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“Christ in the Rubble”: Watch Palestinian Pastor Deliver Powerful Christmas Sermon from Bethlehem
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 26, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/26 ... transcript

In the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, city and church leaders canceled all Christmas festivities this year to mourn the more than 20,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza. We feature the Christmas sermon, “Christ in the Rubble: A Liturgy of Lament,” delivered Saturday by Reverend Munther Isaac at the landmark Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, which has received international attention for a nativity scene depicting the figure of baby Jesus in a keffiyeh, surrounded by rubble. “If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza,” preached Isaac, who condemned using theology to justify Israel’s killing of innocent civilians. “If we, as Christians, are not outraged by the genocide, by the weaponization of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness, and we are compromising the credibility of our gospel message.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in the occupied West Bank in the city of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. City and church leaders canceled all Christmas festivities in the Holy Land this year to mourn the more than 20,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza. The landmark Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem created a nativity scene with the figure of baby Jesus in a keffiyeh, surrounded by rubble.

Later in the show, we’ll be joined by the church’s pastor, the Reverend Munther Isaac, but we begin by airing his Christmas sermon, which he delivered on Saturday.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Christ Under the Rubble.

We are angry. We are broken. This should have been a time of joy; instead, we are mourning. We are fearful.

More than 20,000 killed. Thousands are still under the rubble. Close to 9,000 children killed in the most brutal ways, day after day. One-point-nine million displaced. Hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed. Gaza as we know it no longer exists. This is an annihilation. This is a genocide.

The world is watching. Churches are watching. The people of Gaza are sending live images of their own execution. Maybe the world cares. But it goes on.

We are asking here: Could this be our fate in Bethlehem? In Ramallah? In Jenin? Is this our destiny, too?

We are tormented by the silence of the world. Leaders of the so-called free lined up one after the other to give the green light for this genocide against a captive population. They gave the cover. Not only did they make sure to pay the bill in advance, they veiled the truth and context, providing the political cover. And yet another layer has been added: the theological cover, with the Western church stepping into the spotlight.

Our dear friends in South Africa taught us the concept of the “state theology,” defined as “the theological justification of the status quo with its racism, capitalism and totalitarianism.” It does so by misusing theological concepts and biblical texts for its own political purposes.

Here in Palestine, the Bible is weaponized against us — our very own sacred text. In our terminology in Palestine, we speak of the empire. Here we confront the theology of the empire, a disguise for superiority, supremacy, chosenness and entitlement. It is sometimes given a nice cover, using words like “mission” and “evangelism,” “fulfillment of prophecy,” and “spreading freedom and liberty.”

The theology of the empire becomes a powerful tool to mask oppression under the cloak of divine sanction. It speaks of land without people. It divides people into “us” and “them.” It dehumanizes and demonizes. The concept of land without people, again, even though they knew too well that the land had people — and not just any people, a very special people. Theology of the empire calls for emptying Gaza, just like it called for the ethnic cleansing in 1948, a “miracle,” or “a divine miracle,” as they called it. It calls for us Palestinians now to go to Egypt, maybe Jordan. Why not just the sea?

I think of the words of the disciples to Jesus when he was about to enter Samaria: “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” they said of the Samaritans. This is the theology of the empire. This is what they’re saying about us today.

This war has confirmed to us that the world does not see us as equal. Maybe it’s the color of our skins. Maybe it is because we are on the wrong side of a political equation. Even our kinship in Christ did not shield us. So they say if it takes killing 100 Palestinians to get a single “Hamas militant,” then so be it. We are not humans in their eyes. But in God’s eyes, no one can tell us that.

The hypocrisy and racism of the Western world is transparent and appalling. They always take the word of Palestinians with suspicion and qualification. No, we’re not treated equally. Yet, on the other side, despite a clear track record of misinformation, lies, their words are almost always deemed infallible.

To our European friends: I never ever want to hear you lecture us on human rights or international law again. And I mean this. We are not white, I guess. It does not apply to us, according to your own logic.

In this war, the many Christians in the Western world made sure the empire has the theology needed. It is thus self-defense, we were told. And I continue to ask: How is the killing of 9,000 children self-defense? How is the displacement of 1.9 million Palestinians self-defense?

In the shadow of the empire, they turned the colonizer into the victim, and the colonized into the aggressor. Have we forgotten — have we forgotten that the state they talk to, that that state was built on the ruins of the towns and villages of those very same Gazans? Have they forgot that?

We are outraged by the complicity of the church. Let it be clear, friends: Silence is complicity. And empty calls for peace without a ceasefire and end to occupation, and the shallow words of empathy without direct action, all under the banner of complicity.

So here is my message: Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza was hell before October 7th, and the world was silent. Should we be surprised at their silence now?

If you are not appalled by what is happening in Gaza, if you are not shaken to your core, there is something wrong with your humanity. And if we, as Christians, are not outraged by the genocide, by the weaponization of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness, and we are compromising the credibility of our gospel message.

If you fail to call this a genocide, it is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace. Some have not even called for a ceasefire. I’m talking about churches. I feel sorry for you.

We will be OK. Despite the immense blow we have endured, we, the Palestinians, will recover. We will rise. We will stand up again from the midst of destruction, as we have always done as Palestinians, although this is by far maybe the biggest blow we have received in a long time. But we will be OK.

But for those who are complicit, I feel sorry for you. Will you ever recover from this? Your charity and your words of shock after the genocide won’t make a difference. And I know these words of shocks are coming. And I know people will give generously for charity. But your words won’t make a difference. Words of regret won’t suffice for you. And let me say it: We will not accept your apology after the genocide. What has been done has been done. I want you to look at the mirror and ask, “Where was I when Gaza was going through a genocide?” …

In these last two months, the psalms of lament have become a precious companion to us. We cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Gaza? Why do you hide your face from Gaza?”

In our pain, anguish and lament, we have searched for God and found him under the rubble in Gaza. Jesus himself became the victim of the very same violence of the empire when he was in our land. He was tortured, crucified. He bled out as others watched. He was killed and cried out in pain, “My God, where are you?”

In Gaza today, God is under the rubble.

And in this Christmas season, as we search for Jesus, he is not to be found on the side of Rome, but our side of the wall. He’s in a cave, with a simple family, an occupied family. He’s vulnerable, barely and miraculously surviving a massacre himself. He’s among the refugees, among a refugee family. This is where Jesus is to be found today.

If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza. When we glorify pride and richness, Jesus is under the rubble. When we rely on power, might and weapons, Jesus is under the rubble. When we justify, rationalize and theologize the bombing of children, Jesus is under the rubble.

Jesus is under the rubble. This is his manger. He is at home with the marginalized, the suffering, the oppressed and the displaced. This is his manger.

And I have been looking and contemplating on this iconic image. God with us precisely in this way, this is the incarnation — messy, bloody, poverty. This is the incarnation.

And this child is our hope and inspiration. We look and see him in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble. While the world continues to reject the children of Gaza, Jesus says, “Just as you did to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” “You did it to me.” Jesus not only calls them his own, he is them. He is the children of Gaza.

We look at the holy family and see them in every family displaced and wandering, now homeless in despair. While the world discusses the fate of the people of Gaza as if they are unwanted boxes in a garage, God in the Christmas narrative shares their fate. He walks with them and calls them his own.

So this manger is about resilience. It’s about sumud. And the resilience of Jesus is in his meekness, is in his weakness, is in his vulnerability. The majesty of the incarnation lies in its solidarity with the marginalized. Resilience because this is very same child who rose up from the midst of pain, destruction, darkness and death to challenge empires, to speak truth to power and deliver an everlasting victory over death and darkness. This very same child accomplished this.

This is Christmas today in Palestine, and this is the Christmas message. Christmas is not about Santas. It’s not about trees and gifts and lights. My goodness, how we have twisted the meaning of Christmas. How we have commercialized Christmas. I was, by the way, in the U.S.A. last month, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, and I was amazed by the amount of Christmas decorations and lights and all the commercial goods. And I couldn’t help but think: They send us bombs, while celebrating Christmas in their lands. They sing about the prince of peace in their land, while playing the drum of war in our land.

Christmas in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, is this manger. This is our message to the world today. It is a gospel message. It is a true and authentic Christmas message about the God who did not stay silent but said his word, and his word was Jesus. Born among the occupied and marginalized, he is in solidarity with us in our pain and brokenness.

This message is our message to the world today, and it is simply this: This genocide must stop now. Why don’t we repeat it? Stop this genocide now. Can you say it with me? Stop this genocide —

CONGREGATION: Stop this genocide now.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Let’s say it one more time. Stop this genocide —

CONGREGATION: Stop this genocide now.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: This is our call. This is our plea. This is our prayer. Hear, O God. Amen.

AMY GOODMAN: The Reverend Munther Isaac, the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, delivering his Christmas sermon on Saturday. He titled it “Christ in the Rubble.” Coming up, Reverend Isaac will join us from Bethlehem in occupied West Bank. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “Song to the World,” a version of the popular Christmas song “Little Drummer Boy” sung by the Ramallah Friends School in the West Bank. The three Palestinian college students who were shot in Burlington, Vermont, last month are graduates of the Ramallah Friends School and met there in the first grade. The three students who were shot now go to Haverford, Trinity and Brown in the United States. In the video shared by the school, current students sing in Arabic with English subtitles. The school wrote, “Our hearts come together in prayer for the safety of the children in Gaza. May our shared prayers echo for peace and justice, weaving a tapestry of hope that goes beyond borders, embracing the shared humanity we all hold dear.”

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Christmas in Palestine: Bethlehem Reverend Slams West for Praising Prince of Peace & Beating Drums of War
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 26, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/26 ... transcript

Through the Christmas holiday, Israel continued its relentless bombardment and siege of the Gaza Strip that has seen over 20,000 Palestinians killed. In the West Bank, we speak with Reverend Munther Isaac, pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, which canceled Christmas festivities in the storied birthplace of Jesus to mourn the deaths in Gaza and received worldwide attention for their nativity scene depicting the baby Jesus surrounded by rubble. “Christianity started here and never ceased to exist here,” says Isaac. “This is what Christmas is in Palestine: displaced families, destroyed homes and children under the rubble.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman in New York, with Juan González in Chicago.

“Christ in the Rubble.” That was the name of the Christmas sermon we just heard from the Reverend Munther Isaac, the pastor of the landmark Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. Reverend Isaac’s church gained international attention for creating a nativity scene with the figure of baby Jesus in a keffiyeh, surrounded by rubble.

Over the Christmas weekend, Israel carried out raids across the West Bank, including in Bethlehem, in Jenin, Nablus, Jericho and Ramallah. The Reverend Munther Isaac joins us from Bethlehem, where Christmas festivities were canceled this year to mourn the more than 20,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza.

Reverend, welcome to Democracy Now! I wish I could wish you happy holidays, but they are far from happy this year. I’m wondering if you can talk about the message we just heard. It was clear it was not just for your congregation in Bethlehem, not just for the Occupied Territories and Israel, but you were really sending out a message to the world, and particularly talking about the United States. Why you feel where we are talking to you from, where you just recently were, is so important when it comes to the almost 21,000 Palestinians dead since October 7th, since the Hamas attack on Israel?

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Yeah. Good morning. Thank you for having me.

This was a service we held the day before Christmas for Gaza, and it was Jesus under the rubble, from Bethlehem to the world. And as I said in the introduction, we are broken, as Palestinians, by the magnitude, the horrific killing of our people in Gaza. But I also wanted to speak not just for the people of Gaza, for all Palestinians, who are appalled by the silence of the world and the dehumanization that has been taking place of the Palestinian people, especially those in Gaza, the dehumanization that allows such atrocities to take place with the world watching, and with Gazans themselves filming their own execution.

We are really tired and troubled from seeing, day after day after day, images of children and families being pulled from under the rubble. We can’t understand how the world is OK with this. And as a pastor who regularly speaks with churches around the world, I can’t understand how we can preach the gospel of love and justice, while ignoring and, in some cases, justifying what is happening in Gaza. It’s unfathomable to me and to many Palestinians.

And as such, I felt the need to deliver such a message with very direct and clear language. This is not the time for soft diplomacy, especially with the genocide still happening day after day after day. And I’m grateful for those who enabled us to broadcast this service to the world. And I am grateful that it is reaching. It’s not that we’re going to stop what’s happening in Gaza. I wish we could. We’re trying all we can through messaging and lobbying. But I hope that people will feel the weight of responsibility that they have. And I’m talking about not just Western government. Many churches, they have enabled what is happening right now in Gaza. And I felt we need to send this message.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Reverend Isaac, you mentioned that you were recently in the United States. You went to Washington, D.C., with a group of Christian leaders from Bethlehem. You spoke to congressional leaders. And you also delivered a message to the White House — a letter to the White House. What was your sense of how the political leaders in this country are regarding what’s going on there right now in the — with the Israeli attacks on Gaza?

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: We received a mixed reaction. But I left really depressed. And clearly, back then, we saw the intention and that as if everybody has given in to the idea this war is going to last for long.

I left with several impressions. A lot of it has to do with how unwilling to even have a good conversation some congressmen — I’m talking about their staff — are willing, you know, to do. I mean, you share from the heart of our suffering and pain, and then you just get the response, “Well, Congressman so-and-so or Senator so-and-so has made it clear that this war wants to continue.” And they speak with so much distance from the fact and also almost with lack of empathy whatsoever.

When we met in the State Department and the White House, to be honest, you know, they understand the details of what’s happening. When I told them that this war is definitely not bringing any results other than killing innocent people, you know, they seemed to agree. But they seemed to have, as I said, given in to the idea that this war must continue. And I was — you know, I challenged them: “How do you allow such a government in Israel, such leaders, to drive you into committing a genocide?” I can’t understand it, especially with some of the, quote-unquote, “ideals” many of these American politicians keep bragging about or calling for. Yet when it comes to the Palestinians, it seems no one is willing to extend these human rights and international principles to us.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you lay out the significance of Palestine for the Christian faith? It’s not only the birthplace of Christianity, but also the site of several key events described in the Old and New Testaments.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Yeah, Palestine is where it all started. And in addition to the sites themselves that church fathers have called the fifth gospel, meaning that the geography speaks about what happened here over the years, I think we have to realize that Palestine also hosts the oldest Christian tradition in the world. Christianity started here and never ceased to exist here. So, not only is this the land where it all started, this is the land that continued to witness nonstop and give the Christian message.

We always emphasize that Palestine without the witness of its people means nothing. And I hate to see Palestine one day turned into a museum of holy sites for these Western pilgrims who come and visit only interested in certain sites that relate to the Scriptures, without acknowledging the presence of people, without acknowledging the presence of a church that has long carried the Christian witness in Palestine for 2,000 years. But, sadly, we continue to be ignored.

And I think even Palestine, apart from being the destination for pilgrimage, is somehow — you know, people view the biblical land as somehow a mythical land, a land from another universe. You know, we just celebrated Christmas, and millions sang about Bethlehem and read about Bethlehem. I wonder if they know that Bethlehem is a real city, in Palestine, with people, with a long cry for justice. But it seems that, you know, for some reason, people don’t make that connection and are not as much concerned with the plight of Palestinian Christians and even Middle Eastern Christians.

AMY GOODMAN: Reverend Isaac, can you describe for us — half of our audience is television; they see the nativity scene. Half is radio; they cannot see it. Can you describe the nativity scene that was right next to you as you delivered your Christmas sermon? Describe it in detail and why you chose to do this this year, as Christmas celebrations were canceled in your city of Bethlehem.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: So, we created this nativity scene earlier this month, in the beginning of the Advent season, from rubble, bricks, that resemble a destroyed house. So it’s a pile of bricks that resemble a house that was bombed. And on top of it, surrounded by bricks, we had baby Jesus. And the characters in the — usually in the manger, the shepherds and the magis, are all outside, surrounding the rubble, watching in as if they’re looking for any sign of life, looking for Jesus. And we’re sending a message that Jesus is under the rubble.

