising of unarmed Palestinians during the Great March of Return, when thousands nonviolently protested at the walls of their Gaza prison in 2018.  According to the U.N., Israeli snipers shot over 8,000 protestors from a long distance, killing over 200 people, including medics, journalists, kids and disabled people, all war crimes.

This long Israeli war on Palestinians is very much a U.S. war too.  The US has given over $260 billion in foreign military aid to Israel since the 1948 Nakba.  The US has also given massive political support by vetoing over 53 UN resolutions that condemned Israel’s many violations of international law.  The US enables Israel to escape accountability for war crimes, which encourages Israel to continue committing them. 

According to recent Reuters polling, a strong majority of 68% of Americans support a ceasefire and peace negotiations.  Why do our politicians not represent us?  Regardless, please join me in contacting our Arkansas representatives to demand a ceasefire.  Stopping the genocide is the bare minimum. 

If we sincerely wish for peace, we must identify and solve the root causes of war, primarily injustices.  Justice is the foundation for real peace.  As Dr King said, we must not seek a negative peace or the mere absence of tension, but seek a positive peace, which is the presence of Justice.  Overwhelmingly, it’s Palestinians that have experienced manifold injustices for the past 75 years.  If we’re serious about peace, we must seek justice for a free Palestine.  Its in the best interest for Israelis too.

REPORT THIS AD

Share this:

• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
• Click to print (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
•  

Related

Israel Has Always Targeted Civilians, Debunking a Key LieDecember 3, 2023In "bomb"

Palestine Peace Protest: Stop The War, Stop The GenocideOctober 16, 2023In "Foreign Policy"

Palestine Peace Rally SpeechNovember 7, 2023

Dear Dick,  

Wednesday, Dec. 6th I joined with interfaith leaders and over 500 people of diverse faiths and backgrounds in an interfaith prayer and walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. As we began to march on the bridge, there was a rainbow that spanned from one side of the bridge to the other, ending in the waters of the Bay. As you can see from the photo above, it was truly spectacular. I had the honor of speaking on the bridge about the meaning of the rainbow. In the story of Noach, the Divine Source of All Life promises to never destroy humanity or all life ever again - the rainbow is a sign of this covenant. The rainbow is a reminder to both the Divine, to call the Divine to the Divine's highest self, and to humanity to remind us that there is a Source in the Universe that cares about the well-being of all humanity. The rainbow is the reminder to us that as we stand for the humanity of Palestinians, as we call for a permanent ceasefire now, the Divine stands with us and uplifts us. Here is a short story of the event - https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/san-francisco/interfaith-walk-golden-gate-bridge/3390744/.

Chanukah began last night, Thursday, Dec. 7th. As I light my Chanukah candles at home tonight, I will hold the sorrow and grief of the ongoing war in Gaza and Israel, while simultaneously shining light into our world–a light of solidarity, a light of hope, a light of liberation. Rabbis4Ceasefire, of which I’m a member, have put together a companion guide for Chanukah candle lighting. You can access it here. I invite you to use this guide to shine light into our world and to uplift the hope, the dream, the vision of a permanent ceasefire now and a more loving and just world for all.

And if you haven’t registered to join us for our Beyt Tikkun Chanukah party, I hope you will do so now! You can learn more and register here. 

Sending blessings and love to you and your loved ones,

Rabbi Cat 

Continuous Demonstrations  11-11-23
https://youtu.be/2qv-4203zmM?si=iRW60EkzvnXuuqOT

Preview YouTube video Grand Central access limited as pro-Palestinian rally floods NYC streets

GAZA inThe Nation  The December 18, 2023 number provides five articles on the eradication of Gaza and demands for a ceasefire.  Here are the articles listed; more on contents of several in upcoming anthologies.

D. D.  Guttenplan (for The Nation).  “Stop the War.”  “An immediate cease-fire remains the essential first step…” Mohammed El-Kurd.  “The Right to Speak for Ourselves.”  “Palestinians are denied the freedom to tell our own story.”Atef Abu Saif.  “A Month in Gaza.”   “Life and death under the bombardment.”
Spencer Ackerman.  “Forever Wars.”  “The ‘rules based international order” is all about US hegemony.”
Elie Mystal.  “Biden on the Brink.”   The “Trump would be worse” argument isn’t attractive to Biden’s supporters who oppose his Israel-Palestine policies.

Book review: Finkelstein’s Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom 
by Usaid Siddiqui, 28 Feb, 2018

Book review: Norman Finkelstein's work is an incisive guide to Gaza's destruction, offering crucial analysis rarely found in the western media, writes Usaid Siddiqui.

Finkelstein mounts a scathing criticism of human rights organisations in Gaza [AFP]

A July 2017 Amnesty International report raised the alarm over Gaza, calling attention to the deteriorating conditions in the besieged territory, which was witnessing the rapid collapse of its health system, and what it described as "crisis point". 

In unambiguous terms, the report singled out Israel's "brutal land, sea and air blockade" responsible for the mass suffering of Gaza's residents.

"As the occupying power, Israel has ultimate responsibility to ensure the well-being of the occupied population residing in the Gaza Strip" it stated. "It is Israel's unlawful blockade…that has placed ordinary Gazans… at the mercy of a politicised bureaucracy in order to access medical treatment that many would take for granted as a basic right".

In what is clearly an unflinching critique of the Israeli state, prominent American scholar Norman Finkelstein argues that in recent years, groups such as Amnesty have failed - and deliberately so - to hold Israel to task for their inhumane treatment of Gaza. 

In his latest book, "Gaza: an Inquest into Its Martyrdom", the renowned academic and long-time critic of Israel is at his incisive best in detailing the unbearable suffering brought upon Palestinians in Gaza. He describes his book as not about Gaza, but one exposing what has been done to Gaza.

In addition to his scathing criticism of human rights organisations, Finkelstein's book relies heavily on several key events in Gaza's recent history to explain its current situation, with chief focus on the Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009, and Operation Protective Edge in 2014.

Finkelstein paints an expectedly tragic, yet scrupulous and footnote intensive picture of Gaza after Cast Lead and Protective Edge. These wars brought enormous hardship to Gaza's residents and resulted in numerous economic, social and material losses, which have prompted international institutions such as the UN to predict that the coastal strip will be unliveable in a few years. 

Arguably Finkelstein's most important insight into the wars, is his recounting of the events preceding each conflict. He does away with much of the accepted narrative - often touted carelessly in the mainstream western media - that Hamas' provocations led to Israel's inhumane bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Read more: Gaza strikes after Israel kills fisherman, imposes Purim lockdown

In fact, according to Finkelstein, Hamas' pragmatism and willingness to chart a path for peaceful resolution had been Israel's impetus to prompt the conflict.

Hamas, since its ascent to electoral power in 2005, has been seen to consistently moderate its views vis-a-vis Israel, something even former President Jimmy Carter has publicly acknowledged. 

For Finkelstein, this positive rapprochement of Hamas towards resolving the conflict is what Israel fears the most. 