We created it because this is what Christmas looks like in Palestine today. But we created it because, you know, there is a strong message we wanted to send from it, which is that in a time when the world continues to justify and rationalize the killing of our children, we see the image of Jesus in every child pulled from under the rubble.

These have been very difficult times for us as Palestinians. We ask difficult questions, including: Where is God in the midst of suffering? And I’ve been saying God is under the rubble. God is with those who suffer. God suffers with us. So, with Christmas coming, the connection to me was natural: Jesus as a baby who survived a massacre, Jesus as a baby who became a refugee with his family to Egypt, identifies with us in our suffering. He was born with the marginalized. So the connection was natural.

And we created this manger to send a message to the world: This is what Christmas means to us as Palestinians. It was a message to our people. I know that everyone saw it in the international media, and it resonated with — I mean, it created maybe a shock to many. But for the Palestinians, it sent a very strong message. And many, many Palestinians reached out to us, to our church and to myself, thanking us for explaining the true meaning of Christmas, for sending a message of comfort and hope in the midst of very, very difficult times.

And so I spoke even in my sermon that this manger somehow resembles our resilience as Palestinians. From the midst of destruction, we will rise. And I’m convinced of that. It sounds so dark right now. We’re traumatized. I mean, honestly, we’re traumatized as a people. And I can’t even think of the people of Gaza. But I know that we will rise.

And I’m pleased that this manger was able to bring a small sense of hope to our people, but that it also sent a powerful message to the world about the reality in Palestine. This is what Christmas is in Palestine: displaced families, destroyed homes and children under the rubble.

AMY GOODMAN: Reverend Munther Isaac, I want to thank you for being with us, Palestinian Christian theologian, pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. He titled his Christmas sermon “Christ in the Rubble: A Liturgy of Lament.”

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Labor Demands a Ceasefire: UAW, Electrical & Postal Workers Call for Israel’s Assault on Gaza to End
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 26, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/26 ... transcript

Unions across the United States have begun to shift from a long history of supporting Israel to condemning the Israeli occupation of Palestine amid growing calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, where Israel’s 80-day assault has killed over 20,000 people. As ceasefire demands from teachers to Starbucks workers are published across the country and a major march led in part by union organizers in New York called on members of Congress to stop taking campaign cash from pro-Israel lobbyists, Democracy Now! speaks with longtime trade unionist Bill Fletcher and labor historian Jeff Schuhrke about the United States labor movement’s history with Israel and Palestine, Biden’s Zionism clashing with his union support, and the labor movement’s “tailspin” about how to respond to the war on Gaza.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We look now at the growing pressure from the U.S. labor movement on President Biden to demand a ceasefire in the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on Gaza. Unions helped organize a march to AIPAC headquarters here in New York last Thursday that called on lawmakers to stop taking campaign money from pro-Israel lobbyists. This is United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain speaking alongside progressive congressmembers at a news conference Thursday on Capitol Hill.

SHAWN FAIN: We cannot bomb our way to peace.

REP. CORI BUSH: That’s right!

SHAWN FAIN: The only path forward is to build peace and social justice, is through a ceasefire. … As union members, we know we must fight for all workers and suffering people around the world. We must fight for humanity. That means we must restore people’s basic rights and allow water, food, fuel, humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by two guests in Washington.

Bill Fletcher, longtime trade unionist, co-founder of the Ukrainian Solidarity Network, member of the editorial board of The Nation, where his latest piece is headlined “Gaza, Biden, and a Path Forward.”

And in Chicago, we’re joined by Jeff Schuhrke. He is a labor historian, journalist, union activist, and assistant professor at the School of Labor Studies, SUNY Empire State University in New York City. His latest piece for Jewish Currents is “The Problem of the Unionized War Machine.” His recent articles for In These Times, “The AFL-CIO Squashed a Council’s Cease-Fire Resolution. What Does It Say About Labor Right Now?” and “The Labor Movement’s History of Backing Israel — and the Changing Climate Amid the War on Gaza,” which was also published in Jacobin magazine under the headline “US Labor Should Act Boldly and Choose Solidarity With Palestine.”

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Jeff Schuhrke, let’s begin with you. If you can just go through the labor unions, every one, from the United Postal Workers Union to the powerhouse UAW, United Auto Workers, and talk about the Gaza activism that we’re seeing today?

JEFF SCHUHRKE: Good morning, and thank you for having me.

Yeah, since October, scores and scores of unions and labor bodies at the local, state, regional and national level have been calling for a ceasefire. There is a statement, a U.S. labor movement call for a ceasefire. It also includes a call for restoring food, fuel, water, electricity to Gaza and a call for the release of all hostages, that was started around October 17th by United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, UE, which is a relatively small, but historically very progressive, trade union here in the United States. So, UE, along with United Food and Commercial Workers, UFCW Local 3000, started this petition with the ceasefire call and asked or called on other unions to sign on to it. And so far, as I say, I’ve lost count how many have signed on to it. And other unions have also issued their own statements and resolutions calling for a ceasefire. So, these are unions of teachers and academic workers, healthcare workers, roofers, painters, dockworkers.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you list some of the — can you list some of the unions?

JEFF SCHUHRKE: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Like the UAW, in talking about —

JEFF SCHUHRKE: Yeah, yeah, sure. Certainly. So, I mentioned the United Electrical Workers, the American Postal Workers Union, United Auto Workers, 1199SEIU, which is the largest healthcare union in the country, the National Nurses United, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10, the Chicago Teachers Union, the Boston Teachers Union, several locals of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and on and on. It would take a long time.

But these represent millions of working people across the country. And I think it’s an illustration of the fact that, as the polls consistently show, a majority of people in this country support calls for a ceasefire. And when you’re talking about a majority of people in this country, you’re talking about working-class people. And when they have organizations, like unions, that represent their voices, that give them a democratic say, then you’re going to see those organizations, those unions express the stance of working-class people, which in this case is a call for an end to the slaughter and for a ceasefire. Yeah.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But, Jeff, we still have a considerable number of the national unions, obviously, who are not taking that stand. And you’ve explained in prior articles the role of the AFL-CIO in, for decades and decades, basically supporting U.S. imperial projects around the world. And you’ve written about this guy Jay Lovestone, who was a former communist who played a major role in getting the AFL-CIO united with CIA and imperialist ventures. I’m wondering if you could talk about some of our — to some of our younger viewers and listeners who may never have heard of Jay Lovestone.

JEFF SCHUHRKE: Yeah. There is a really kind of unfortunate and ugly history of the U.S. labor officialdom, including the AFL-CIO, in particular, working hand in hand with the U.S. foreign policy apparatus, especially during the Cold War decades, roughly 1940s to 1990s, working with the State Department, the CIA and other entities of the federal government to try to undermine unions in foreign countries, particularly more left-wing unions, anti-imperialist unions, and divide labor movements. Jay Lovestone for many years was the director of the AFL-CIO’s International Affairs Department. He was a CIA agent, as well. There’s a long history to that.

But particularly when it comes to Israel and Zionism, there’s a long history there, as well, of U.S. labor officialdom being one of the strongest supporters in the U.S. of the Zionist movement, going back as far as 1917, and being strongly supportive of the state of Israel, not just vocal support or political support, but also material support, with millions and millions of dollars from U.S. unions donated to, first, early Zionist settlements, before the state of Israel, and then to the state of Israel for housing, for healthcare clinics, for community centers, sports stadiums. So, throughout the 1950s and '60s, in the early decades of Israel, many of these kinds of public facilities bore the names of famous U.S. labor leaders, like Walter Reuther, George Meany, Jimmy Hoffa, you know, orphanages and sports stadiums named after U.S. labor leaders because of this material support. There's also State of Israel bonds, which U.S. unions have been among the most — the top purchasers of, for many decades. This is money that U.S. unions put dues or pension money or healthcare fund money from unions directly invested into the state of Israel for infrastructure projects.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Jeff, specifically about those Israeli bonds, I remember back in the 1980s attending a fundraiser of the Philadelphia unions for the Israeli labor federation. And one of the leaders got up there at that time and said, “We invest millions of dollars in Israeli bonds from our pension fund, but members sometimes tell me that they don’t give as good a return. But I tell them this is the right thing to do.” So, many union members do not know that their funds were being invested in Israeli bonds for decades.

JEFF SCHUHRKE: Yes. But there has been also a kind of slow but sure — slowly but surely, a movement from the rank and file over many decades to try to push back against that. Going back 50 years ago, in 1973, Arab American auto workers in Detroit who were members of the United Auto Workers staged a wildcat strike at the Dodge Main assembly plant to protest the UAW leadership’s decision to purchase $785,000 in State of Israel bonds and called on UAW leaders to divest.

And so, over the last 20 years or so, you know, there’s been the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, led by Palestinians, including Palestinian trade unions, and some unions in the U.S. have tried to endorse BDS and talk about how their own funds, their own dues and pension funds, how they’re invested in Israel.

So that’s one of the significant things, I think, about the UAW’s recent call for a ceasefire. They also created a new working group called the Divestment and Just Transition working group that’s going to look into the UAW’s own investments in Israel and talk about potentially divesting, as well as talking about — when they say just transition, they’re talking about in the arms industry, because the UAW represents thousands of workers in U.S. weapons factories, weapons that are being sent to Israel. And if we want to talk about shutting down those factories, we also have to talk about what happens to the people who work there who are union members. And so, just transition is similar to the same idea of what happens to fossil fuel workers as we transition to a green economy, making sure — and this goes back to an earlier, you know, in the 1970s, '80s, calls for economic conversion, or conversion from a wartime economy to peacetime economy. So the fact that the UAW's new leadership, under President Shawn Fain, has committed to trying to work towards these goals, I think, is probably even more significant than the calls for a ceasefire, because, after all, a ceasefire is sort of the bare minimum here.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill Fletcher, I wanted to bring you into this conversation. You’re on the editorial board of The Nation, your new piece, “Gaza, Biden, and a Path Forward.” And you wrote, for In These Times, “The Fascist Movement’s Biggest Threat: Labor Unions?” Can you talk about what you mean?

BILL FLETCHER: Amy, Juan, thank you for having me on the program.

Can I — I just want to say one thing before getting into that question. The U.S. trade union movement has always been divided on international affairs, I mean, going back to the Spanish-American War, going to the Spanish Civil War, going to the Vietnam War, Central America, South Africa. What has been a generally consolidated position, going to your point, Juan, is at the level of the national leadership of the AFL-CIO, and most unions, they’ve been largely in lockstep with U.S. foreign policy, but not always. Now, what’s different is that when it comes to Israel and Palestine, up until fairly recently, at the national level, there’s almost no discussion about alternative views as opposed to supporting Israel. And so, that’s what’s changing, which is really, really important to emphasize.

And one of the things, Amy, to your question, is that there is great fear within the union movement about what’s going to happen in November 2024 and what will happen in terms of whether Biden or whoever gets elected. And so, with the October 7th, the Hamas attack, and the Israeli genocide following that, the union movement has been in a tailspin as to how to respond. And part of that response is to go back to its general position of supporting anything that Israel does. Another position is that of silence. And then a growing position, which we’re now seeing, that’s represented by the APWU, UAW, NNU and others, is to take a critical position on the views or on the policy of the United States and of Israel. And that’s where we should have hope.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about President Biden, Bill Fletcher? I mean, you have this really interesting discussion going on right now as we move into the presidential election year. Look at Michigan, huge Arab American community in Dearborn, you know, United Auto Workers so powerful. And it looks like, to say the least, he is — though one of the most powerful supporters of unions when it comes to presidents, Arab American —

BILL FLETCHER: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — community is enraged, the Palestinian community of Michigan.

BILL FLETCHER: Well, and they should be. And the rest of us should be. I mean, as you said, I mean, Biden is probably the most pro-labor president that we’ve had in decades. But the thing about his response to Gaza, which is one of the reasons I think that he really should step aside and there should be another candidate for president on the Democratic slate, is that Biden is fundamentally a Zionist. He believes this stuff. I mean, this is not just the sort of the kind of opportunism that we saw with Obama, who I actually don’t think was a Zionist but for very opportunistic reasons was prepared to align himself with supporting Israel on so many things. I think Biden actually believes this.

And his embrace of Netanyahu, this defies politics. It defies reality. It defies humanity that he cannot look at what’s happening and, even at the level of pragmatic politics, say, “Wait a minute. Hold on. Hold on. Let’s reevaluate the situation,” and, at best, call for greater humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. This is unacceptable. And I think that’s why it’s really important to right now hammer the administration around Palestine. We’ll get to the issue in November.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, Bill, but we’re going to continue the discussion and post it online at democracynow.org. Bill Fletcher, longtime trade unionist, member of The Nation's editorial board, and Jeff Schuhrke, labor historian, journalist. We'll link to all of your pieces.

[admin]

“Axis of Resistance”: Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis Challenge U.S. & Israeli Power Amid Middle East Tension
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 27, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/27 ... transcript

We look at how Israel’s war on Gaza has inflamed tensions in the Middle East and threatens to pull other countries into the fighting, including the United States. The Pentagon says it has intercepted a number of drones and missiles launched by Yemen’s Houthi forces — known as Ansar Allah — in the Red Sea aimed at disrupting international shipping, with the group vowing to continue the attacks on ships in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The U.S. and Israel have also exchanged fire with groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, and violence continues to increase in the occupied West Bank. The growth of forces openly fighting against Israel and the U.S. is a major development in the Middle East that most Western commentators do not fully understand, says Rami Khouri, a veteran Palestinian American journalist and a senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut. This “axis of resistance” is largely motivated by outrage over the treatment of Palestinians, he says. “The U.S. and Israel at some point need to acknowledge that the Palestinian people have rights that are equal to the Israeli people.”

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We had hoped we’d begin today’s show in Gaza, where the Health Ministry says the overall death toll now tops 21,000, including over 8,000 children, but communications in Gaza are now down for the umpteenth time, and neither we nor our colleagues with the Associated Press can reach our guest in Rafah in southern Gaza.

As we reported in headlines, the Pentagon is saying it intercepted and shot down 12 drone attacks, three anti-ship ballistic missiles and two land attack cruise missiles launched by Houthi forces in the Red Sea during a 10-hour period on Tuesday, as concerns grow over a wider regional war in the Middle East. The Yemen-based Houthis have vowed to keep carrying out attacks on ships in the Red Sea to show solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

This comes as the Pentagon said it carried out three strikes on Iraqi territory Monday at President Biden’s direction in response to a drone attack on an air base in Erbil, Iraq, that wounded three U.S. service members, one of them critically. Iraq’s government said the U.S. attacks killed one member of the Iraqi security forces and wounded 18 people, including civilians. It condemned the Pentagon’s, quote, “unacceptable attack on Iraqi sovereignty.”

Meanwhile, Turkey’s military launched airstrikes in northern Iraq and Syria over the weekend, targeting bases, shelters and oil facilities operated by the Kurdish PKK militia. The attacks came after the Turkish Defense Ministry said 12 of its soldiers were killed in northern Iraq in battles with PKK fighters.

Elsewhere, an Israeli airstrike on northern Syria on Monday killed Sayyed Razi Mousavi, a senior adviser in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for coordinating Iran’s military alliance with Syria. Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attack, saying, quote, “Iran reserves the right to take necessary measures to respond to this action at the appropriate time and place.”