Prior to the events of Cast Lead, Finkelstein writes that for nearly a year, there had been a pause in hostilities between Israel and Hamas, something even members of the Israeli government were forced to acknowledge. However, this, Finkelstein emphasises, presented Israel with an entirely different dilemma.

Quoting then foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who said the extended truce, "harms the Israeli strategic goal, empowers Hamas, and gives the impression that Israel recognises the movement", Finkelstein argues that "a protracted ceasefire that spotlighted Hamas' pragmatism in word and deed… would undercut Israel's strategic goal of entrenching the occupation". 

Protective Edge, Finkelstein writes, was conducted under similar political machinations, where relative calm had preceded the 51-day war. Months of reconciliation work between Hamas and Fatah, tacitly supported by the US, raised the alarms in the Israeli camp, pushing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to thwart any Palestinian effort to show a united front to its 50-year long occupation. 

One would be hard pressed to find such crucial analysis in the US press, or the wider western media for that matter. Instead, a moral equivalence is drawn between the actions of the two sides, who remain unwilling to compromise, making peace ever more unlikely.

Yet as Finkelstein's comprehensive research makes abundantly clear, much of the angst around making concessions to achieve peace, is on the Israeli side rather than the Palestinian one.

But Finkelstein's most unique insight, is the contempt he heaps on human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, which he asserts betrayed Gaza and the Palestinians at a time when they are most vulnerable. 

Comparing notes on Cast Lead and Protective Edge, Finkelstein observes that while over 300 reports were produced after Cast Lead, only a handful were released in the aftermath of Protective Edge, with HRW only publishing one major study, despite it being a more prolonged and destructive conflict. 

In the case of Amnesty International, he asserts "instead of falling silent over Israeli crimes during Protective Edge, they whitewashed them".

To the logical follow up question of why this was the case, Finkelstein can only speculate; that increased Israeli pressure and lobbying after the landmark Goldstone report - which excoriated Israeli war tactics after Cast Lead, and which was successfully undermined by Israel and the United States - all future reports would be "consigned to oblivion", so therefore, why bother?  

In reading Gaza, Finkelstein's critics might point out his largely glossing over of atrocities committed against Israeli citizens. While this may be a valid concern, the sheer one-sided brutality sustained by Palestinians living in Gaza, diligently recorded in the book, deserves to be tackled and scrutinised without the need to delve into 'whataboutism'.  

No one life, Israeli or Palestinian, takes precedence over another. But it is worth remembering that in the annals of western mainstream press, Palestinian suffering is repeatedly downplayed over Israeli apprehensions.

Israeli children and occupying soldiers will often have their names read out loud on broadcast television, while grieving Palestinian parents would be lucky to see the loss of their teenage sons and daughters make the ticker.

Considering this reality, Finkelstein's book, is a testament to his steadfastness in exposing Israeli crimes, despite having to make numerous personal and material sacrifices throughout his career. 

For both seasoned and newer readers of the conflict, Gaza is a must read; a serious commitment to revealing hard truths in their rawest form, offering something substantive for everyone. 
Usaid Siddiqui is a freelance Canadian writer. He has written for PolicyMic, Aslan Media, Al Jazeera America and Mondoweiss on current affairs.    Follow him on Twitter: @UsaidMuneeb16

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.

This piece on what is happening in Gaza written by Professor John Mearsheimer just came out.  Death and Destruction in Gaza - Antiwar.com

George Paulson,
Hi Abel and Friends,
Many of you may be familiar with Mearsheimer vis-a-vis the Ukraine war.  Some of you may not be aware that Mearsheimer co-authored what many consider to be the definitive scholarly work on the Israel Lobby (for which he was branded—surprise, surprise—an anti-Semite).  

This piece is a clear, succinct description of what is happening in Gaza as we speak.  It is not a long read, and it ends with a question, really, the question.  

Peace,   George

Death and Destruction in Gaza - Antiwar.com

 John Mearsheimer.  “Death and Destruction in Gaza.”   December 13, 2023.

I do not believe that anything I say about what is happening in Gaza will affect Israeli or American policy in that conflict. But I want to be on record so that when historians look back on this moral calamity, they will see that some Americans were on the right side of history.

What Israel is doing in Gaza to the Palestinian civilian population – with the support of the Biden administration – is a crime against humanity that serves no meaningful military purpose. As J-Street, an important  organization in the Israel lobby, puts it, “The scope of the unfolding humanitarian disaster and civilian casualties is nearly unfathomable.”

Let me elaborate.

First, Israel is purposely massacring huge number of civilians, roughly 70 percent of whom are children and women. The claim that Israel is going to great lengths to minimize civilian casualties is belied by statements from high level Israeli officials. For example, the IDF spokesman said on 10 October 2023 that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.” That same day, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced: “I have lowered all the restraints – we will kill everyone we fight against; we will use every means.”

Moreover, it is clear from the results of the bombing campaign that Israel is indiscriminately killing civilians. Two detailed studies of the IDF’s bombing campaign – both published in Israeli outlets – explain in detail how Israel is murdering huge numbers of civilians. It is worth quoting the titles of the two pieces, which succinctly capture what each has to say:

“‘A Mass Assassination Factory’: Inside Israel’s Calculated Bombing of Gaza”

“The Israeli Army Has Dropped the Restraint in Gaza, and the Data Shows Unprecedented Killing.”

Similarly, the New York Times published an article in late November 2023 titled: “Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Are Being Killed at Historic Pace.” Thus, it is hardly surprising that the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said that “We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict since” his appointment in January 2017.

Second, Israel is purposely starving the desperate Palestinian population by greatly limiting the amount of food, fuel, cooking gas, medicine, and water that can be brought into Gaza. Moreover, medical care is extremely hard to come by for a population that now includes approximately 50,000 wounded civilians. Not only has Israel greatly limited the supply of fuel into Gaza, which hospitals need to function, but it has targeted hospitals, ambulances, and first aid stations.

Defense Minister Gallant’s comment on 9 October captures Israeli policy: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.” Israel has been forced to allow minimal supplies into Gaza, but the amounts are so small that a senior UN official reports that “half of Gaza’s population is starving.” He goes on to report that, “Nine out of 10 families in some areas are spending ‘a full day and night without any food at all’.”

Third, Israeli leaders talk about Palestinians and what they would like to do in Gaza in shocking terms, especially when you consider that some of these leaders also talk incessantly about the horrors of the Holocaust. Indeed, their rhetoric has led Omar Bartov, a prominent Israeli-born scholar of the Holocaust, to conclude that Israel has “genocidal intent.” Other scholars in Holocaust and genocide studies have offered a similar warning.

To be more specific, it is commonplace for Israeli leaders to refer to Palestinians as “human animals, ”human beasts,” and “horrible inhuman animals.” And as Israeli President Isaac Herzog makes clear, those leaders are referring to all Palestinians, not just Hamas: In his words, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible.” Unsurprisingly, as the New York Times reports, it is part of normal Israeli discourse to call for Gaza to be “flattened,” “erased,” or “destroyed.” One retired IDF general, who proclaimed that “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist,” also makes the case that “severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer.” Going even further, a minister in the Israeli government suggested dropping a nuclear weapon on Gaza. These statements are not being made by isolated extremists, but by senior members of Israel’s government.

Of course, there is also much talk of ethnically cleansing Gaza (and the West Bank), in effect, producing another Nakba. To quote Israel’s Agriculture Minister, “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba.” Perhaps the most shocking evidence of the depths to which Israeli society has sunk is a video of very young children singing a blood-curdling song celebrating Israel’s destruction of Gaza: “Within a year we will annihilate everyone, and then we will return to plow our fields.”

Fourth, Israel is not just killing, wounding, and starving huge numbers of Palestinians, it is also systematically destroying their homes as well as critical infrastructure – to include mosques, schools, heritage sites, libraries, key government buildings, and hospitals. As of 1 December 2023, the IDF had damaged or destroyed almost 100,000 buildings, including entire neighborhoods that have been reduced to rubble. Consequently, a stunning 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes. Moreover, Israel is making a concerted effort to destroy Gaza’s cultural heritage; as NPR reports, “more than 100 Gaza heritage sites have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli attacks.”

Fifth, Israel is not just terrorizing and killing Palestinians, it is also publicly humiliating many of their men who have been rounded up by the IDF in routine searches. Israeli soldiers strip them down to their underwear, blindfold them, and display them in a public way in their neighborhoods – sitting them down in large groups in the middle of the street, for example, or parading them through the streets – before taking them away in trucks to detention camps. In most cases, the detainees are then released as they are not Hamas fighters.

Sixth, although the Israelis are doing the slaughtering, they could not do it without the Biden administration’s support. Not only was the United States the only country to vote against a recent UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, but it has also been providing Israel with the weaponry necessary to wage this massacre. As one Israeli general (Yitzhak Brick) recently made clear: “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability.… Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.” Remarkably, the Biden administration has sought to expedite sending Israel additional ammunition, by-passing the normal procedures of the Arms Export Control Act.

Seventh, while most of the focus is now on Gaza, it is important not to lose sight of what is simultaneously going on in the West Bank. Israeli settlers, working closely with the IDF, continue to kill innocent Palestinians and steal their land. In an excellent article in the New York Review of Books describing these horrors, David Shulman relates a conversation he had with a settler, which clearly reflects the moral dimension of Israeli behavior toward the Palestinians. “What we are doing to these people is actually inhuman,” the settler freely admits, “But if you think about it clearly, it all follows inevitably from the fact that God promised this land to the Jews, and only to them.” Along with its assault on Gaza, the Israel government has markedly increased the number of arbitrary arrests in the West Bank. According to Amnesty International, there is considerable evidence that these prisoners have been tortured and subjected to degrading treatment.

As I watch this catastrophe for the Palestinians unfold, I am left with one simple question for Israel’s leaders, their American defenders, and the Biden administration: have you no decency?

Reprinted with permission from John’s Substack.

John Mearsheimer is the Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and one of the leading foreign policy scholars in America.

Art Hobson.  “Gaza and Ukraine Wars Have a Context:We ignore history at our peril.”  NWADG 5 December 2023.

          The U.S. is heavily invested in two major wars.  Either one could spiral out of control and turn nuclear. 

          As United Nations Secretary-General Guterres puts it, these conflicts "did not happen in a vacuum."  The Gaza war was sparked by the unforgivable Hamas October 7 attack on civilians, but it had a historical context that is still largely ignored. 

          After that attack, a few reporters looked at its context.  One article, headlined "Israeli settlers terrorize West Bank Palestinians," appeared in these pages on November 13. 

          Palestine is separated into the West Bank and Gaza, run by different governments, and separated by 30 miles.  One problem for the three million West Bank Palestinians is that they co-exist with 500,000 Jewish settlers, 144 settlements, and 100 illegal Israeli "outposts." 

          The article portrays Israelis terrorizing Palestinians the way the Ku Klux Klan once terrorized American Blacks.  Masked men, intent on driving Palestinians out, raid Palestinian villages, capturing, beating, and killing civilians.  This terrorism increased after October 7.  The UN recorded 222 such settler attacks during one month.  According to the UN, half of all settler attacks are accompanied by Israeli troops.  Israel's government has also helped make Palestinian's lives wretched by building roads and security areas all over the West Bank and preventing Palestinians from entering them. 

          As one Palestinian summed it up, "These settlers would slaughter us and no one would care."  He began crying.  "There are no words to describe the misery of my life." 

          Such misery has persisted for decades.  It was bound to explode. On October 7, it did.  This does not excuse Hamas' unhinged violence, but there is also no excuse for Israel's persecution of Palestinians and no excuse for Western indifference to this persecution. 

          Suppose Israel had not allowed Jewish settlers to occupy the West Bank or that Israel had given Palestinians real assistance in building a nation.  Would Hamas then have been less virulent?  Would they have launched their attack on Israel?  We can never know history's "what ifs," but this certainly would have increased the probability of peace.  

          There were similar preludes to war in Ukraine.  As I have reported previously, the context of that war begins with NATO's expansion into East Europe.  Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has been apprehensive about being surrounded by NATO, and these concerns erupted in Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

          Recently, an authoritative report by three German diplomats was published under the descriptive title "How the chance was lost for a peace settlement of the Ukraine War and the West wanted to continue the war instead." 

          The report's lead author is a former UN Assistant Secretary-General who worked for 34 years with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and on several UN peace missions in countries at war.  One co-author is a retired German General who served as Chief of Staff for the German Armed Forces during 2002-2005.  These authors were privy to the Ukrainian-Russian peace negotiations one month after the Russian invasion, presided over by Turkish President Erdogan. 

          The report states that Ukraine and Russia made real efforts to achieve peace.  Surprisingly, Ukraine and Russia agreed at the outset of the negotiations that the planned NATO expansion into Ukraine was the reason for the war, and that peace negotiations would focus on Ukraine's neutrality and renunciation of NATO membership in return for Ukraine retaining its territorial integrity except for Crimea. 

          The report states "There is little doubt that these peace negotiations failed due to resistance from NATO, the USA, and the UK.  The reasons are that such a peace agreement would have been tantamount to a defeat for NATO and an end to NATO's eastward expansion." 

          The report documents UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's arrival in Kiev in April 2022, where he told Zelensky that the West was not ready to end the war.  U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin then visited Kyiv and stated that the U.S. wanted to use this opportunity to permanently weaken Russia in the wake of the Ukraine War.

          Thus, these promising negotiations failed, leading to the continuation of the war that is shattering Ukraine and traumatizing its people. Ukraine's negotiating position is far worse today than it was in March 2022.  Ukraine has lost much of its territory and is headed for defeat. 

          Ukraine is another failure of America's militaristic foreign policy, similar to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  The context for this failure was NATO expansion and America's ambition to weaken the regime in Moscow.  