For more on all of this, we’re joined in Boston by Rami Khouri, Palestinian American journalist, senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut. His new piece for Al Jazeera is headlined “Watching the watchdogs: Why the West misinterprets Middle East power shifts.”

Well, why don’t you tell us why the West misinterprets these power shifts, Rami Khouri? And do you see what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank as leading to a wider Middle East war?

RAMI KHOURI: Thank you for having me, and thanks for the great work you do every morning.

The second part of your question, I can pretty surely say that I don’t expect the wider war. But wider wars don’t usually happen by planning. They often happen by accident. So it could happen. But I don’t think so, because, first of all, a wider war isn’t going to solve anything; second of all, people, generally, on all sides, don’t want to fight a wider war, and certainly civilian populations are against it.

Your first question, the short answer of why the mainstream media in the U.S. and most of the Western world doesn’t follow, analyze, acknowledge what I think are the biggest geostrategic changes taking place in this Middle East region in the last maybe 30, 40 years — the short answer is that the U.S. and Israel are joined in a kind of settler colonial assault on Palestinian rights. They have been for half a century. The British and the Zionists started this in the 1910s, and then Israel was created. And after '67, the U.S. became the main supporter of Israel. So this is a centurylong conflict that has pitted Israel, Zionism and Western supporters against Palestinian rights. Other Arabs got involved, but it's essentially a Palestinian-Israeli, Palestinian-Zionist struggle.

And the U.S. doesn’t want to acknowledge anything — the U.S. mainstream media, broadly, doesn’t want to acknowledge anything that doesn’t fit the script that the United States has a righteous policy, that the Israelis have a moral army, that what they’re doing is legitimate defense, and that all the other people in the region who challenge them or fight them are either terrorists or just, you know, violence-loving Muslims and Arabs beyond any help that anybody can give them — they just love to kill Jews and Americans. So, this is the kind of nonsense that permeates so much of the mainstream media.

And this is why I mentioned in this column that this tremendously important sign that we had just last week really needs to be appreciated. And that sign was that the Yemeni Ansar Allah group, but people call them the Houthis — you know, one sign of good reporting is to use the people’s proper name. So, Hezbollah, Hamas, Ansar Allah, that makes a difference. And so, these three groups, Hezbollah, Hamas, Ansar Allah, are part of a regional network of groups, Arab groups, nationally anchored, one in — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, Ansar Allah in Yemen, who coordinate very closely with each other and coordinate and get assistance from Iran, just as Israel coordinates closely and gets huge amounts of assistance from the U.S. This is how, you know, the world works. But the difference is that Hezbollah and Hamas have already shown that they can develop technical, military and other capabilities that can check the Israeli-American assault on Palestinian rights.

The U.S. and Israel can wipe out the entire Middle East if they want, the entire Arab region, with their nuclear weapons and — sorry — other facilities. But this wouldn’t solve anything. But the U.S. and Israel at some point need to acknowledge that the Palestinian people have rights that are equal to the Israeli people, and the two should live side by side, or if they want to live in one state, that’s up to them, but probably two adjacent states.

The Hezbollah-Hamas-Ansar Allah combination brought us last week to a situation where at one moment — and it’s kind of still going on — the U.S. and/or Israel were exchanging military fire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, some other Palestinian groups in the West Bank, Ansar Allah in Yemen, the Popular Mobilization Forces, Iranian-backed militant groups, in Iraq, and the Syrian government, which is supported by Iran. So the U.S. and Israel were actively engaged, small levels, low levels, but actively engaged in military action against six opponents on six different fronts. But those opponents were all coordinating together.

And the more important point is that — not just that they coordinate together, but we’ve seen in Hezbollah and Hamas now and others that they are increasing their technical capabilities steadily and significantly. The Israeli government, with its massive attack against Palestine, using over 500 2,000-pound bombs — was reported yesterday — and other, you know, massive ethnic cleansing, everything they’ve done, they haven’t made any significant gains on their three strategic goals, which is to eliminate Hamas, release the hostages and to bring about a new political situation in Gaza. So this is quite extraordinary. When you get two of the most powerful militaries in the world, Israel and the United States, with a lot of other militaries supporting them, unable to achieve basic goals after two-and-a-half months of barbaric attacks, that’s pretty significant.

And the last point I make here is that one of the reasons they’re not able to make significant gains is that these other groups, who are these Arab groups who are close to Iran, they work together in something called the “axis of resistance.” And this axis of resistance is starting to become much more effective in deterring or checking the Israeli-American military assaults and/or the political demands that they want. And we’ll see this now in the negotiations that will happen. What are happening now, they’re negotiating another exchange of prisoners and hostages and other things. And if there’s a peace negotiation that might happen later, you will see the power of this resistance axis manifesting itself politically rather than just militarily. This is a huge, huge development.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Rami Khouri, I wanted to ask you — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal in the past few days, and one of the points that he raised there in terms of the goals of Israel in the assault on Gaza is, to me, a completely new point that he’s raised here. He said that not only do they want to destroy Hamas and demilitarize Gaza, but that they want to deradicalize the Palestinians. In essence, that sounds to me, is to stamp out all potential opposition to Israel in the future. Nothing about a long-term settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. I’m wondering your — how you reacted to that opinion piece.

RAMI KHOURI: I don’t take it very seriously. I don’t take anything Benjamin Netanyahu says these days very seriously. This is a guy on the run. He is running from the law, his own law in Israel. And the only way that he can stay out of jail is to keep fighting, make himself indispensable by being a tough guy. And all it’s doing is killing more Israelis, killing more hostages. The death level among Israeli soldiers in the fighting in Gaza is getting higher and higher. Ten, 15 die on some days now. So, I don’t take anything he says very seriously. Neither should anybody else. He is the prime minister of Israel, and he does head this barbaric coalition of right-wing fascists that’s been let loose now in the West Bank and in Gaza and other places.

But I would also make the more important point that when he says that he wants to deradicalize Palestine, this is in keeping with a century of Zionist lies and propaganda and PR and spin, which the Israelis now do through their government — they have a ministry for international propaganda. And one of their key propaganda techniques, nonstop since the 1920s or '30s, has been to associate any of their foes in the region, whether it's Palestinians or Iranians or it’s Gamal Abdel Nasser or Saddam Hussein or al-Qaeda or anybody who they might not like in the region, they link them with the most awful person or group that is most awful for people in the West. So, with the Palestinians, Netanyahu has compared them to ISIS, to al-Qaeda, to Hitler, to, you know, any — he didn’t compare them to the Khmer Rouge, but he probably will if you give him time — to any group that does terrible things around the world. He says that’s what the Palestinians are like. And the reality is, if you go to any place in Palestine, including Gaza, and you sit with ordinary people, you see that this is a bunch of nonsense. But this is their strategy.

One of the critical things that’s happening now — and I’m working on a long article on this that will come out soon — is that along with the ability of the resistance axis and other — and popular support, by the way, that they have a lot of popular support in the region, as polling shows us, including 90% of people in Saudi Arabia don’t want to make peace with Israel until the Israelis make peace with the Palestinians. And Hamas’s popularity has risen.

But along with this major development which I mentioned, the second one, which I think is absolutely critical and explains a lot of the stuff that’s happening not just in the region but here in the United States, where Palestinians are, you know, thrown out of their jobs because of a tweet they did two years ago or for wearing a scarf that is part of their identity or for calling for a ceasefire, people are — Palestinians are punished for this. This is because this centurylong legacy of Zionist and then Israeli government public relations spin, diversion, lies, exaggerations, distortions, it’s still going on, but it doesn’t work as well. They don’t fool the world like they used to, because everything they do is out in the open. And you go to your social media, and you see everything that the Israelis are doing. It’s all now being documented. Files are being prepared for the International Criminal Court.

So, this is why the Israelis become extremely more violent and more outrageous in their political statements. And it also explains why I believe that they’ve focused heavily on the antisemitism accusations, which, of course, antisemitism and the Holocaust are seen as like the worst human crimes in modern history, even though antisemitism goes way back. So, they’re focusing a lot on antisemitism, they accuse people of being antisemitic or terrorists, because most of their other arguments don’t work anymore.

So this is a really important moment. That’s why it’s so important now for a credible group of people — not the United States government, which is not credible in this, but a credible group of people that includes the U.S., but not run by the U.S. — put together some kind of serious proposal to stop the fighting, get the prisoners and hostages exchanged and released, and start a serious political negotiation that can move the Palestinians and the Israelis and the whole region towards a negotiated permanent peace agreement. It’s very hard to do with the existing governments.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you — you mentioned Saudi Arabia and the 90% support for the axis of resistance within the country. Could you comment on Saudi Arabia’s role right now, for instance, declining to join the coalition that the United States is trying to set up to protect shipping in the Red Sea? What do you make of Saudi Arabia’s stance right now?

RAMI KHOURI: Well, Saudi Arabia waged war against Yemen for five years with American and British technical support, refueling and intelligence and all this stuff. And they lost. They were driven out. The Saudis had to get out of Yemen. The Emiratis got out before, because they’re even less efficient at warfare. And the Emiratis are hunkered down in south Yemen trying to set up some kind of new country or something there. We don’t know what they’re doing. The Saudis got out. So, they understand the capabilities of Ansar Allah and the Yemeni people. Over time, the Yemenis have defeated almost every single person who has tried to come into their country and dominate them or occupy them or order them around. So, that’s one fact.

The second fact is the United States is radioactive politically in the Middle East and in most of the Global South. I would say about 80% of the population of the entire world wants nothing to do with Joe Biden or his amateur, you know, State Department and Defense Department leaders. And even the Defense Department of the U.S. is hesitant to get into any kind of military interaction in Yemen, because they understand how difficult it is. So, the Saudis understand this, as well. They don’t want to be sucked into some cockamamie American plan drawn up in some underground bunker in Iowa or Kansas — I don’t know where these things are — where they come up with these incredible ideas.

I’m old enough to remember the 1960s and '70s, when I was in college, and until today. The U.S. has tried four or five times over the last 60 years that I've been a journalist to come up with coalitions of Israelis, Americans and Arabs against some bad guy in the region. It could be Iraq. It could be Iran. It could be al-Qaeda, could be Nasser, could be the communists. It changes over time. Every time they’ve tried to do this, it doesn’t work, because the people running American foreign policy do not have the fundamental decency or strategic knowledge to understand that you can’t go into an Arab country, where 90% of the people support the Palestinians and want the Palestinians to live peacefully with an Israeli state. We are not against an Israeli Jewish-majority state, but it has to live with Palestinians peacefully. Ninety percent of people across most of the region want Palestinian rights to be resolved, and they don’t want 25 American bases all around the region, which is one reason people in Iraq are shooting at American bases in Iraq and Syria. And you can’t get Arab governments to just run roughshod over their people and say, “The hell with you. We’re going to make an alliance with Israel. We’re going to make an alliance with the U.S.”

They’ve learned the hard way that the populations in the Arab countries are not perpetually docile. We’ve had 10 years of uprising, from 2010 to 2020, and there are still things happening in many Arab countries. But there is no realistic way that you can get serious Arab governments to go into an alliance with the U.S. and Israel, whether it’s to protect shipping or to do anything else. The way you protect shipping in the Red Sea is you stop the assault on Gaza. That’s what the Yemenis have made clear. They’re only doing this, they’re only firing at Israeli-linked ships, because of what Israel is doing in Gaza. They said, “Stop the assault, the genocide on Gaza. We will stop shooting.” It’s in Yemen’s interest to have the ships come and go.

So, these are fundamental, commonsense elements of foreign policy, which, for some odd reason, do not pertain in Washington. Washington doesn’t know how — broadly speaking, doesn’t know how to engage in foreign policy. They use their warfare capabilities. They use sanctions. They veto stuff at the U.N. They make threats. They try to come up with these grandiose coalitions. And most of these have failed, since Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen today. They don’t work. And they keep trying them. It’s very puzzling. This is really one of the great puzzles that American political scientists and psychiatrists need to study. Why does the U.S. refuse to see realities around the world, until they’re defeated, and they get out, and then they, you know, negotiate with the Viet Cong, they negotiate with the Taliban? And they’ll negotiate with Hamas, as they negotiated with Arafat and the PLO. You’re going to see American officials sitting with Hamas, I would say six, eight months down the road probably. They start quietly meeting in cafes in Vienna and stuff, and then…

So, there’s something about American foreign policy, that’s formulated in the public sphere, that is both irrational and ineffective. And it’s largely because the people doing it do not understand how the world works, and respond to political, financial, electoral pressures in their own constituencies. The political leaderships in the U.S. are highly deficient in conducting a moral foreign policy, but they’re highly efficient at conducting a profitable mercantile electoral policy, where they get votes, where they get support for advertising, where they get favorable media. And this is a tragedy for the United States, which tries to tell the world that it is for human rights and decency, equal rights. And the world believed this for 30, 40, 50 years, but don’t believe it anymore. And Gaza is the kind of the exclamation mark on this, where the U.S. actively supports this genocide, will not do a ceasefire, and therefore this is the consequence. And the Saudis don’t want anything to do with this.

AMY GOODMAN: Rami Khouri, I want to thank you for being with us, Palestinian American journalist, senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut. We’ll link to your piece in Al Jazeera headlined “Watching the watchdogs: Why the West misinterprets Middle East power shifts,” speaking to us from Boston

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Who Funds Canary Mission? James Bamford on Group That Doxxes Students & Profs for Palestine Activism
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 27, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/27 ... transcript

Longtime investigative journalist James Bamford’s latest piece for The Nation looks at Canary Mission, a shadowy pro-Israel group that publishes the photos and personal details of students who take part in Palestinian advocacy on U.S. colleges, branding them antisemites and often damaging their career prospects. Bamford explains how this operation has direct links to the Israeli government, and that wealthy Americans who fund this effort could be breaking the law by acting as agents of a foreign power. “The purpose is to blacklist and dox students, professors, and largely anybody who disagrees with Israel or is pro-Palestinian,” Bamford tells Democracy Now!

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We look now at what some are calling the “Palestine exception” to free speech and academic freedom on college campuses across the United States. Soon we’ll hear from a student and professor at Barnard, but we begin with a new report by longtime investigative journalist James Bamford in a series for The Nation on Israel’s spying and covert actions in the United States against pro-Palestinian students, supporters and groups. It’s headlined, the latest piece, “Who Is Funding Canary Mission? Inside the Doxxing Operation Targeting Anti-Zionist Students and Professors.” Last month, Jim Bamford wrote a piece headlined “Israel’s War on American Student Activists.” He’s joining us now from Washington, D.C.

James Bamford, welcome back to Democracy Now! Tell us what the Canary Mission is.

JAMES BAMFORD: Well, it’s a very massive program that’s been going on for years and years. It’s secretly run out of Israel. And the purpose is to blacklist and dox students, professors, and largely anybody that disagrees, largely, with Israel or is pro-Palestinian.

Many, many people suddenly wake up, and they find out people are calling them and saying, “Your name is on a blacklist,” the Canary Mission blacklist. And, you know, it’s designed to intimidate these people, to get them to stop joining pro-Palestinian groups or to stop being activists and to comply with whatever the people behind Canary Mission want. And that’s basically to silence them.

And the threat is that if you don’t be silent, then, you know, your name is going to go on the blacklist, and if you go look for a job when you get out of — when you graduate, or if you’re trying to rise up in the professional ranks or a professorship, it’s going to be blocked, because your name is on this list. And it’s almost impossible to get off the list. So, that’s just one of the many ways that the Israeli government has been pushing the American public, basically, to steer away from pro-Palestinian activism.