References: 

• Report on settlers terrorizing Palestinians:  NWADG 13 Nov 2023, p. 7. 

• The report by three German foreign policy experts:  https://braveneweurope.com/michael-von-der-schulenburg-hajo-funke-harald-kujat-peace-for-ukraine.

• Background on Michael-von-der-Schulenbug:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_von_der_Schulenburg

•Background on Harald Kujat:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Kujat 

Philip Weiss.   “Half of Americans under 35 see Hamas attack as ‘justified by Palestinian grievances’.”  Mondoweiss.   December 3, 2023.  Editor. mronline.org (12-6-23).

Democrats are terrified because they are losing their grip on the young. A new poll says half of Americans under 35 see Hamas's October 7 attack as justified by Palestinian grievances. Young Americans are seeing the enormity of genocide.

Originally published: Mondoweiss  on December 3, 2023 by Philip Weiss (more by Mondoweiss).  (Posted Dec 05, 2023).

Imperialism, Inequality, State Repression, WarAmericas, Gaza, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, United StatesNewswire

“Don’t stop talking about Palestine,” says a billboard on the Jersey Turnpike. And more and more Americans are heeding the advice.   The Biden administration is panicked. It won’t do a thing to stop Israel from renewing its hateful obliteration of Gaza after a week-long truce, and it knows that this stance is alienating the progressive base.

So Biden says this time Israel must be more careful. “Be surgical, be targeted, be precise, try to minimize civilian casualties wherever possible.” J Street the liberal Zionist organization that sure looks like a rightwing Zionist organization in this war echoes the Biden line. Israel needs to exercise greater caution.   MORE click on title

Hi Y'all, 
We have been told many lies about October 7th by Israel & its U.S. sponsors to further dehumanize Palestians and to justify the unfolding genocide. The great independent journals Electronic Intifada & Grayzone have done a superb job of debunking the lies, and a new report finds the Israeli military admitting that a large number of the Israeli civilians killed that day were killed by Israeli "friendly fire", as the IDF sent in tanks and helicopters to fire artillery & missiles. Interestingly, Israel has decided to shred & bury the large number of cars that were burned that day because it is the "environmentally friendly" way to destroy evidence...err...I mean "honor the dead."

Please find these reports and several others below. This is not an attempt to defend Hamas, but an effort to undermine Israeli genocide justifications. We really do not know exactly what happened that day and Israel & USA have a vast track record of lying to justify mass killing with expensive/profitable war machines & explosives.    Abel

“Israel admits to ‘immense’ amount of ‘friendly fire’ on 7 October.”  Asa WinstanleyRights and Accountability12 December 2023.

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israel-admits-immense-amount-friendly-fire-7-october    "Israel’s army on Tuesday admitted that an “immense and complex quantity” of what it calls “friendly fire” incidents took place on 7 October....It is the first known official army admission that a significant number of the hundreds of Israelis who died on 7 October were killed by Israel itself, and not by Hamas or other Palestinian resistance factions....Citing new data released by the Israeli military, Zeitun wrote that: “Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF [Israeli military] believes that … it would not be morally sound to investigate...due to the immense and complex quantity of them that took place in the kibbutzim and southern Israeli communities.” 

“Israel admits burning hundreds of people on 7 October.”

Ali Abunimah.  https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-admits-burning-hundreds-people-7-october

“The evidence Israel killed its own citizens on 7 October.”

Asa Winstanley.   https://electronicintifada.net/content/evidence-israel-killed-its-own-citizens-7-october/41156

“Israeli October 7 posterchild was killed by Israeli tank, eyewitnesses reveal.”

MAX BLUMENTHAL.  https://thegrayzone.com/2023/11/25/israels-october-7-propaganda-tank-eyewitnesses/

“Haaretz confirms Grayzone reporting it dismissed as ‘conspiracy’ showing Israel killed own festivalgoers.”

WYATT REED.    https://thegrayzone.com/2023/11/21/haaretz-grayzone-conspiracy-israeli-festivalgoers/

“October 7 testimonies reveal Israel’s military ‘shelling’ Israeli citizens with tanks, missiles.”

MAX BLUMENTHAL.   https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/27/israels-military-shelled-burning-tanks-helicopters/

“Source of dubious ‘beheaded babies’ claim is Israeli settler leader who incited riots to ‘wipe out’ Palestinian village.”  MAX BLUMENTHAL AND ALEXANDER RUBINSTEIN. 

https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/11/beheaded-israeli-babies-settler-wipe-out-palestinian/

“Israeli tank gunner reveals orders to fire indiscriminately into kibbutz — report.”

https://thegrayzone.com/2023/11/27/israeli-tank-orders-fire-kibbutz/

“This is why Israel plans to bury hundreds of cars, with ashes and blood stains.”   By ZVIKA KLEIN.  https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-774511

VIDEO: “What really happened on October 7?”

MAX BLUMENTHAL. 

https://thegrayzone.com/2023/11/18/video-what-happened-october-7/

Thanks Abel, for sharing this.  Chris Hedges, the Arabic-speaking former Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times (who was essentially fired by the Times because he spoke out against the Iraq War) spent a lot of time in Gaza covering it for the Times.  He wrote this admittedly emotional piece about the lies Israel tells not long after Israel bagged its murderous assault on Gaza.   

CHRIS HEDGES: THE WAR ACCORDING TO HAMAS.  Scheer Post.  November 14, 2023.  Chris Hedges: The War According To Hamas - PopularResistance.Org

·        Strategize!

The Palestinian Resistance Understands Its Enemy.  It has learned through experience how to fight it. This is not good news for Israel.

Cairo, Egypt: Basel al-Araj, a Palestinian resistance leader, shortly before Israel’s 2014 invasion of Gaza, laid down the fundamental rules for warfare against the Israel.

The rules by al-Araj, not a member of Hamas, provide the Palestinian lens for the incursion by Israeli forces in Gaza. While Israel’s superior firepower — its air force, missiles, tanks, armored personnel carriers, drones, naval forces, mechanized units and artillery — make it possible to inflict huge numbers of Palestinian casualties, most of them civilians, while Israel can level whole neighborhoods and turn hospitals, schools, power stations, water treatment plants, bakeries, mosques and churches into piles of concrete, this does not translate into a defeat of the Palestinian resistance groups.

Al-Araj argued that the fight with Israel cannot be measured with body counts. The Israelis will be able to kill far greater numbers of Palestinians. Resistant movements, he wrote, always suffer disproportionate losses. In the independence war in Algeria, between 1954 and 1962, upwards of 1.5 million Algerians —  or around 10 percent of the population —  were  killed by the French.  In the airport in Algiers, the country’s capital, is a huge sign that reads: “Welcome to Algeria. Land of a million Martyrs.”

“We are far more capable of bearing the costs, so there is no need to compare or be alarmed by the magnitude of the numbers,” he wrote.

 Al-Araj, who led hunger strikes while in Palestine Authority prisons, was long a target for Israel.  Israel’s counter-terrorism unit, Yamam, pursued him for months before raiding his home on March 6, 2017 in el-Bireh. After a two-hour gun battle, Israeli forces, which fired rockets into the building, burst inside and executed him at close range. He was 31.

The fight with Israel, al-Araj reminded Palestinians, must “follow the logic of guerrilla warfare or hybrid warfare, which Arabs and Muslims have become masters of through our experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza.” Never defend “fixed points and borders.” Draw the enemy into an ambush, accomplished by light resistance and tactical withdrawals. Strike the flanks and the rear. The calculus of asymmetric warfare is very different from conventional war. And what Israel defines as success, including the seizing of territory, numerous deaths and the destruction of infrastructure and buildings, matters little to the resistance fighter. The goal of Palestinian fighters is to remain elusive, to carry out lightning strikes and recede back into the rubble or the vast tunnel network under Gaza.

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, says it partially destroyed more than 160 Israeli military targets in Gaza, including more than 27 tanks and vehicles in the past two days. On Nov. 11, the Al-Qassam Brigade says it lured Israeli soldiers to a burning car in the West Bank and blew up their vehicles with an IED. On Nov. 10 the Al-Qassam Brigades, Saraya Al-Quds, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, say they allowed the Israelis to advance without significant opposition during the day. In the evening they ambushed the Israeli forces west of Tal al-Hawa, in the areas around Al-Shifa Hospital, west of the Al-Shati refugee camp and west of Beit Lahia in the northern part of the Gaza strip. Israel unleashed a heavy bombardment, the Palestinian fighters said, in an attempt to rescue its soldiers. Israel reportedly suffered high numbers of casualties. On Nov. 9, Al-Qassam Brigades say they ambushed Israeli soldiers in Juhr al-Dik, targeting them with an anti-personnel rocket. The Israeli soldiers were killed, they said, at “point blank range.” On Nov. 6, the Al-Qassam Brigades say they destroyed five Israeli tanks with Yassin 105 rockets in northwest Gaza City. On Nov. 2 Al-Qassam Brigades claimed they destroyed six tanks and two military vehicles in one hour northwest of Gaza City.  “The number of casualties is significantly higher than what the enemy’s leadership has announced,” said Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for the Al Qassam Brigades.

Israel has banned the foreign press from reporting from Gaza. It has killed over 40 Palestinian journalists and media workers. It also has instituted prolonged blockages of the internet and cell phone service. No doubt, this heavy handed censorship is done to limit the horrific images of civilian casualties. But I suspect it is also intended to block images of a ground offensive that is tougher, more protracted and more costly than Israel anticipated.

Israel invests tremendous resources in its propaganda campaign, getting networks such as CNN to repeat back its talking points. Jake Tapper should be an honorary Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman.

Al-Araj warned about the attempt by Israel to demoralize fighters by posting photos and videos of Israelis occupying landmarks and public spaces.

A video being shared on social media shows the raising of the Israeli flag on a beach in Gaza. A group of soldiers surround the flag and sing the Israeli national anthem.

In October last year, Jewish settlers occupied the Ibrahimi mosque in the West Bank town of Hebron, where a Jewish settler, Barach Goldstein, gunned down 29 Palestinians in 1994 as they prayed. The settlers held a music festival and dance party in the mosque. They hung an Israeli flag from the roof. Videos have circulated that denigrate and ridicule Palestinians.

Al-Araj wrote that Israel’s propaganda is designed to instill panic, demonize Palestinians and spread defeatism.

  MORE   https://popularresistance.org/chris-hedges-the-war-according-to-hamas/

US, Israeli Lies About “command Center” At Al-Shifa Hospital Fall Apart| Countercurrents

 Andre Damon.  “ US Israeli lies about ‘command center’ at Al-Shifa hospital fall apart.”  CounterCurrents 17/11/2023

For weeks, Israel used its claims that the Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest, was being used as a military command center to justify a relentless bombardment of the hospital that killed dozens of people and prevented the wounded from entering or leaving, in a series of flagrant war crimes.

Admitting that there were no hostages inside the hospital, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday, “We had strong indications that they [the hostages] were held in the Shifa hospital. If they were [there], they were taken out.”

In an October 27 post on X, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) asserted that Al Shifa “acts as the main headquarters for Hamas’ terrorist activity.” The post was accompanied by an animation showing a sprawling complex, spanning hundreds of meters, underneath the hospital. Israel’s claims were reiterated multiple times by officials from the White House, Pentagon and State Department.

On Tuesday, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby asserted, “We have information that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad use some hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including Al-Shifa, and tunnels underneath them to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages.”

Biden repeated this unsubstantiated claim on Thursday, declaring, “Here’s the situation: You have a circumstance where the first war crime is being committed by Hamas by having their headquarters, their military hidden under a hospital. And that’s a fact.”

Asked by a reporter to “detail for us what kind of evidence the U.S. has seen that Hamas has a command center under Al-Shifa Hospital,” Biden replied, “No, I can’t tell you. I won’t tell you.”   MORE  https://countercurrents.org/2023/11/us-israeli-lies-about-command-center-at-al-shifa-hospital-fall-apart/

The opening session of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal introduces the Tribunal and presents its first evidence. This segment examines Gaza and the role U.S. weapons makers play in funding war crimes in that region.
Subscribe to the Merchants of Death email list to receive notifications as weekly videos are released throughout the Tribunal: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/sign-up-for-emails-from-the-merchants-of-death-war-crimes-tribunal?clear_id=true--

CAIRO, Egypt: The Palestinians are human laboratory rats to the Israeli military, intelligence services and arms and technology industries. Israel’s drones, surveillance technology — including spyware, facial recognition software and biometric gathering infrastructure — along with smart fences, experimental bombs and AI-controlled machine guns, are tried out on the captive population in Gaza, often with lethal results. These weapons and technologies are then certified as “battle tested” and sold around the world. 

Israel is the 10th biggest arms dealer on the planet and sells its technology and weapons to an estimated 130 nations, including military dictatorships in Asia and Latin America. Israeli weapons sales totalled $12.5 billion last year. Its close relationship with these military, internal security, surveillance, intelligence-gathering and law enforcement agencies, explains the fulsome support Israel’s allies give to its genocidal campaign in Gaza. When Colombian President Gustavo Petro refused to condemn the Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian resistance groups as a “terrorist attack” and said “terrorism is killing innocent children in Palestine,” Israel immediately halted all sales of defense and security equipment to Colombia. This global cabal, dedicated to permanent war and keeping its populations monitored and controlled, has hundreds of billions of dollars a year in sales. These technologies are cementing into place a supranational corporate totalitarianism, a world where populations are enslaved in ways that past totalitarian regimes could only imagine. 

Corinna Barnard.  “Zionist Suppression in Congress.”  Constortium News,December 10, 2023

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/12/10/zionist-suppression-in-congress/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=c144ab9d-6624-482d-8f72-6c9fae407f34

It isn’t enough for U.S. legislators that Palestinians are suffering genocidal violence, writes Corinna Barnard. Last week lawmakerswent after the freedom to protest in support of Palestinians as well. By  Corinna Barnard.
Special to Consortium News.