AMY GOODMAN: But how do you know that the Israeli government runs the Canary Mission? And why is it called the Canary Mission?

JAMES BAMFORD: Well, I don’t know why it’s called Canary Mission. It has something to do with canaries in the mine or something like that.

AMY GOODMAN: In the coal mine?

JAMES BAMFORD: Yeah, I guess so. The organization that runs it is very, very secret. Two of the organizations that looked into it was the Jewish Forward magazine and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and they determined that it was being run secretly from a place in Israel, very secret place in Israel, and that there was a rabbi behind it. Tracing all these links back is very difficult, but that’s where they traced it, to these people in Israel that were basically running it. A lot of the funding comes from — and again, this is from Haaretz and also from The Forward — a lot of the funding comes from American — wealthy Jewish Americans and Jewish American foundations, millions of dollars and so forth. So that’s where a lot of the funding comes from.

The Israeli government gets involved, because they use Canary Mission as a tool. So, if people are coming over from the United States, either Jewish or Palestinian — they’re maybe going to visit families — they look at Canary Mission. They actually have it there, and they look at it. And they’ll kick people out of Israel. They’ll land at the airport. They’ll be questioned — and they’ll be questioned because their name is on Canary Mission — and then be deported, held in confinement for, you know, a couple days or whatever, and then deported. That’s happened numerous times to people. Again, they tried keeping secret the fact that they’re using Canary Mission, but a number of the professors and students who have been thrown out have seen that their name is on the — the guards at the airport or the inspectors are checking their names off the Canary Mission list. So, there’s a heavy involvement of the Israeli government in there, in this. It’s run by mysterious Israelis, and it’s funded by pro-Israeli money in the United States. So, Israel has its fingers all over Canary Mission.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, James Bamford, could you talk about the reasoning and the context in which they created online profiles, Canary Mission did, for members of The Harvard Crimson’s editorial board, the student newspaper?

JAMES BAMFORD: Sure. Soon after October 7th, the attack, the student newspaper came out — well, there were about 33 organizations that supported a statement basically saying this all didn’t start on October 7th, these activities have been going on for a long time, the fighting between Israel and Palestine, with the Palestinians, obviously, being on the losing side of the war against them by the Israelis. So they were basically saying that, look, it didn’t just start on October 7.

Well, that created a storm of opposition. And almost immediately, almost all the people involved found themselves on Canary Mission, even people tangentially involved that happened to sign this letter. So, that’s how it works. You know, you want to intimidate these people into not being an activist. Then you create this blacklist and doxxing, that tells where they are and who they are, and basically creates a dossier of them on this list. And so —

AMY GOODMAN: Jim, didn’t that happen —

JAMES BAMFORD: — you don’t want to get on the list. You don’t — activists —

AMY GOODMAN: Didn’t that happen when The Harvard Crimson had an editorial supporting BDS, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions?

JAMES BAMFORD: Exactly, yeah. That’s, you know, any — it’s not just at Harvard. It’s at schools all over the United States. And Harvard was one perfect example. When they had that student letter come out and it was published in The Harvard Crimson, a lot of people the who were on that, who signed that letter, ended up on the blacklist for Canary Mission. So, again, it’s a tool for intimidation. And a lot of times it works.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And who are some of the prominent American donors who are involved in funding this effort?

JAMES BAMFORD: Well, it’s very difficult to find that, because it’s secret who donates money to the organization, largely secret. There was a mistake some group made on a tax form. And what that showed was at least one of the groups was the Diller family in California. They’re one of the wealthiest families in California, billionaires. And they had donated $100,000 to the front organization of Canary Mission. It’s a thing called Megamot Shalom. It’s basically a front organization in Israel.

And so, what they did was they donated $100,000 through the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco. And then, from there, it went to another organization, the Central Fund for Israel, which is set up in New York, because if they send the money directly to Israel, they don’t get a tax advantage. So, by sending it through the sort of front organization, the Central Fund for Israel — or, Central Fund of Israel, in New York, then they get a tax advantage. And then the Central Fund of Israel just forwards the money to Megamot Shalom, the front organization for Canary Mission, and then it goes to Canary Mission.

And again, this was very difficult to figure out, because there are so many obstacles to trying to find out how the money actually goes from these wealthy individuals and organizations to this group in Israel. And so —

AMY GOODMAN: You’re saying the Canary Mission should have to sign up as a foreign agent?

JAMES BAMFORD: Well, yeah. I’m saying that the people who — first of all, this is a clandestine organization. It’s very secretive. It’s hidden behind a front company in — or, front organization in Israel, and it’s being used by the Israeli intelligence to find people that they could deny entry at the airport and deport and so forth. So, this is an organization that’s secret. It’s being used by the Israeli government to the detriment of American citizens. So, if you’re contributing to it, you could be considered a — contributing to a foreign entity, and you could be considered an agent of a foreign government.

So, those are issues that should be looked into. You know, I’ve been doing all these stories. I’ve talked to numerous FBI agents, and the FBI agents are fully in favor of actually taking cases. The problem is, once they try to bring these cases up the channels to the Justice Department, nothing ever happens.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Jim, we’re going to have to —

JAMES BAMFORD: So, no matter what it is —

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. We’re going to be speaking with a Barnard professor, but you do write about a Columbia University Law School professor, Katherine Franke, who at one time sat on the academic advisory council steering committee of Jewish Voice for Peace. Upon her landing in Tel Aviv, you write, an official at the airport showed her what appeared to be her Canary Mission profile. After being held in detention for 14 hours, she was deported and informed that she would be permanently banned from Israel. Just one example. Jim Bamford, we want to thank you for being with us, investigative journalist, well known for exposing National Security Agency, the CIA. The New York Times has called him “the nation’s premier journalist on the subject of the NSA.” The New Yorker called him “the NSA’s chief chronicler.” We’ll link to your series in The Nation, including the last one, “Who Is Funding Canary Mission?”

***

As Phone Line Breaks Up, Palestinian Journalist Akram al-Satarri Describes “Dire” Conditions in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 27, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/27 ... transcript

Amid a communications blackout in Gaza, we are able to reach Palestinian journalist Akram al-Satarri in Rafah, where much of Gaza’s population is now displaced near the Egyptian border as Israel intensifies its assault on the besieged territory. The overall death toll in Gaza has now topped 21,000, including over 8,000 children, and Israeli leaders have suggested the war could continue for months. “The situation is dire,” says al-Satarri, who describes continuous airstrikes leveling buildings as Gaza residents live in terror, not knowing when, where or why Israeli bombs will fall. “It’s a continuous struggle to live. It’s a continuous struggle to survive.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to a Barnard professor, but we just learned that we’re joined now, if we can reach him, by Akram al-Satarri, a Gaza-based journalist, talking to us from Rafah in southern Gaza. It’s so hard to get him, that we want to go directly to him, if in fact he’s on the line.

Akra, are you there?

AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Yes, I’m there.

AMY GOODMAN: Thank you so much for being with us.

AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Good morning.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you just tell us what’s happening right now in Rafah and in southern Gaza?

AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Well, it’s extremely difficult to describe how difficult and futile the situation in southern Gaza, Rafah and Khan Younis area, in particular. The area has been subjected to a complete shutdown of all communication system and a comprehensive jam of all communication, including the eSIMs, that the Israeli authorities learned that the Palestinians using to take and [inaudible] the truth to the world.

The [inaudible] is heavier than ever. Every few seconds, a very heavy bombardment, very large destruction. I have just learned that the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Al-Amal Hospital — “al-amal” means “hope” — Al-Amal Hospital was just hit, and 22 people were killed because of that bombardment. And the Israeli occupation army is still bombarding the whole area, in Rafah, in Khan Younis, in Deir al-Balah, in the Gaza central area, in Nuseirat, al-Maghazi, al-Bureij and also Juhor ad-Dik area. So, it’s a very heavy — and it’s a very heavy, sustained [inaudible] one-ton missiles, two-ton missiles are hitting the houses and destroying whole blocks sometimes.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Can you talk — how difficult — I can’t imagine how difficult it is for you as a journalist working in Gaza to be able to report. Could you talk about some of the problems that you face?

AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Well, one of the problems that I’m facing is that this complete lack of communication. We scheduled a meeting for your good service. It was supposed to be starting around two hours ago. And because of that complete, complete blackout of the communication, I could not join you.

To the [inaudible] becomes the first and the most priority. Journalists are people. Journalists are fathers. Journalists are brothers. Journalists are mothers. Journalists are [inaudible]. And, trust me, I personally have been struggling to live. I’ve been moving from one area to another. I was asked to move from where I live to another place. Then I was asked to move from that place to another place. For the whole Palestinians and journalists, in particular, this is extremely [inaudible]. Survival becomes the first priority. [inaudible] You don’t know when they’re going to hit. You don’t know who they’re going to hit. You don’t know the reason of why they’re hitting. But you might end up being targeted by them.

Now you see the people walking down the street. It’s like people are going nowhere certain. They are confused. They are in fear because of the ongoing bombardment. And they end up killed even when they’re walking, when they’re sleeping, when they’re trying to secure the food. The situation is dire.

And when it comes to the journalists, I was today in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Nasser Medical Complex. I saw the journalists waiting because they don’t have any communication whatsoever. They have been struggling to secure whatever connection they can. They, I — me and three other journalists were like [inaudible] hospital in the hope that we would find connection, find internet connection. We went down. We were trying. Now, we could not make a connection until a few seconds ago, when I could do a connection, thanks to one international eSIM that I have.

So, it’s a continuous struggle to live. It’s a continuous struggle to survive. And it’s a continuous struggle to secure the very basic need of journalists and their families, as well. So it’s no more a professional duty, so a professional and a humanitarian duty, as well. And the journalists are torn apart between their duty towards their families and their duty also toward their career.

AMY GOODMAN: So, why do you do it, Akram al-Satarri? Akram? Well, it looks like we lost Akram al-Satarri. We’re going to try to get him back on, and we’re going to post that interview at democracynow.org. He is a Gaza-based journalist, incredibly brave, very difficult to get this connection, talking to us from Rafah in southern Gaza.

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Palestine Exception: U.S. Colleges Suppress Free Speech, Academic Freedom for Students & Professors
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 27, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/27 ... transcript

We look at the “Palestine exception to free speech” on U.S. college campuses, where students and faculty face backlash and professional retribution for speaking up in defense of Palestinian rights amid the Israeli war on Gaza. We hear from Safiya O’Brien, a Barnard College student and organizer with the Columbia University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, and speak with Barnard College professor Premilla Nadasen, who describes an organized campaign “to censor student and faculty speech and curtail academic freedom.” The New York Civil Liberties Union recently sent a letter to the president of Barnard to protest a new policy that requires departments to submit content for their websites for approval by the Office of the Provost.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to end now with a Barnard professor and student, as we continue to look at what some are calling the “Palestine exception” to free speech and academic freedom on college campuses across the United States. A New York Times story this past weekend noted, quote, “a sustained antiwar protest like the one against the Gaza invasion has not been seen for decades,” unquote. But many schools have tried to shut down students and teachers who comment on Gaza or call for a ceasefire.

In one of the latest developments, professors at Syracuse University say upper-level administrators surveilled, harassed and intimidated undergraduates peacefully gathering for a study-in in support of Palestine earlier this month. So they issued a “Statement of Solidarity in Opposition to the Repressive Climate on US Campuses.” That’s what the letter was called, signed by more than 900 educators at this point nationwide, and the list is growing.

In a minute, we’ll be joined by a professor from Barnard College, sister school to Columbia. New York Civil Liberties Union recently sent a letter to the president of Barnard to protest a new policy that requires departments to submit content for their websites for approval by the Office of the Provost. Democracy Now! spoke with Safiya O’Brien, a Barnard College student and student organizer with Columbia University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.

SAFIYA O’BRIEN: The most prominent discrimination and harassment on campus has been through not only other students and faculty on campus, but the administration’s vilification of Palestinians through these university-wide emails that they’ve been sending. This is not only vilifying us as student groups that are advocating for an end to the violence as it ensues, but even allowing professors and adults that have very prominent positions in the university to speak so harshly against us and call for harm against students of color that are advocating for Palestine, and with impunity. We have documented hundreds of harassment complaints, because the administration hasn’t helped us at all with these harassment cases.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Barnard College student Safiya O’Brien, organizer with the Columbia University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.

For more, we’re joined by Premilla Nadasen, a professor of history at Barnard College, also co-director of the Barnard Center for Research on Women and author of the recent book, Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Professor Nadasen. We just have a minute. Then we will do a post show interview and post it at democracynow.org. But if you can talk about what’s happening on campus and why you signed this letter?

PREMILLA NADASEN: What we’ve seen, Amy, over the past couple of months is a whole series of strategies that universities have deployed, including Barnard College and Columbia University, to censor student and faculty speech and curtail academic freedom. This includes the suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace on campus, the cancellation of events, the policing of content on departmental websites, as you’ve mentioned, the presence of NYPD on campus. And this relates back to what you started with, and that is a Palestine exception.

What Barnard College has been doing is actually writing new policy as a way to then retroactively decide that events are unauthorized or, in fact, do not follow procedure. And I think there are some really critical issues here, and one of the critical issues is how are decisions at the university made. A lot of these have been made unilaterally, without consultation by faculty or students, and is, in fact, a violation of the university’s own conduct guidelines. And clearly, there’s a tremendous amount of influence by trustees, administrators, alumni and donors, who are making decisions about what kinds of speech ought to take place on college campuses and what can and cannot be posted.

AMY GOODMAN: You signed a statement headlined “Solidarity in Opposition to the Repressive Climate on US Campuses.” Professor Nadasen, if you could start off by talking about what’s happening at Barnard and Columbia University around the groups like Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, and then what you’re being told to do as a professor in dealing with this crisis?

PREMILLA NADASEN: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Amy.

So, what we’ve seen at Barnard College — and Barnard is a sister college of Columbia University — is where the college and the university are really creating an infrastructure of rules and regulations in order to censor speech and curtail academic freedom. We’ve seen this in a number of instances — the suspension of two student organizations, Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine, presumably because they arranged an unauthorized walkout and rally, because there was supposedly threatening rhetoric and intimidation. However, when pushed, the administration is not able to identify the specific instances of this intimidating behavior. Threatening letters have been sent by deans to students.

We’ve seen the cancellation of events. I direct the Barnard Center for Research on Women. We had organized an event in sponsorship with Students for Justice in Palestine, which the university canceled the night before the event, claiming that Students for Justice in Palestine is an outside organization, even though it’s a Columbia organization, and Barnard students are members of that. They claim there was now a new five-week prior approval policy for co-sponsored events. And then there was an event that the Columbia Law Students for Palestine organized with Omar Shakir, who’s with Human Rights Watch. And so, all of these events have been canceled on, presumably, procedural grounds. And what the university and the college are doing is they’re using procedure and codes of conduct as a way to cancel events and silence students and faculty.

The other example, which you mentioned in your opening, is the control of faculty websites, departmental websites and center websites. Our Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department wrote a statement in solidarity with Palestine that was posted on October 22nd — on October 21st, sorry. It was removed on October 22nd by the Provost’s Office. And just a few weeks later, the college created a new policy saying that any website content on departmental pages must be reviewed and approved by the Provost’s Office prior to posting.

And so, this is really crucial, because I think what it suggests is that decisions are being made unilaterally by the university officials, by college officials, without consultation with faculty and without through proper procedure, which includes going through the University Senate. Trustees, administrators, alumni and donors are the ones who are actually having undue influence in what — in the kinds of decisions that are being made around academic freedom and freedom of expression.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor Nadasen, I wanted to —

PREMILLA NADASEN: And, you know, the —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I wanted to ask you, several — about a decade ago, the University of Chicago initiated a whole new movement among administrators at American universities, which they called the “Chicago Principles,” that supposedly, quote, said that, quote, “the University’s overarching commitment to free, robust, and uninhibited debate.” And then they got universities all around the country to sign on to this. Columbia signed on in 2016. How does the university reconcile its commitment to these Chicago Principles while at the same time shutting down unpopular speech, as far as they’re concerned, that has to do with Palestine?

PREMILLA NADASEN: What Barnard College has done is that it has actually rewritten its political activity guidelines. It rewrote it on November 13th. And what the new policy suggests is that specific actions, statements or positions taken by public officials or governmental bodies is off limits to faculty or is not protected by academic freedom. We cannot attempt to influence legislation or the outcome related to actions by the legislator. Previously, political activity was understood in terms of electoral or partisan politics. But clearly what the college is doing is expanding this notion of political activity and suggesting that faculty and students are in fact in violation of its policy.

But the Chicago Principles are extremely important. And what it says is that there, in fact, should be free and open inquiry, debate, discussion around all sorts of political issues, even if those are difficult and perhaps uncomfortable for people. Our faculty voted just a few weeks ago in favor of the Chicago Principles, because what we have seen now is, in fact, the administration using the power it has as a way to suppress any kind of debate and discussion, especially around Palestine.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Nadasen, are you concerned about speaking out? And do you need any prior approval? And what kind of discussions are you having among the professors at Columbia and Barnard? And talk about your decision to sign on to this letter, which speaks out against censorship and repression on college campuses, started by these Syracuse University professors, that has now close to a thousand signatures.

PREMILLA NADASEN: Students — faculty and staff at Barnard and Columbia formed a Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine shortly after the suspension of JVP and SJP on campus. So, we believe it’s extremely important for faculty and staff to be able to speak out on this issue, partly as a way to protect students. Students have been bearing the brunt of the intimidation and the threatening tactics on the part of the administration. They are the ones who have been suspended, who have been threatened with suspension individually.

And there are always risks. There are always risks in speaking out. I am on the Canary Mission website, and I have been for a very long time, because this is not a new issue for me. But I do think that there is really too much at stake right now. There’s too much at stake around what is happening in Gaza and in Palestine. There’s too much at stake in terms of what we need to be able to do on college campuses.

This is not the first time this has happened at Barnard. In 2015, the college changed its banner policy. It used to be that students could put banners up announcing events that were happening. In 2015, during Israeli Apartheid Week, students put up a banner. Shortly after that, the college changed its policy, and students are no longer to put — are no longer allowed to put banners up.

And so, I think we have to think about the meaning, really, of a liberal arts education and how we want to be able to create a climate that is for — that is one that allows academic debate, allows discussion, allows people to disagree with ideas, where we can have students challenged and give students a space to voice their opinions and faculty the space to teach very difficult topics.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you: In terms of the impact on the student movement, overall, on student organizations, what has been the response of the organizations, given the fact that this is not government censorship? This is basically censorship imposed by donors, in essence, through their dollar contributions or the withholding of money to these universities.

PREMILLA NADASEN: Right. Students have been leading the way in the struggle. So, after JVP and SJP were suspended on the campus, 80 student organizations came together and formed CU Apartheid Divest as a way to represent the pro-Palestinian issue and to incorporate a lot of the agenda of JVP and SJP. Students on campus are currently calling for a tuition strike in the spring and trying to build support for that. So students are leading the way despite the threatening and intimidating behavior on the part of the college administration.

AMY GOODMAN: And I wanted to ask you about the congressional hearing where Elise Stefanik went after these three female college presidents — right? — the president of MIT, the president of Harvard and the president of University of Pennsylvania, who ultimately resigned. The president of Harvard got support from students, from professors, and she did not resign, Claudine Gay, but is under enormous, withering attack right now. Now they’re saying she’s guilty of plagiarism and has to step down. If you can talk about whether you’re following that, and the effect that that has had at Barnard and Columbia and around the country as college presidents are taken down, the most vulnerable, women and women of color? She was the first Black woman president of Harvard. And, of course, UPenn was President Magill, who is a female president of UPenn.

PREMILLA NADASEN: That’s right, Amy. And, in fact, many of the students who have been targeted on the campus here at Barnard and Columbia are largely students of color, and women of color, as well. So we’re seeing this across the board. It’s hard.

You have to place what’s happening at Barnard and Columbia right now in this larger national context. And the House subcommittee that you’re talking about, the hearings on antisemitism on college campuses, the Biden’s administration issuing of guidelines around antisemitism on campus, I think the core issue here — oh, and I will also add the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, that is investigating a number of schools around the country. I think part of the problem with this is the creation or the assumption that any criticism of the state of Israel is, in fact, antisemitic, and the ways in which, as you mentioned, donors, trustees and alumni are having undue influence on the ways in which there is space to critique the state of Israel on college campuses.

The AAUP has principles of academic freedom that state very clearly that the purpose of academic freedom is to protect the academe as a space for the production and dissemination of knowledge, that serves the public irrespective of governmental, corporate or institutional interests. And so, what we’re seeing right now is a violation of that, at Barnard, at Columbia, at Harvard, at Brown, and Penn, and a shutting down of debate, particularly around Palestine. And this is precisely why the New York Civil Liberties Union wrote this open letter to the Barnard administration about control of websites.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Nadasen, I want to end by asking about your own background. You said you have been outspoken on Palestinian issues for quite some time. You said your profile is on the Canary Mission website. We just spoke to the investigative journalist James Bamford about the Canary Mission and what it has been doing around profiling students and professors in the United States. People go to democracynow.org. But why you are interested in this issue? Can you talk about where you were born, and what that means for your analysis of the situation in the Middle East?

PREMILLA NADASEN: I was born in South Africa under apartheid. I lived there as a child and moved to the United States, but went back periodically. So I was deeply impacted by apartheid in South Africa and became active in the anti-apartheid movement in high school, and then in college, and knew about what was happening in Palestine, but don’t think I fully understood.

I did go on a delegation to Palestine for the first time. My first time in the region was in 2011 on a women of color delegation. And, Amy, I will just have to say I was shocked by what I saw. And I was shocked mostly with the parallels I saw to apartheid South Africa — the gates, the control of roads, the control of movement, the checkpoints, the use of military force, threatening military force, soldiers with guns. The areas we went to were essentially a militarized state. And even though I had spoken out about Palestine prior to that, I think traveling there and seeing for myself what is happening in Palestine had a real impact on how I could understand and see the issue there. And so I made a commitment at that point to continue to speak out, and to speak out whenever I could, because I think it’s unconscionable. I think what has been happening for decades in Palestine is unconscionable.

And I think what we’re really seeing now is a collective punishment and mass starvation in Gaza and unprecedented attacks in the West Bank. And it’s something that’s being supported by U.S. dollars. So I think it’s very important that we, as Americans who are paying tax dollars that are going to support the Israeli state, speak out about the things that we think are morally just, morally right, and to try to have — and to vote — and to vote as a way to make our voices heard.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Premilla Nadasen, we want to thank you so much for being with us, professor of history at Barnard College, co-director of the Barnard Center for Research on Women, one of close to 1,000 educators who have signed a statement, the headline, “Solidary in Opposition to the Repressive Climate on US Campuses.” The list is growing.

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Meet Aida Touma-Sliman, Palestinian Knesset Member Suspended for Criticizing War on Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 28, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/28 ... transcript

As Israel threatens to continue its assault on Gaza for “many months,” we look at growing Israeli civil opposition to the war. This week, 18-year-old Israeli Tal Mitnick became the first conscientious objector since October 7. We speak with Aida Touma-Sliman, an Palestinian Arab member of the left-wing party Hadash who was suspended from the Knesset last month for criticizing Israel’s assault. She was punished for a social media post she made condemning Israel’s attack on al-Shifa Hospital, and decries the “extreme right-wing government” and its suppression of critical voices in Israel.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: As Israel is threatening to continue its assault on Gaza for “many months,” we begin today’s show looking at resistance to the war inside Israel. On Tuesday, an 18-year-old Israeli teenager named Tal Mitnick was sentenced to 30 days in prison after he refused to enlist in the Israeli army. He spoke out against Israel’s assault on Gaza before his sentencing on Tuesday.

TAL MITNICK: [translated] I am standing today in Tel HaShomer base, and I am refusing to enlist. I believe that slaughter cannot solve slaughter. 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.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Last week, Tal Mitnick spoke to Novara Media about why he decided to become a conscientious objector.

TAL MITNICK: What led me was the realization that it’s not just a couple soldiers that are bad soldiers or that enact a violent occupation on Palestinians, but it’s actually a whole system, system of violence, of pulling people into the army and making them work for the occupation and for oppressing Palestinians. …

A lot of my friends are serving and right now are in military service. And when I tell them my opinions, because I am their friend, they see the humanity in my positions, and they see that my only — I only want further to be good in this place. I want security, and I want peace for everyone. And when people get to know me, when people hear this opinion, they — this opinion is very humanistic and very normal.

So this is what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to make more teens, make more young people hear this position that there is an alternative to the massacre that is happening right now in Gaza and to the massacre that Hamas committed on October 7th. There is an alternative in peace, of peace and nonviolence.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Tal Mitnick speaking to Ash Sarkar, the British journalist. He has now been sentenced to 30 days in prison for refusing to enlist. Israel is facing growing criticism for stifling antiwar voices.

We’re joined by Aida Touma-Sliman. She’s a Palestinian member of the Knesset from the progressive Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, known as the Hadash party. She was suspended from the Knesset last month for criticizing the Israeli military assault on Gaza. She is joining us now from Akko in northern Israel, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Aida Touma-Sliman. If you can start off by talking about the significance of Tal’s resistance, but then go on to talk about the situation in Gaza today and why you were suspended? I mean, you’re an elected leader of the Knesset. Who gets to suspend you?

AIDA TOUMA-SLIMAN: Well, hi. Thank you for hosting me.

Actually, those who suspended me are the same people who are putting Tal now in prison because he has refused to enlist himself to the army. Those are those who are ruling Israel, this government, very extreme right-wing government, who is refusing to hear any voice, antiwar voice, anybody who is opposing this bloody war. There are massive pressure used by the government in order to silence the voices who refuse to believe that military actions and wars and killing innocent people might get us anywhere or can be a way to solve the problem.

I think it has been already a month since I was suspended by the so-called ethics committee, parliamentarian ethics committee, who punished me for quoting testimonies from physicians from al-Shifa Hospital, which were published in the international media. And for that, I’ve been punished and not allowed to speak out in the Knesset or to participate in the committees for two months — one has passed already.

Of course, this is not democratic. But when you see that the same government, the same Knesset is supporting a war that is killing more than 21,000 people, 70% of them children and women in Gaza, you understand that it’s ridiculous to speak about democracy in such situation, because launching such a war was as if a reaction to Hamas’s attack on the 7th of October, which also we don’t — I don’t see it as in any way legitimized to kidnap civilians, including children, but it, of course, do not legitimize also this crazy war that has been going on in the last more than two months. It’s already 80 — more than 80 days.

So, you can understand that when Tal refused to enlist himself, he is a unique voice in the Israeli society, for a young man to stand up against all the mainstream — and not only mainstream, but kind of consensus. Today the situation in Israel is almost 90% of the society is in consensus of supporting the war. To stand up and to say that he will not take part in this war, he is not willing to be part of this military forces that are attacking, bombing in Gaza, it’s a very brave position to take. It is not easy. I’m sure he will not be embraced or tolerated inside the military prison. But we have to also remember that he is the first one to do it during this war. We hopefully think that there are — might be some young women and men who are finding other ways to avoid enlisting themselves, but at least they are not going publicly about it or turning it to a political issue. But he’s still a unique voice and not the majority voice, for my regret.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, MK Aida, if you could also talk about — you’ve mentioned the fact that, you know, 90% of Israeli society is supporting the war, but there is a minority that is opposed to it. And you’ve mentioned that this number, the number that is critical of the war, has increased in recent weeks. If you could explain where that resistance is most prominent and what you think has led to an increase in this opposition?

AIDA TOUMA-SLIMAN: Well, from day one, we understood that the forces that — democratic forces, the antiwar, anti-occupation forces that existed before the 7th of October will — with no regard to the shock that happened on the 7th of October, will still continue to believe in peace, will still continue to believe that occupation should be ended and the war should be ended. In the beginning, there were, as I mentioned to you also, a lot of anger and fear of people that avoided having clear activities against this war. Most of the activities were to put pressure to release the kidnapped Israelis in Hamas — at Hamas in Gaza.

But more and more people started to understand that, first of all, even this war, if they thought the war — the Israeli government had persuaded them in the beginning that this war is needed also to release the kidnapped Israelis. Today they understand, especially with the testimonies of the released hostages telling how dangerous it was to stay under the shelling and the bombardment of Israel. So, they understand that this war, first of all, is risking the security of the hostages who are still — 109 people are still in Gaza. And second, they started to understand that what really released part of the hostages was the negotiation and the contacts and the diplomatic path, and not the military path. So, more and more people are understanding that this war is not bringing them anywhere. Of course, 20% of the population in Israel, which is the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel, are against this war. But we need more from the Jewish side also to be against the war.

Lately, we managed to put together a big demonstration in Tel Aviv, which was the first demonstration against the war that was challenging the silencing policy that was led against especially the Palestinian citizens of Israel. You know, we were under a crackdown on — not only on the citizens, the Arab citizens, but also the leadership. If me silenced in the Knesset, there were also former MKs and the head of the High Follow-Up Committee who were arrested just because they were on their way to have a small protest against the war. Many students were dismissed from school, from university. And people were dismissed from their jobs, only because they published something that expressed sympathy to what’s happening to the people in Gaza, to our people in Gaza.

But today, for example, we challenged this silencing policy again, and we had a protest in Nazareth. Despite the warnings of the police and the fact that they wanted to avoid this protest, we insisted, and we had this protest. Tomorrow we will have a big meeting of different groups and organizations, anti-occupation, antiwar. And we are going to establish a big coalition against this war. We are not intending to bend for this silencing policy and terrorizing people who are against the war. We understand very clearly that crimes are committed and civilians are killed and that the amount of destruction is huge. And if the international community choose to be silent, that’s their problem. We are not going to be silent, and we want to stand up against this war.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, MK Aida, there are places where you still see in Israel criticism of the war, including Haaretz and +972 Magazine, journalists who have also appeared from there on our show. In addition, of course, to the concern about the hostages in Israel, now over 150 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza. If you could talk about the impact of that, as people in Israel see the costs to Israeli lives as this war goes on? Is there a sense within Israel of what it is that is being fought for?

AIDA TOUMA-SLIMAN: Yeah. Well, as I mentioned before, gradually more and more people are understanding that the war is not going to bring any security or any peace for both sides, including and mainly the Israeli side. More and more people understand that they cannot continue forever with this war, because there are implications of that war not only in the meaning of losing lives. There are also injured soldiers. More than 5,000 soldiers have been injured. Some of them will stay handicapped for all of their lives. Families are seeing how their sons, the soldiers, are coming back from war traumatized and need psychological treatment. There are implications on the economy. We are going to face — there’s a raise — just yesterday, there was the poverty report that shows there is a raise in the percentages of people who are dropping down of the poverty line. And we are expecting a very difficult economic year to come because of this war. And people are starting to ask the hard questions: why we need to continue this war if we are going to pay such a high price and still not reach any security?