The U.S. is currently in the chokehold of a monstrous effort to fixate the nation on fears of an entirely hypothetical genocide when a real one is taking place.

Last week a House committee redolent of the McCarthyist days of the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee conducted an inquisition of three university presidents about their toleration of terms such as “intifada,”  which The New York Times,  in its coverage, described as “an Arabic word that means uprising and that many Jews hear as a call for violence against them.” 

The key phrase in that sentence is “that many Jews hear,” a concession to the hearing being a confrontation over terminology and viewpoint. In this Zionist slapdown, legislators — with Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York displaying particular ferocity — made it clear which viewpoint could prevail, politically speaking, in their house. 

While fending off calls to punish their students’ political outcry during the hearing, two university leaders backtracked afterwards under growing political pressure.

They caved to the distorted notion that the speech in question called for the “genocide of the Jews,” as The New York Times laid it out, in an article entirely devoid of any examples of blatantly genocidal language. 

The meeting created a sinkhole for the principle of free speech, in which words used to express the cause of Palestinian resistance were twisted into an evil intention towards Jews, at the exact time when the Israel military is perpetrating genocide. 

This was more than a side show about semantics. It was a lesson in who runs Congress and whose speech is free and whose isn’t.  

By Saturday the Zionists had scored a victory with news that both the University of Pennsylvania’s President Elizabeth Magill and its board chairman, Scott L. Bok, were leaving those posts under what The New York Times called “intense pressure from donors, politicians and alumni.” Magill will remain at the university as a faculty member of the law school. 

News of the victory left Stafanik hungry for more heads to roll. “One down. Two to go,” she wrote, insatiably, on Twitter/X.

Palestinians may be suffering ruthless violence, but for U.S. legislators that isn’t enough. They also have to als target the supporters of Palestine and try to extinguish their power to freely speak, shout and wave placards. It’s a suppression familiar to many who have worked in major U.S. news media. 

Smearing Legitimate Criticism

Last week also found the U.S. Congress — at a time when legislators ought properly to have been considering action to stop Israel’s assault on Palestinians — instead passing a resolution conflating political opposition to Israel with anti-Semitism, the generalized antagonism towards Jewish people. 

Given the atrocities being committed by Israel — and the justified anger that provokes — this congressional resolution boggles the mind.  

First off, the political opposition currently raging against Israel is not focused on Judaism. The opposition is that of an occupied people against a brutal occupier.

For Palestinians, the religion of this present-day occupier can be no more pertinent than was the Christianity of U.S. President Andrew Jackson for the Indigenous people he forced onto The Trail of Tears in the 19th century. What matters is the actions of the occupier, not their religion. 

Secondly, Judaism is an ancient religion while Zionism is a relatively recent political project with far-right Christian supporters that has proven itself to be genocidal. None of that has to do with Jews in general and it’s highly problematic to suggest it does.  

[See: Chris Hedges: The Israel Lobby’s Useful Idiot]

Jewish historians and intellectuals — Norman Finkelstein’s name springs to mind along with that of the Israeli historian and author Ilan Pappé — have been long-standing and courageous champions of Palestinian rights. Jewish organizations such as Jewish Voices for Peace and If Not Now have been actively promoting a ceasefire since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7. 

Dangerous Triumph  

The extent to which media attention has minimized such individuals and groups and instead given U.S. Zionists the big platform to speak on behalf of Jews in general — at a time when thousands upon thousands of Palestinians are getting slaughtered — is a triumph of the Israel lobby’s influence and propaganda. 

That achievement comes with the potentially dire consequence, however, of associating Jewish people and American citizens, generally, with the Israeli government’s genocidal violence. Numerous enemies can be created by such a devious process.  

And as Cara MariAnna recently warned in her article “Israel Lobby’s Disastrous Domination,”

“U.S. security and standing in the world are suddenly more precarious than they have been the whole of its history. The U.S. is being damaged — is seriously damaging itself — by its continued unwavering support of a nation that is so clearly out of control and that has been recognized by many human rights organizations as an apartheid state. Supporting Israel is no longer in the best interest of the United States, if ever it was, and is becoming an increasing liability. “

The hand of the Israel lobby can also be assumed to be at work in the crackdown on people of conscience, who are speaking up and doing what they can to alter the evil course of events. They are in the streets shouting about the liberation of Palestine “from the river to the sea;” they are throwing paint on the buildings of weapons makers, they are confronting politicians with their inaction while children are getting killed.

These are all our everyday heroes, displaying a dedication to justice and compassion. These are the citizens we should be proud to join and know. Instead they are getting vilified, arrested, intimidated and, inevitably now it seems, cast as anti-Semites. 

Historical Void

Convoy of trucks and cars led by white U.N. jeeps travel through Gaza desert carrying Arab refugees from Gaza to Hebron, Transjordan, for repatriation. (UN Photo)

Americans are often encouraged to consider the situation in Israel too complicated to understand. It can be viewed as “that situation over there,” where they “just hate one another” to be dismissed with a fed-up gesture of the hand. Zionists rush in to fill this void with Hasbara versions — drawn from Israel’s “public diplomacy” or propaganda — of history. 

Even though it doesn’t take a deep knowledge of the region to grasp the great wrong being done, a few bullet points might help create a general context: 

–Israel was not created on a land without people for a people without a land. There was a thriving Palestinian society and Israel was established in 1948 by destroying hundreds of villages, killing thousands of Arabs, driving 750,000 Palestinians from their country and not allowing them to return as documented by Israel’s “new historians,” particularly by Pappé in his The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

—Israel’s status among human rights groups today is that of an apartheid state since Palestinians occupied illegally on the West Bank and Gaza by Israel since 1967 (in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions) have no rights;

–West Bank Israeli settlers attack Palestinians and drive them out of their homes and off their land in a slow continuation of the cleansing begun in 1947-8, now sped up in Gaza;

—Israel’s military justice system holds Palestinians in detention for years, without ever charging them with a crime; many of them children;  

—Gaza is widely known as an open-air prison. 

Against this basic backdrop comes the daily overload of atrocities in Gaza, which provide plenty of moral clarity, for any who are willing to follow them. Just some of the painful realities exposed daily now:

—Thousands of civilians, many of them women and children, are getting slaughtered by constant bombing. 

—Israeli doctors providing  written support for their military to bomb hospitals in Gaza. (Doctors gave the OK to bomb hospitals, it’s worth repeating since it’s so shocking.) 

—Conditions so harsh that the rampant outbreak of disease could become an even bigger killer than all the bombing. 

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib.  “Aipac targets critics of Israel+US, seeks dismissal of genocide lawsuit.”   Dec. 10, 2023. 

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-biden-files-dismiss-lawsuit-failing-prevent-genocide 

AIPAC-endorsed members of Congress voted to censure me last month. And this week, they voted to censure another key member of our Squad: Rep. Jamaal Bowman. 