You have to understand also that people in the north of Israel, near my house, and in the south of Israel are not living in their homes because of this war. Still, we are not saying that this is the most difficult situation. Of course the war is horrific in what’s happening in Gaza. But to make the Israeli society stand up against the war only because of the suffering of the Palestinians, as much as it is moral, I’m afraid it’s not enough to make the people in Israel, especially after the 7th October — it’s not going to make them stand up against the war. But what is happening in the Israeli society, the fact that more than 150 soldiers have been killed, the fact that the families are receiving their sons, their soldiers injured and handicapped, it might be more — sorry — sufficient in convincing the people to go out against the war.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask specifically about the power of the voices of the hostages or their loved ones who are speaking out for them. This is Sharon Kalderon speaking last week, sister-in-law of Ofer Kalderon, who’s being held hostage in Gaza.

SHARON KALDERON: We just want them to sit, all the cabinet, will sit and will find a way to negotiate and to bring our people home. We want them home, but no one is doing nothing right now except fighting. And fighting is not the answer right now. We want our people here, back home with us. And if we fight, we cannot bring them alive. And we don’t want to get bags. We want to get them alive. So this is why we’re here, every day, until we hear from the government that they are sitting, talking.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, this is a powerful voice, the families of the hostages. You have, on Monday, them screaming, shouting in the Knesset as Netanyahu was addressing the Israeli parliament, ”Achshav! Achshav!” — “Now! Now!” — demanding that the hostages be released. Already it’s clear that a number of them, not just the three men who were killed by Israeli soldiers, the young hostages, but a number of others were killed in the Israeli bombing in Gaza. The significance of this voice, and if it’s being amplified by others? Did you expect the hostages to play this kind of role — the hostage families?

AIDA TOUMA-SLIMAN: Well, of course. I mean, no one can imagine the suffering of people who don’t know what is happening with their family members. If I was in their place, I will also be not quiet, and I will do whatever I can in order to change and to bring them back. So, yes, I think it is expected, although they are showing very high, really, effect — they are very effective in how they organize themselves and how they are very vocal and speaking out and demanding to bring their families.

This is also happening, I think, as a counter to the fact that this government, the Israeli government, is not giving this issue much attention, if you compare it to the other targets or goals that Netanyahu put for this war. And that’s why they’ve felt neglected. That’s why they’ve felt that they don’t have enough backup from the government, and they needed to organize themselves and to be so vocal about the issue.

AMY GOODMAN: Aida Touma-Sliman, we only have less than a minute, but you are a Palestinian journalist, as well as an MK, a member of the parliament. I wanted to get your response to — it’s believed over a hundred journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza. The headlines today, TV journalist Mohammad Khair al-Din and Ahmed Khair al-Din, the journalist and cameraman, also died in a bombing in Gaza. Your response to the demand, for example, by Al Jazeera for the International Criminal Court to take on the issue of the targeting of journalists?

AIDA TOUMA-SLIMAN: Well, there are 105 journalists who has been killed since the beginning of this war. If you remember, it started also by other journalists before who were killed, including Shireen Abu Akleh, who was targeted and killed, from Al Jazeera. We have the feeling that the journalists are targeted in order to silence the voices who are coming out from Gaza and exposing the reality of what is happening.

AMY GOODMAN: Because Western journalists are not allowed in by Israel.

AIDA TOUMA-SLIMAN: Of course, I think that there should be an investigation. Of course, there should be an investigation, and it should be a clear out that there is no possibility to continue to be quiet about this targeting.

AMY GOODMAN: Aida Touma-Sliman, we want to thank you so much for being with us, a member —

AIDA TOUMA-SLIMAN: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: — of the Israeli Knesset, a MK — that’s a member of the Knesset — Palestinian member, suspended last month for criticizing the Israeli military assault on Gaza, joining us from Akko in northern Israel.

***

“Absolutely Unimaginable”: Children in Gaza Face Amputations Without Anesthesia, Death & Disease
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 28, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/28 ... transcript

Israel has killed more than 8,200 children in Gaza, which the U.N. now calls the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. We speak with Steve Sosebee of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, which provides medical and humanitarian aid to Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank, about how at least six Palestinians the organization had brought to the United States for free medical care have now been killed in Gaza. Sosebee shares the stories of Izzeddin Nawasra and Mohammed Al-Ajouri, two young men who were shot by Israeli snipers during the Great March of Return protests in 2018 and received medical care in the U.S. from PCRF. Both were killed alongside their families by Israeli airstrikes on and after Christmas Day. Sosebee also describes the state of medical care in Gaza, where patients are being forced to undergo amputations without anesthesia and forgo life-saving medications amid Israel’s ongoing blockade.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Sheikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We continue to look at Israel’s war on Gaza and turn now to the war’s impact on children. According to Palestinian officials, the Israeli assault has killed more than 8,200 children in Gaza over the past 11 weeks. At least 8,600 children have been injured. UNICEF says some 1,000 Palestinian children have had limbs amputated without anesthesia due to the lack of basic medical resources.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Steve Sosebee, founder of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, an organization that provides medical and humanitarian aid to Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank. The fund, founded in 1991, has helped build pediatric cancer center units, emergency departments and ICUs in Gaza.

Six Palestinians that the group brought to the United States for free medical care in recent years have been killed in Gaza since October 7th, two of them killed this week within a day of each other. Izzeddin Nawasra was killed on Christmas with his entire family, and Mohammed Al-Ajouri was killed the day after Christmas with his wife and baby.

Steve Sosebee, our deepest condolences. If you can talk about these two, well, people who were children when you met them, when they were brought to the United States? You brought them to get them medical care, and now killed in the Israeli attacks in Gaza. Tell us about them.

STEVE SOSEBEE: Yeah, well, both of them were amputees. Both had been shot by snipers during the Great Return marches of 2018. They were teenagers who were participating in peaceful protests at the gates, at the borders of Gaza. They’re refugees. They were born into refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. Their families were the descendants of refugees from 1948, when the state of Israel was created, and were, as all refugees in Palestine, demanding the right to return to their villages, to their homes, to their towns within Israel.

During these protests, both had suffered below-knee amputations from the result of being shot by a sniper. And our organization, as a humanitarian organization, identifies these kids who need medical care they can’t get locally. And the quality of prosthetic care in Gaza before October 7th was really underdeveloped and in need of improvement, which we were working on. So these kids were brought outside for treatment.

Izzeddin was brought to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he was provided a new leg and taught to walk again. And Mohammed was brought to Dayton, Ohio, where the same thing. Both of them were provided below-knee prosthetics for free, treated by excellent facilities and also by our communities, who took care of them as host families. And they became very much integrated in the communities, part of the communities where people want to be involved more in helping these children. Both of them had great experiences during their treatment. They flourished, being outside of Gaza for the first time in their lives.

And when we sent them back home, as we do with all of our injured kids, both of them started to have a new hope in life. For the first time since their injuries, they were able to go back to school. They were becoming independent. They were mobile. In the case of Izzeddin, we even hired him to become a field worker for our organization. And one of the areas that he was quite interested in was photography. And so we gave him the opportunity to learn and to train in photography to become part of our communications team. And he was flourishing. He was, you know, having an opportunity to — it was a dream for him to help his own people.

I’ve been in touch with both of them during the war, the bombings in Gaza. And Izzeddin, in particular, I was quite close with, because I had taken him back home after his treatment. And he had mentioned that, you know, he was still alive, because that’s the communication you have with people in Gaza these days. It’s just a very basic, “Are you still alive?” It’s not much else you can really say. “I hope you’re OK.” It’s kind of a painful way of expressing your sympathy and support for the people there. And, you know, he was always responding, “Yes, I’m fine. How are you?” and then, recently, was asking, you know, “How can I do more to help my people? I’m looking for ways to be part of humanitarian work here on the ground during this terrible crisis.” So, even during this period, a boy who had lost his leg and who was, you know, disabled for the rest of his life, in a certain sense, was looking for ways to help his own people during this terrible crisis. And both of them are, as you mentioned, two of six kids that we brought to the United States who have been killed over the past two-and-a-half months.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Steve Sosebee, you mentioned, of course, that even before October 7th, the care for amputees in Gaza was very, very poor. If you could talk about what you’re hearing from your colleagues in Gaza now, where there are so many children who are in need of prosthetic limbs? What is the situation there now, especially since also, as we reported, you know, there isn’t even anesthesia available for operations for children who are so much in need?

STEVE SOSEBEE: Yeah, it’s hard to even convey the idea that in this world today that children are being amputated, having limbs amputated, as a result of traumatic injury, without anesthesia. And by the way, there’s plenty of anesthesia medicine at the border of Egypt waiting to enter Gaza. There’s plenty of food at the border of Egypt ready to enter Gaza. Children are starving. People are starving in Gaza. It’s not as if there’s some kind of natural disaster that’s preventing anesthesia medicine to come into Gaza and be able to be utilized to treat injured children. This is absolutely unimaginable that this is happening in this modern world. And we’re witnessing it, and everybody sees it, and nothing is changing.

The fact that there’s now 1,000 new amputees, at least — and that number is going to grow, because a lot of these kids are with significant injuries in which their limbs are going to have to be amputated in the coming weeks and months. Let’s keep in mind, not only were they amputated without anesthesia, but many of them were amputated in a very quick fashion. And, you know, God bless the doctors and nurses in the health sector in Gaza. They are the true heroes in this, if there are any heroes in this, and there are, of course, among the Palestinian health workers. They’re the ones who are, day and night, in the hospitals, exhausted, as their own families are living under bombs and being killed, trying to help their own patients. And they’re doing these amputations in a very quick manner, because they have so many injured cases coming in. And a lot of these kids who are suffering traumatic amputations have to have surgery again in the future and even furthe amputations, because they’re not getting the adequate care in the initial stages of an amputation. So they’re going to need revision surgery.

So, what we’re trying to do is we are identifying these kids, get them out and get them the treatment they need first, and ensuring that they have adequate surgical services, and then fitting them with prosthetics and getting them walking again. There is no services at all in Gaza for amputees. The hundreds of kids that we’ve treated over the years who’ve suffered traumatic amputations in Gaza, like Mohammed and Izzeddin, who were killed this week, those kids are — their limbs are breaking down. They’re being destroyed. They’re being — they need to be adjusted. They need to be repaired. So these kids are now going again without limbs. And you can imagine, under these circumstances, once again being dependent on others to carry you around, or being on crutches while your neighborhoods are being bombed or your refugee camps are being bombed, is just an unimaginable situation. And this is the reality. There’s absolutely no services available for them right now.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, on November 25th, during the seven-day truce, Defense for Children Palestine filmed an interview with 12-year-old Dunia, who lost her leg in an Israeli airstrike that killed her whole family. Dunia then was herself killed on December 17th after an Israeli tank-fired shell hit her while she was recovering in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. This is part of her interview with Defense for Children Palestine, which we’re playing posthumously.

DUNIA A.: [translated] When they shelled us with the second missile, I woke up and was surrounded by rubble. I realized that my leg had been cut off, because there was blood and I had no leg. I tried to move it, but it wouldn’t move. My father and mother were martyred. My brother Mohammad and my sister Dalia, too. I want someone to take me abroad, to any country, to install a prosthetic leg, to be able to walk like other people, so that I can move and go out and play with my siblings. I want to become a doctor, like those who treat us, so that I can treat other children. I only want one thing: for the war to end.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s 12-year-old Dunia, who was killed on December 17th. Steve, if you could talk more broadly about the crisis in medical facilities generally, I mean, even the most basic care that’s no longer available to people in Gaza, who need it now more than they ever have, and talk also about specifically the cancer hospitals that you’ve built there?

STEVE SOSEBEE: Yeah. So, prior to October 7th, we were on the ground in Gaza identifying needs in all of the various specialties in the health sector and developing programs to support the improvement of patient care and reducing the need for patients to leave the Gaza Strip for medical treatment that they should be getting locally. We were training doctors. We were bringing in medication, medical support. We were bringing in medical teams from all over the world — we’re the main organization doing this — and providing hands-on training and support in various specialties that don’t exist in Gaza — open-heart surgery for children, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, and so on and so forth, reconstructive surgery. These were all specialties that we were identifying as a need on the ground and bringing in teams to address those needs.

And in addition to that, we were identifying significant gaps in the health sector, like the lack of pediatric cancer treatment for children, in which prior to our opening of the only cancer department in Gaza in 2019, every single child in Gaza with cancer had to travel outside for treatment. And a lot of them were suffering, and in many cases even dying, due to the lack of permits being issued or the access to care.

After October 7th, the health sector, as you all know, has been almost completely destroyed. There’s only a few hospitals now functioning, most of them in the south. The European Gaza Hospital, Nasser Hospital, Al-Aqsa Hospital are the three main hospitals in the center and in the south of the Gaza Strip that are now operating, but they’re basically just triage centers. They’re doing some CPR there.

And this is what needs to be pointed out, as Amy said in the early part of the show when she mentioned the statistics of over 8,000 children in Gaza have been killed. They’ve been killed by bombings. They’ve been killed by traumatic injury. What about the children who have heart disease, who need medical care they can’t get in Gaza anymore? What about the kids who have neurological disorders or have cancer or have other types of, in many cases, quite serious injuries or diseases, that they otherwise would get through our medical teams coming in or through the health system being available that can do elective surgeries, no longer having access to treatment, kids with diabetes, kids with dialysis? All of these children no longer have medical care, and they’re dying, or they’re not getting treatment. In many cases, their conditions are getting worse, and they’re suffering.

What about kids that are now in these internally displaced areas, like these U.N. schools, where they’re sharing a toilet with 700, 800 people, all these communicable diseases going around within these small communities, or these huge communities now, of internally displaced people? They’re getting sick. They don’t have access to primary care. And in some cases, these children are dying.
Add to that the fact that a significant number of children now in Gaza are suffering from hunger and from starvation. All of these factors, in addition to the over 8,000 children that have been killed through bombings of their homes and of their schools and of their mosques and churches and hospitals, you add all of those numbers up, and it’s an absolute humanitarian catastrophe, far beyond what anybody can even articulate properly in words. It’s unimaginable.

Our cancer department, which we opened up in February 2019, was the first shining symbol of hope in Gaza that we can do something. It was built by our community. It wasn’t built by a government. It wasn’t built by a foundation. It was built by thousands of people coming together and saying children with cancer in Gaza shouldn’t have to go without treatment. And that’s the kind of ethos that we believe very strongly in, that you bring the services to them, you develop the services, and these children get treatment near their families with the best care possible. That’s destroyed. That hospital has been closed down since November 7th. It was bombed on November 5th.

When you hear the words of Dunia, the 12-year-old girl who was killed — God rest her soul — and what she expressed, that she wants to go outside, she wants to walk again, she wants be a doctor, this is the hope of all the children in Gaza. And what we’re going to do, what I’m going to do in the future is — every one of these children needs not only a new leg to walk again and to have their bodies repaired, but they need long-term healing. They need an opportunity to develop themselves into doctors. We have to give them that opportunity. Their lives are being destroyed. Their lives are destroyed. But they want hope for a better future. We have to come together as a community. We have to come together as people who have love in our hearts, not hatred, and serve these children for the long term, develop programs where kids like Dunia, who’s 12 years old without a leg — God rest her soul — have a chance for a better future. We have to take that responsibility. We’re going to take that responsibility. That’s the only way we can bring peace and healing to the children of Gaza during this nightmare of suffering and death that they’re enduring today.