For years, the far-right anti-Palestinian group AIPAC has attacked me and Jamaal for standing up for Palestinians’ human rights. 

They recently targeted us with attack ads, because we’ve been leading the movement for a ceasefire. As the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 16,000 people—including over 6,000 children—Jamaal and I are still urging Congress and President Biden to value all human life. 

Because Jamaal Bowman continues to hold the Israeli and U.S. governments accountable for human rights violations, AIPAC recruited an anti-ceasefire candidate to run against him in 2024. 

AIPAC is planning to spend $100 million to undermine our democracy and try to kick me and Jamaal Bowman out of Congress next year. Please donate $5 or more to our campaigns today so we can counter these attacks. 

As usual, AIPAC and its network of PACs are targeting progressive Black and brown members of Congress, flooding our working class districts with millions of dollars from far-right donors. They’re attacking us for supporting a ceasefire, even though it’s what a vast majority of Americans want. 

Eva Borgwardt, a leader with IfNotNow, a movement of American Jews to end Israeli occupation and apartheid, explained: 

“AIPAC is not a Jewish lobby, nor even a pro-Israel lobby. It is primarily a vehicle for Republican billionaires to support the settlement movement and an antidemocratic, far-right vision for both Israel and the U.S.” 

AIPAC DONOR URGES JEWISH REPUBLICANS TO SWITCH PARTIES TO VOTE AGAINST JAMAAL BOWMAN IN PRIMARY 

Bowman’s opponent, George Latimer, was recruited by AIPAC as part of the group’s $100 million campaign against progressive Israel critics. 

Timmy Facciola 

December 8 2023, https://theintercept.com/2023/12/08/aipac-donor-jamaal-bowman-primary/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=The%20Intercept%20Newsletter 

MEMBERS OF Young Israel of New Rochelle synagogue in suburban Westchester County, New York, received an email Thursday afternoon from a group of congregants.  

“We are all looking to do what we can to help Israel in its time of need,” the email said. “I am part of a group in our shul which is focused on one singular thing we can all do—and that is helping to defeat our current Congressman Jamaal Bowman in the Democratic primary which will take place on June 25, 2024.” 

“It is critically important that if you are a registered Republican, at least for this election you should re-register as a Democrat so you can vote in the primary (against Bowman).” 

Bowman, whose New York district includes the Bronx and parts of Westchester County, is being targeted in his primary next year for criticisms of Israel and calls for a ceasefire in its war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. His challenger, Westchester County Executive George Latimer, is being backed by pro-Israel groups, including the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee. 

The congregant who wrote the email to the New Rochelle synagogue, Jonathan Harris, was urging the synagogue’s Republican members to change parties before the primary so that they can vote for Latimer. 

“If you are a registered Republican voter, you are not eligible to vote in the all-important Democratic primary,” says Harris’s email, a copy of which was obtained by The Intercept. “It is critically important that if you are a registered Republican, at least for this election you should re-register as a Democrat so you can vote in the primary (against Bowman).”  

Harris and the congregants responsible for the email went on to lay out three other ways synagogue members could help defeat Bowman. They urged New Israel congregants to donate to Latimer’s campaign against Bowman — asking that they give money through a portal set up by AIPAC. (Neither AIPAC nor Latimer’s campaign immediately responded to a request for comment.) 

“Any pledge you can make to support him in the primary will be extremely helpful,” Harris wrote. “Please let me know what you are willing to contribute so I can add it to the list being generated for our shul. Please process the amount of your pledge on the website AIPAC has created to gather donations to Latimer.” 

In an interview with The Intercept, Harris said he did not have a “direct connection” with the Latimer campaign. When asked about an indirect connection, he asked to go off the record. Harris declined to answer more questions on the record and did not answer multiple follow-up calls.  

The Young Israel of New Rochelle synagogue denied any knowledge of the email. “Please note that the referenced Harris email and solicitation was not done by or on behalf of the Young Israel of New Rochelle or its leadership,” a spokesperson said in a statement. 

Over the past three years, Harris has donated $10,500 to AIPAC’s political action committee, according to public election finance records. 

AIPAC Versus Bowman 

AIPAC has said it plans to spend upwards of $100 million to oust members of the Squad, a group of progressive Democratic members of Congress who have been critical of Israel’s human rights violations. AIPAC and allied groups have become the central players in Democratic Party primaries — a dynamic that kicked into overdrive with Israel’s war on Gaza.  

The email from Harris to his fellow congregants is the latest effort to mobilize voters upset with Bowman’s criticisms of Israel. 

AIPAC’s super PAC began recruiting Latimer over the summer, around the same time Bowman boycotted a congressional address from Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Despite AIPAC, which bills itself as a single-issue venture, spurring on his candidacy, Latimer is seeking to draw attention away from his Israel stance. Instead, he has billed himself as a progressive. 

Since Hamas’s October 7 attack launched the latest Gaza war, Bowman has been especially vocal in condemning what he sees as a disproportionate response from Israel and joining in protests outside the White House. 

Harris’s email also urges congregants to act on a looming decision from the New York State Appellate Court that will result in the congressional lines being redrawn.  

“If this happens and the Jewish community is divided amongst different districts, it will highly increase Bowman’s chances of being re-elected,” the letter reads. “Attached here is the text of a form letter you can use to object to redistricting.” 

Latimer’s deputy in Westchester County, Ken Jenkins, leads the redistricting commission. Earlier this month, Latimer told City and State that he doesn’t discuss the redistricting with Jenkins, but told Gothamist a day later, “He and I have talked about it a couple times, that’s it.” 

New York’s congressional map was redrawn prior to last cycle as well, and it kicked off a long, tumultuous midterm season that left the Democratic Party with four fewer seats than it started out with. Bowman was one of the only members in the tristate area who represents a solidly blue district. He won his primary by nearly 30 points, with 54 percent of the vote.  

To Bowman’s north, Mondaire Jones is running to unseat Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y. Jones and Bowman used to do campaign events together, but since announcing his latest bid, Jones — who has said he has a “great relationship with AIPAC” — has declined to endorse Bowman when asked.  

Latimer, for his part, just returned from a three-day trip to Israel sponsored by the UJA-Federation of New York, a local Jewish group, where he met with leaders including Herzog, the Israeli president. Herzog has said that it is the “entire nation” of Palestine that bears responsibility for the October 7 attacks. 

On the latest war in Gaza, where about 1,300 Israelis and more than 17,000 Palestinians have been killed, Latimer told the New York Times that he did not know enough to judge whether Israel’s counteroffensive violated international law. 

He said, “I’m not a secretary of state.” 

Umar A Farooq.     “Israel-Palestine war: Biden seeks to dismiss lawsuit that says he is failing to prevent genocide of Palestinians. “   Middle-East Eye (10 December 2023).  

Rights group says president's team evading legal culpability for Israel's actions in Gaza while boasting close US-Israel coordination. 