AMY GOODMAN: Steve Sosebee, we want to thank you so much for being with us. Again, our condolences. Founder of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, an organization that provides medical and humanitarian aid to Palestinian children in Gaza, speaking to us today from Washington, D.C.

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U.S. Complicit in “On-Air Genocide”: Palestinian Amb. Husam Zomlot Slams 12-Week Gaza Assault
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 29, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/29 ... transcript

Gaza health officials report the past 12 weeks of Israeli assault has killed more than 21,500 Palestinians as Israel admits to killing civilians in an attack on the Maghazi refugee camp on Christmas. We speak with Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian Mission to the United Kingdom, where Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says “too many civilians” have died in Gaza and has called for a sustainable ceasefire. “What Israel is doing is the first-ever on-air genocide,” says Zomlot, who warns that suppression of dissent and obstruction of international order by Israel and the U.S. will have wide-ranging effects on democratic rights around the world. “These millions of people here and worldwide have discovered that Israel is not just oppressing Palestinians. Israel is oppressing every one of them. Israel is oppressing humanity.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Another 187 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the past 24 hours as Israel continues to attack refugee camps and other areas across the Gaza Strip. Gaza health officials say the Israeli assault has killed more than 21,500 Palestinians over the past 12 weeks. In central Gaza, Israeli attacks killed at least 35 Palestinians in Nuseirat and Maghazi refugee camps. At least 20 more Palestinians died when Israel attacked a residential building near the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah, the southern Gaza city overflowing with displaced Palestinians.

In more news from Gaza, Israeli military officials have admitted it carried out a deadly strike on the Maghazi refugee camp on Christmas Eve that killed at least 86 Palestinians. The IDF said it “regrets the harm” caused to civilians, and claimed that Israeli troops had used the wrong type of bomb. An Israeli official said, quote, “The type of munition did not match the nature of the attack, causing extensive collateral damage which could have been avoided,” unquote. Despite the admission, Israel continues to attack the Maghazi refugee camp. On Thursday, at least five people were killed when Israel bombed a girls’ school housing displaced Palestinians.

Meanwhile, UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, has renewed its call for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying the besieged territory is grappling with catastrophic hunger.

For more, we go to London, where we’re joined by Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Ambassador, welcome to Democracy Now! If you can just respond to this latest news, Israel’s admission that they said they were apologizing for causing unnecessary collateral damage, what this means, and, overall, if you can talk about what’s happening in Gaza — in fact, the place where you come from?

HUSAM ZOMLOT: Hello, Amy.

Well, killing 187 Palestinians, primarily children and women, in U.N. shelters, girls’ school, is not collateral damage. More than 21,000, as you reported, mostly, 70% of them, are women and children. And by the way, we have 8,000 unaccounted for under the rubble, so the numbers are going to be much higher. Rescue teams are unable to reach, let alone rescue, all these people under the rubble for days and weeks.

What Israel is doing is the first-ever on-air genocide. This is not just about how many they are killing, primarily families and civilians. It’s also about turning Gaza completely lifeless, unlivable. And you have all reported the targeting of the very infrastructure of Gaza, be it hospitals, be it schools, universities. And weaponizing food and water, starving 2.3 million people and displacing almost 2 million, most of them in Rafah, while still bombarding the very area they claim to be safe is a very classic design of genocide and ethnic cleansing. I think Israel has been engaged since its establishment in one theory, one ideology, one idea: It wants the land, all of the land, without the people. Remember the mantra that, you know, “a land without a people for a people without a land.” And this explains much of the Israeli actions; otherwise, nothing justifies what has been happening over the last 12 weeks.

And here, the problem really, really is not Israel. Israel is committing crimes against humanity. Israel will have to be held accountable. Its generals, its politicians will have to be behind bars. And justice will have to be served. And we Palestinians must think about our right of self-defense. This is number one priority. And our priority now is a complete, comprehensive, permanent ceasefire, because we cannot even assess the situation unless the mass killings of Israel ends. And we want to see a massive humanitarian assistance immediately to Gaza from all sides, air-lifted, sea-lifted and what have you, because the level of catastrophe is unprecedented in recent human history. We have to prevent Israel’s actual real plan of pushing people out of Gaza toward Sinai, the ethnic cleansing, and we must assure that Israel does not take any part of Gaza, as they have been claiming.

But there, we must revisit all that happened, including the U.S. role, Amy. And here, we very much regret — you know, the U.S. has been losing its credibility, its standing over years and decades. But this time is different. This time is absolutely different, for many, many experts are — and lawyers are looking into the U.S.'s direct material participation, contribution to the genocide we're talking about. But we leave that to the lawyers. But definitely the U.S. could have prevented these atrocities that have really shocked humanity all over. But it did not, as you know. It did use the veto power to stop the Security Council from taking its own responsibility of enforcing law and order. And the Biden administration will be remembered by this. We will not forget.

The Biden administration is complicit. It has enabled Israel to do so. It has enabled Israel to drag the whole region into this instability. It has enabled Israel to drag the whole world. Look what is happening to the international order, the rules that we created together after the Second World War, the horrors of the Second World War, when we all said “never again.” The U.S. is there, going out of its way to shield a Netanyahu, a Netanyahu and a Smotrich and a Ben-Gvir, the most fanatical supremacist government in the history of mankind, not only Israel. And then the U.S. is there to shield this government?

And the U.S. knows that this is Netanyahu’s war. This is Netanyahu’s war of choice. Netanyahu is doing this only to save his political career. He’s not doing this for Israel’s security. He’s not doing this for any prospects for his people. He’s doing this because he knows the moment the guns — his guns — would stop, the moment the political guns will turn against him, and he might end up in court and in jail. And then the U.S. fails to be the grown-up in the room, is a moment to taint the U.S. for a long, long time to come, to taint Biden himself personally and every member of his administration.

AMY GOODMAN: What exactly do you think President Biden should be doing right now?

HUSAM ZOMLOT: To stop the carnage, first and foremost. A president of the United States of America, and given the Constitution, the making of the U.S., the Bill of Rights of the U.S., your history — a president sitting there seeing all these children, hearing the U.N. secretary-general saying Gaza has become graveyard of children — and I’m sure he sees all these footages — and allowing this, enabling this, spinning this, giving Israel the political, legal, material cover to do this?

You know, every bomb Israel is dropping on our children is American-made. These 2,000-pounds bombs that they have been dropping — and you’ve just quoted their spokespeople saying that, “Oops, these bombs killed many people, when we intended this bomb has more 'collateral damage'” — these are American bombs. So, who’s responsible here? So America would stop this now if they stopped providing Israel with weapons, with bombs, with these lethal weapons that have ended up in the bare bodies of our children. So America is responsible, Amy. It is responsible. And it must stop sending weapons to Israel immediately. And it must stop vetoing our efforts at the Security Council to stop this carnage, this madness.

And by the way, Amy, this madness is not going to stop only on the borders of Israel-Palestine. You are already seeing the region, and, you know, more than six arenas are engaged now, and Israel is bombarding Lebanon, Syria. Yemen is involved. And God knows what will happen next. But also, the effect of this on humanity, I mean, on liberal democracies. Look what is happening in the U.S. Look what is happening in the U.K. and everywhere. There are some politicians who are going out of their way to shield Israel, and, in the process, undermining the very foundation of liberal democracies, like people’s right to protest, to speak, to express, to boycott. In your country, in the U.S., you know, many states have used the power of the law, legislating so people will have to, in a way, sign a contract, if they are going to deal with the federal government or any public body, that they will never boycott anything to do with Israel, even the settlements. Here in the U.K., they’re using the power of the law to make sure that here people will not divest from the illegal settlements, the illegal colonial settlements, according to U.K. law, U.S. law and international law, of course.

So this is a moment when everybody — that’s why, by the way, Amy, you’ve seen the hundreds of thousands of people here — here, behind me, in London — a couple of weeks ago, and you will see many of them, because these millions of people, here and worldwide, have discovered that, actually, Israel is not just oppressing the Palestinians. Israel is oppressing every one of them. Israel is oppressing humanity. Israel is dragging the entire world into this immoral orbit of wars and oppression and suppression of an entire people. And in the process, the world is losing its own international system, i.e. the United Nations, the Security Council, all the rules we created after the Second World War.

What is the international order? What is the essence of the international order? It is that war should not be the first option. That’s the number one rule. That’s why we have Security Council, to prevent wars. Number two, should wars be an option, there are rules for these wars, the Geneva Conventions, one of which is don’t target civilians, and you must protect civilians as an occupier. And number three, there is accountability, should war crimes have been committed. The U.S. has completely destroyed, enabled Israel to destroy all these provisions and rules and premises of the international order.

And, Amy, if you’ll allow me — and this is for the Biden administration to think about very seriously, to think about the impact — the impact — that Israel has normalized the mass murder of children, the mass murder of families and civilians, the mass destruction of hospitals, schools, universities. Normalizing such scenes is going to have severe, severe consequences on our humanity, on how the world will function — not even about the U.S. role.

I think, I believe the U.S. has lost its role, not only in Israel-Palestine. The U.S. will not have standing in the South. The U.S. will not have standing in the East anymore. The U.S. has really made this all about Israel, for reasons beyond our discussion. It’s almost — for many people in the South and in the East, it feels it’s a cultural war waged by the U.S. And Israel is the — you know, that alliance, unbreakable, trumps anything. It trumps our laws. It trumps our humanity. It trumps our security. It trumps our children, trumps everything. And therefore —

AMY GOODMAN: Amba—

HUSAM ZOMLOT: — it’s a moment to pause —

AMY GOODMAN: Ambassador, I wanted to ask you about Britain, about the tens of thousands of people who have protested, about Prime Minister Rishi Sunak firing the hard-right Home Secretary Suella Braverman, coming a month after she called Palestinian solidarity marches, quote, “hate marches.” This is what the Prime Minister Sunak said [sic].

SUELLA BRAVERMAN: We’ve seen now tens of thousands of people take to the streets, following the massacre of Jewish —

AMY GOODMAN: This is Suella Braverman.

SUELLA BRAVERMAN: — people, the single largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, chanting for the erasure of Israel from the map. To my mind, there’s only one way to describe those marches: They are hate marches.

AMY GOODMAN: “Hate marches,” Suella Braverman said. And then she was out. The significance of this?

HUSAM ZOMLOT: Very, very significant. The main message is that this country, the people of this country, the British people, will not allow for such divisive politicians and rhetoric and discourse. And the people have really delivered their verdict. I have participated in all these demos, in most of them. I spoke there, and I’ve seen. I’ve seen firsthand. I’ve seen every color, every background. I’ve seen the Christians and the Muslims and the Jewish brothers and sisters, who have been with us for a long time. I’ve seen a moment of unity of the British people delivering their message that “ceasefire now,” “not in our name,” that we have to end this once and for all.

And by the way, this is the power of the people. I must admit, Amy, the position of the U.K. government is very concerning, very regrettable, so far, until now, lagging behind yet the position of the people. The energy of the people is really inspiring and, I must say, very hopeful, because if we go back to history, it’s people who ended up illegalities and oppressions, including the apartheid regime of South Africa. It’s London here that the anti-apartheid movement emanated from. It’s the British people and the American people, the Europeans, the Africans, the Asians, that came together in that global movement and suffocated the apartheid regime, sucked oxygen out of the apartheid regime. And then we saw the end of that regime, and we saw the release of Nelson Mandela. So, the power of the people is important.

And as much as we despise governments’, Western governments’ position, that will be remembered in history, they will be judged through history. As much as we really are appalled by that, we are so inspired, empowered and certain about the power of their people, in the U.K., in the U.S. and everywhere. And I think this is different. Now it’s a moment of confliction. I believe this is a movement in the making that will go all the way to ending Israel’s illegality and occupation.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about what they call the day after, the plan for afterwards. You have Netanyahu canceling the war cabinet meeting. And I was just reading an article in The Times of Israel that says, “In 2019, Yitzhak Ilan, a former deputy head of the Shin Bet” — that’s the Israeli intelligence agency — “who was running for Knesset with the centrist Blue and White party, told a political gathering that Smotrich was a 'Jewish terrorist' who planned to blow up cars on a major highway during the Gaza disengagement. Ilan claimed … he had personally interrogated Smotrich.

“Smotrich … denied any connection to any plan to destroy infrastructure or commit terror offenses.

“Dvir Kariv, who was a senior agent in the Shin Bet at the time, claimed earlier this month in an interview with Channel 12 news that Israeli authorities decided not to prosecute Smotrich and his alleged collaborators because the Shin Bet did not want to expose [its] sources.”

Now, I bring this up because, apparently, the finance minister, the far-right settler, Bezalel Smotrich, is the one who prevented the war cabinet meeting from going, or at least that Netanyahu caved to, afraid he’d lose his coalition, which could mean that he would no longer be prime minister, which could mean he could be going to jail for his own corruption cases. But if you can talk about the cancellation of this war cabinet meeting, and what you want to see happen afterwards?

HUSAM ZOMLOT: Well, the cancellation of the war meeting, whatever it is, is just another expression of how fanatical, how extreme, how supremacist, how dangerous these people are — not only Smotrich. By the way, Smotrich has published a plan — you can read it, it’s online — that he calls — already a few years ago, that he calls for the ethnic cleansing of the rest of Palestinians. He gives us three options: Either we stay as slaves in our own homeland, or we leave en masse — look what they’re doing in Gaza — or we are killed by the army. And he published this. So, this is a man who now handles Israel’s finance. He pays for the settlements. He pays for the army, etc.

But there is a sitting convicted terrorist in the Israeli Cabinet, including Ben-Gvir, who’s now handling the so-called national security, minister of Israel. It’s unbelievable. And, you know, one of the declared aims of war for Netanyahu is to deradicalize the Palestinian people. I mean, who needs to be deradicalized here? Ben-Gvir, who was convicted by an Israeli judge, Israeli court as a terrorist and as a racist.

And, you know, this is a moment when we don’t really waste our time. We should not discuss the day after. The day after is going to be up to the Palestinian people. We have our structures. We have our legitimacy. We have our umbrellas. And we will make sure that the day after would be one in a united people, like, and a united land. Gaza is a part of Palestine. And any day after will have to include Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in one unit. We will not accept Israel’s dreams, daydreaming that Gaza will be carved out, as they have been trying to do for many, many years now. Israel is a beloved part of our territory.

And the thing that we need to discuss, Amy, is the day before. And everybody now is wanting us to discuss the day after. No, the day before, the day before the 7th of October — the occupation, the colonization, the racism, the supremacy, the murders all over the West Bank, the provocations in Jerusalem, the rounding and arresting of our children without trial, without charge, without access to their parents or lawyers. This is what needs to be discussed, the decadeslong oppression, suppression of an entire nation. The denial, the bare, basic denial, of basic rights needs to be discussed. The whole idea that Israel could keep a permanent occupation, permanent colonization, permanent siege, permanent denial of refugees to go back to their homes, with the help of the U.S. administration and the rest of the West, to really bypass the Palestinian issue, that is what we are going to discuss soon, because, you know, for the last so many years, the West has enabled Israel to actually be convinced that it can bypass us, that the Biden — remember the Trump administration. I was the ambassador in Washington during the Trump time, if you remember, Amy. And, you know, the Trump administration —

AMY GOODMAN: And explain what happened.