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-biden-files-dismiss-lawsuit-failing-prevent-genocide

The Biden administration has filed a motion in federal court calling for a lawsuit accusing the president and his team of failing to prevent a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza to be dismissed. Rights groups and lawyers say that the administration's filing is an attempt to evade legal responsibility and culpability in what many scholars say is an act of genocide being committed by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza. 

"The US government's filing is no less disappointing for being predictable," the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which is a party to the suit, said in a statement shared with Middle East Eye. 

"Their lawyers focus on jurisdictional issues rather than the substance of the lawsuit." 

The Biden administration's filing was submitted on Friday, a day before the 75th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations' Genocide Convention, and stated that the suit should be dismissed because the administration argues that the lawsuit would override the foreign policy decisions of the US government, and therefore would be "in violation of the constitutional separation of powers". 

"Plaintiffs seek to have the Court override the Executive Branch's foreign policy and national security determinations," the administration's filing said. 

"But decisions about whether and how to attempt to influence foreign nations, and whether and how to provide them military assistance, financial assistance, or other support, are constitutionally committed to the political branches of the Government." 

The filing also states that the court has no jurisdiction given that Israel is a foreign sovereign nation and its actions are made independent of the US. 

Hugs, smiles were enough to take Israeli propaganda down.  Editor.  mronline.org (12-5-23).

Originally published: Al Mayadeen  on December 3, 2023 (more by Al Mayadeen)  |  (Posted Dec 04, 2023).  Media, Movements, WarGaza, Israel, Middle East, PalestineNewswire

Normal human interactions: handshakes, smiles, blowing kisses, and pats on the back. This was enough to shatter the Israeli propaganda into pieces in front of the entire world. During the now-expired truce, al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas Resistance movement, would release video footage of the prisoners-captives exchange deal daily. . . .

. . .With these videos, the Resistance movement became the center of attention for users on social media, who would take screenshots from the videos and comment on the footage, either by creating memes, praising the way Hamas has been treating the captives, or even expressing amazement over the idea of how the captives were bidding the Hamas fighters farewell with signs clear enough to prove that they were all in good shape and health.

The videos would show the captives waving goodbye with wide smiles while saying “thank you” to the Resistance fighters.

These smiles have driven the Israeli occupation crazy. . . .

Screw up after screw up

While “Israel” continues to fail, both on the actual battlefield and in the virtual one, the Palestinian narrative seems to be winning among the masses. Just recently, Axios reported that the views of pro-Palestine content surpass by far the views of pro-“Israel” content. The report detailed that posts that use the hashtag #StandwithPalestine have significantly surpassed the posts that use the hashtag ‘#StandwithIsrael’ in the U.S. and globally in the two weeks leading up to the end of October (October 16 to 31)

Thanks to Israeli blunders and fiascos, people around the globe are now more aware of Israeli propaganda. Thanks to the efforts that are made constantly by the people of Gaza to convey to the entire world the real picture, people now can wipe their eyes clear and see the picture as it is.

The failed Israeli campaign to picture the Palestinian Resistance as “terrorist” is failing. The image of the “invincible army” is shattering. The millions and even billions of dollars spent to whitewash Israeli crimes are going with the wind, in vain. This is it. This is “Israel” losing. This is “Israel” being defeated.

James W. Carden.  “Tel Aviv’s Man in Washington.“  Originally published: Antiwar.com  on November 21, 2023 by James W. Carden (more by Antiwar.com) (Posted Dec 05, 2023).  Editor.  Mronline.org   Inequality, Political Economy, WarAmericas, Gaza, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, United StatesNewswire

. . .The legendary reporter James Bamford has for years almost single handedly done the work of many newspapers in exposing the machinations the Israeli intelligence service on American campuses, within the entertainment industry, and within the most sensitive precincts of the American national security state.

Still, Americans remain, despite the very best efforts of journalists like Bamford, woefully under-informed about the extent to which foreign influence pervades the U.S. government.

And one of the more troubling examples of foreign influence at the highest levels of government has not merited a peep out of the media—though it has not gone unnoticed elsewhere.

This week, it was reported that President Joe Biden, lacking an even minimally competent Secretary of State, has sent White House senior adviser Amos Hochstein for consultations with senior Israeli officials in the hope of heading off a war between Israel and Lebanon.

The choice of Hochstein for such a delicate diplomatic task ought to have raised eyebrows in Washington, not least because of the unusual background of Mr. Biden’s personal envoy.

Born and raised in Jerusalem, Amos J. Hochstein is an Israeli-US national who served in the Israeli Defense Forces in the early 1990s. After service in the IDF, he appears to have been employed briefly at a Tel Aviv PR agency before moving to Washington and commencing his ascent to the highest reaches of the U.S. government, beginning with a staff position for Congressman Sam Gejdenson and then as Staff Director of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.  According to the Lebanese news platform L’Orient, as a congressional staffer in the 1990s, Hochstein “met with an Iraqi Foreign Ministry official to discuss a plan to resettle Palestinians in Iraq in return for sanctions relief.” This background, little noted in the American press, is more than a bit germane to Hochstein’s current policy portfolio. . . .

Down the years, Hochstein seems to have had his fingers in any numbers of shadowy operations over the past several years starting with a well remunerative board seat on the Ukrainian state oil and gas giant Naftogaz.

It was reported early on in the Biden administration that Hochstein was the president’s choice to lead the administration’s efforts to kill the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Given Hochstein’s ties to Ukrainian oil and gas interests, the conflict of interest seems all too apparent.

Leaving that specific question of propriety aside, the question still remains: How could someone of Hochstein’s (opaque) background possibly be viewed as an honest broker in the Middle East?

Spoiler alert: He isn’t.

Here’s how he was received in the region 2021, when Biden dispatched him to mediate a maritime dispute between Israel and Lebanon. Predictably, the reception from Lebanon was hostile, with the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar somewhat uncharitably describing Hochstein as,

…an Israeli-born who served with the Israeli occupation army, killed the people of this land (Lebanon) and now acts in Beirut as a man on a spy mission in favor of his “homeland” (the Zionist entity).

Yet the negative reception wasn’t confined to Lebanon. The estimable Israeli newspaper Haaretz also called for an end to,

…the American brokerage farce, whose players are almost all American Jews, some of them former or future Israelis. If the United States is a side in the conflict, then it should say so and conduct the negotiation as though Israel is its protégé. And if it really wants to be an honest broker, then come on—Amos Hochstein?

Who do they think they’re kidding?

Just so.

The practice of appointing foreign nationals in sensitive positions of public trust are wildly inappropriate and lead, inevitably, to a subversion of U.S. national interests. As Biden and his staff of bought and paid for political appointees drag us deeper and deeper into two wars 5,000 miles from our shores, the pernicious influence of foreign nationals at the highest levels of the U.S. government is a danger the American people need to awaken to.

James W. Carden is a columnist and former adviser to the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission at the U.S. Department of State. His articles and essays have appeared in a wide variety of publications including The Nation, The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, The Spectator, UnHerd, The National Interest, Quartz, The Los Angeles Times, and American Affairs.

END GAZA ANTHOLOGY #14