HUSAM ZOMLOT: The Trump administration has simply, completely gave Israel the stamp of approval to undermine any prospect of a two-state solution and to actually keep believing that they could turn their occupation permanent. But then comes the Biden administration, who promised during the election otherwise, but they failed miserably. They did not reverse any of the Biden — of the Trump’s administration very lethal policies. And, actually, they doubled down on the psychology and on the mindset of bypassing the Palestinian issue. They pushed for further normalization between Israel and the nonconflicting parties, you know, Emirates, what have you, even Saudi Arabia. And the fact is, the Biden administration knows that Israel’s issue is with us, not far away.

So, there are two agendas here. There was one of Netanyahu and co., because successive Israeli governments, which is a nonsolution agenda, as basic as that. And there was the Palestinian and the international agenda, which is, so-called, the two-state solution, i.e. Israel has got to end its occupation.

The Biden administration has got — they did nothing whatsoever in the last three years or so to actually go in that direction. Everything they did was in the opposite direction. And now they are in this mood of trying to curb Israel, but they are failing to do so, because they will not be able to use the stick. They are unable to tell Israel, “We will stop arming you. We will stop funding you. We will stop protecting you in the Security Council.” So Israel is not listening. That’s the unfortunate situation.

AMY GOODMAN: Ambassador, I want to —

HUSAM ZOMLOT: And the onus will be on the U.S.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to get your response to a tweet posted Thursday by Secretary of State Tony Blinken. He said, “This has been an extraordinarily dangerous year for press around the world. Many killed, many more wounded, hundreds detained, attacked, threatened, injured — simply for doing their jobs. I am profoundly grateful to the press for getting accurate, timely information to people.” He wasn’t talking specifically about what’s happened in Gaza. But I’d like you to address this. You addressed a rally recently where you talked about the astounding number of journalists who have been killed in Gaza. The numbers are believed to be up to something like 105. And the significance of journalists being killed?

HUSAM ZOMLOT: It’s part of Israel’s deliberate targeting of journalists all over. And remember Shireen Abu Akleh. And Mr. Blinken was involved with the case of Shireen Abu Akleh. And yet again, America put its weight behind acquitting Israel of any responsibility about Shireen. And by the way, Shireen is both Palestinian citizen and American citizen. But now this whole —

AMY GOODMAN: The Al Jazeera reporter.

HUSAM ZOMLOT: — targeting — yeah, yeah, yeah, Al Jazeera, but a Palestinian icon, a beloved Palestinian voice of the Palestinian people, a Jerusalemite. And, you know, she’s a most prominent — a most prominent journalist, sniped, killed by an Israeli soldier in Jenin as she was covering live events. And, you know, Mr. Blinken was involved, the U.S. was involved, the FBI was involved, about their own citizen, and nothing came out. Israel is the exception. Everybody just — every U.S. administration has just simply looked the other way when Israel commits crimes. That’s the issue. Israel has been made so immune, above every law, above every single basic human value.

Now, back to your question, this is also part of the suicide — I’m sorry, the sociocide, sociocide of the Palestinian people, because if you kill their doctors, their professors, their journalists, etc., then if you kill their elites and the sectors that provide life, be it health, be it education, be it media — because media is an integral part of any society — then the society will be unable to survive. And go back. More than a hundred journalists have been killed in Gaza, and the count is still going on. So, this is part of making our society simply lifeless, unable to survive, unable to stay.

And let me say this. Maybe this will sound a bit emotional. But it’s not going to happen, because we have a very, very special society, very rooted, very tradition, and knows how to come together in these moments and knows how to survive. We have learned how to survive, since the Nakba of 1948. So, Israel can break all these laws. Israel can break the very basic human values. But it cannot break us. That’s a fact. And look at Gaza. You are following what is happening in Gaza. All what Israel is doing is just exposing the savagery, the barbarism this whole entity is about, and our need to end the idea that you can control things by military means. You can’t control things by military means. You can only control things when you end the illegalities and the occupation.

AMY GOODMAN: Ambassador Husam Zomlot, I want to thank you for being with us, Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom, who himself lost family members in Gaza, where he is from.

***

“Utterly Illegal”: U.N. Special Rapporteur Slams Netanyahu’s “Voluntary Migration” Plan for Gazans
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 29, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/29 ... transcript

More United Nations workers have been killed in Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip than in any other conflict in the organization’s history. As the death toll for U.N. workers ticks above 136, Israel has announced it will no longer grant automatic visas to U.N. workers, after accusing the organization of being “complicit partners” with Hamas after months of U.N. officials repeatedly calling for a ceasefire and the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, calls Israel’s accusations “baseless” and part of a long pattern of smearing and obstructing the U.N.’s operations in Israel and Palestine.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

As we continue to look at Israel’s assault on Gaza, we’re joined by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory. Earlier this week, she denounced reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has endorsed expelling all Palestinians from Gaza.

Israeli news outlets report Netanyahu told a group of Israeli lawmakers Monday, “Regarding voluntary immigration … this is the direction we are going in,” he said.

Palestinian leaders denounced Netanyahu for embracing what they describe as ethnic cleansing.

Earlier this week, Francesca Albanese tweeted, quote, “Voluntary migration? No matter how ISR gvt calls it, Forced Displacement is a CRIME, prosecutable under the Rome Statute. Its architects shall be investigated/prosecuted by @IntlCrimCourt.”

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Francesca Albanese. Thank you for joining us. Talk about what has been reported as Netanyahu’s plan.

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Good morning, Amy.

Yeah, the plan becomes clearer and clearer. We have heard statements made by Israeli politicians, Israeli military commanders, referring to the need for the Palestinians from Gaza to move south, south first and then more and more south. But at the same time, we have seen soldiers entering the Gaza Strip, saying, quote-unquote, “We destructions to destroy this place and settle.” And the more the time passes, the more it becomes clear that there is a plan in certain corners of the government to repossess Gaza, to reconquest Gaza, and to convert it into an Israeli area. This is pure madness, and it’s utterly illegal.

Now, it’s not new, because forced displacement is the main trait that characterizes Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It has gone through 56 years, not to mention what has happened before.

But now this — I mean, it’s so cynical to call it “voluntary migration” and continue to evoke as the only possibility for the Palestinians in Gaza to survive to move somewhere else, to the Sinai or somewhere else in the Arab region, saying that the Palestinians are Arabs. This is like saying that Italians can go anywhere because they are European. This is so racist, the classic forced displacement. It’s a crime against humanity and cannot be [inaudible]. It should be stopped. It’s shocking to see the silence of the international community in the face of these unfathomable ideas.

AMY GOODMAN: In a post earlier this week, you compared the Israeli assault on Gaza to the genocidal massacres in Srebrenica and Rwanda. Can you explain?

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Yeah, actually, I didn’t necessarily compare the two. I’m saying that the international community has been silent and unable to prevent the genocide in Rwanda, to prevent the genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Srebrenica, and in the same way it’s looking idle at what’s happening in the Gaza Strip. But it’s worse, because, as the Ambassador Zomlot was saying right before — I think it’s true — this is televised. If people had not realized what the Nakba is, this is ongoing under our eyes, but the genocidal element is more clear.

Here is not about just the displacing people, pushing them out. It’s the killing, the number of killing in the Gaza Strip, which has been turned into an assassination factory, to use an expression by journalists in +972, Israeli journalists in +972. But also, look at what’s going on in the West Bank, where there is no Hamas military control, military presence, and still this year 500 Palestinians have been killed.

So, there is a mass killing of Palestinians ongoing, accompanied by genocidal incitement. And this must be stopped. This triggers an obligation to prevent genocide among member states. But again, no one — no one — seems very preoccupied in the international community, other than human rights actors and, yeah, those concerned with real peace.

AMY GOODMAN: Francesca Albanese, you are the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory. Israel has announced it’s going to stop automatically granting visas to employees of the United Nations, after it accused the U.N. of being complicit partners with Hamas. Your response?

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Baseless, baseless accusations. I’m appalled onto how these attacks against the U.N. continue to escalate, because, on the one hand, you have two big failures here. And one is induced, and the other is inevitable. The induced one is the political failure of the U.N., because it’s paralyzed because of the political — sorry, of the U.S. veto in the U.N. Security Council. They should — I mean, there was — they were close to a vote on the ceasefire, but there was the U.S. veto. And on the other hand, the other failure, which is inevitable, it’s the humanitarian machinery of the U.N. system, which is also under attack. The U.N. should be strengthened. The multilateral system is put — can drag us out and reestablish a minimum, a modicum of order here.

But, look, what Israel is doing is raising the attacks against the U.N. because the U.N. are being increasingly critical in the face of the crimes that Israel commits through and through. But the threatening U.N. staff of withdrawing visas, this is not new. I mean, we have to — for example, those in my position — this is not something about me particularly, but also the three special rapporteurs on the occupied Palestinian territory who have preceded me have not been able to enter the occupied Palestinian territory because of the Israeli decision not to cooperate with the mandate, which is a violation of U.N. member states’ obligation to comply with the U.N., including its investigative mechanisms. Israel behaves the same way with various commissions of inquiries, including the current commission of inquiry on Israel-Palestine.

And more seriously, Israel has basically kicked out, three years ago, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights — this has gone completely in silence — but withdrawing visa to all its international employees, who are operating now from Amman. Such a weird precedent.

Again, this is the thing. The U.N. has also accepted Israel’s hubris to become fatter and fatter. And this is the reality today, that you have Israeli ambassadors and political leaders smearing everyone, especially rapporteurs, committee, commission of inquiries, the U.N. secretary-general, everyone. Where shall we draw the line?

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about information new out this morning. UNRWA has posted on X that this year has been the deadliest year in the West Bank on record, with a total of 504 Palestinians killed this year. I mean, this is for the whole year. It was already the deadliest year before October 7th, when Hamas attacked Israel. Now more than 300, since October 7th, Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by either Israeli soldiers or settlers.

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Yes, primarily soldiers. And this is one — probably the only issue with an otherwise great report by the U.N. Human Rights Office. It has pointed to the disproportionate, unnecessary use of force through military means, which have resulted, yes, in the killing of 500 people, 500 Palestinians this year, mostly by Israeli soldiers. The emphasis on settler violence, though, while it’s true, shouldn’t distract from the fact that the settlers are there as part of an enterprise, the Israeli enterprise to colonize and annex occupied Palestinian territory, that Israel, as a state, should be held responsible also for the actions of the settlers, which are never prosecuted, by the way.

But again, you know, we have to think that, yes, this has been the deadliest year since 2005, when the U.N. started collecting the data outside of conflict against Gaza. But in Gaza, 4,000 people, including 1,000 children, had been killed in 16 years, during five wars occurred during 16 years of blockade. This is just for those who believe that everything started on the 7th of October. No, it didn’t. The situation was appalling before.

And we have — as special rapporteur, I belong to a community which includes Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations and many scholars who have called for the end of the oppression of the Palestinian people, because — and the end of the annexation and colonization of the occupied territory, because this was the only way to guarantee the security, the safety, the well-being of both Palestinians and Israelis. And we have gone unheard, unfortunately.

AMY GOODMAN: Last question: The role of the United States? In resolution after resolution, they vetoed any call for a ceasefire. The last one, they didn’t veto it, but they abstained once they got the U.N. Security Council not to include ceasefire in the language. Where do you see the U.N. going and the role of the United States in all of this? How powerful, how important is the United States, Francesca?

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: The United States is very important, very powerful, very influential, is the only single state that can really change the dynamics between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, not only because the United States provides a lot of means and military aid to Israel, but also because it shelters Israel from its responsibilities, political and legal responsibilities.

Again, yes, the last resolution, I mean, the U.S. managed to water it down to a point that it makes no sense. The only thing that is needed now — and it’s already late — is a ceasefire. So, the fact that the U.S. is still sort of not considering this as an option, because it doesn’t, and it continues to engage with Israel as it was business as usual, shows profound disrespect toward the Palestinian people. And again, this is a level of dehumanization that I’ve never seen in other — I mean, it’s not new from Israel, but it’s new at this level, with this magnitude, like endorsed also in the U.S. but also in Europe. I mean, yeah, there is huge responsibilities, and the U.S. is leading the front of those who could change the reality on the ground and chose not to do so.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you see this ending, in the last minute we have, Francesca Albanese, U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory? As I was just discussing with the Palestinian ambassador in the United Kingdom, Netanyahu just canceled his war cabinet meeting under pressure from the even more far-right finance minister, Smotrich. Where is this headed?

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: I know it’s heading toward further madness, unless and until it’s stopped. And it’s going to be a very heavy, loaded, dark, grim future for both Palestinians and Israelis. So there should be a huge U-turn here and restore international law, basic respect, equality, human rights for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. And it starts with a ceasefire and with a protective presence that allows — that supervises the withdrawal of Israeli troops. This is the moment to end the occupation. And it cannot happen without, I think, a protective presence that guarantees for a while the safety and security of both.

AMY GOODMAN: Francesca Albanese, U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, speaking to us from Italy.

[admin]

South Africa Files Case Against Israel at International Court of Justice over “Genocidal” War on Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 02, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/2/s ... transcript

South Africa has filed a case at the main judicial body for the United Nations, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. “I believe South Africa will win an order against Israel to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide against the Palestinians,” says Francis Boyle, an international human rights lawyer who won two requests at the ICJ under the Genocide Convention of 1948 for provisional protection on behalf of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina against Yugoslavia. Boyle says Israel has a history of listening to the United States’ orders to stop its assaults on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. “We here in the United States of America have the power to stop this.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: As the death toll from Israel’s bombardment of Gaza since the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel now exceeds 22,000, South Africa has filed a case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague accusing Israel of genocide and trying to, quote, “destroy Palestinians in Gaza.” This comes as the separate International Criminal Court is already investigating alleged war crimes committed by both Israel and Hamas.

In its filing to the ICJ, the main judicial body for the United Nations, South Africa says, quote, “The acts and omissions by Israel complained of by South Africa are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group,” unquote. South Africa accused Israel of violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which Israel has signed on to.

Israel responded by calling the charge, quote, “without legal merit.” The Israeli Foreign Ministry accused South Africa of, quote, “collaborating with a terrorist group that calls for Israel’s annihilation,” unquote.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories to racist system of apartheid in his own country which ended in 1994 after nearly half a century. In November, Ramaphosa responded to Israel’s assault on Gaza by recalling South Africa’s diplomats from Israel.

PRESIDENT CYRIL RAMAPHOSA: The collective punishment of Palestinian civilians through the unlawful use of force by Israel is a war crime. The deliberate denial of medicine, fuel, food and water to the residents of Gaza is tantamount to genocide.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, in October, South African lawmaker and the grandson of Nelson Mandela, Nkosi [Zwelivelile] Mandela, joined a Palestinian solidarity protest in Cape Town.

NKOSI ZWELIVELILE MANDELA: Palestinians are counting on each and every one of us to stand and be counted, like they stood side by side with us in the trenches when we fought to liberate our country.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He previously applied the Genocide Convention for Bosnia and won two requests for provisional protection from the ICJ against Yugoslavia, and thinks the same could apply here. His books include The Bosnian People Charge Genocide, as well as Palestine, Palestinians, and International Law and World Politics, Human Rights, and International Law.

Professor Boyle, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s good to have you with us in this new year, but under very serious circumstances. If you can explain why it’s South Africa that’s bringing this charge, and what exactly is the International Court of Justice, where it fits into the world justice system? And talk about the charge of genocide.

FRANCIS BOYLE: Well, thank you very much for having me on, Amy. My best to your listening audience.

Not to toot my own horn here, but I was the first lawyers to win anything under the Genocide Convention from the International Court of Justice, that goes back to 1921. I single-handedly won two World Court orders for the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina against Yugoslavia to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide.

And based on my careful review of all the documents so far submitted by the Republic of South Africa, I believe South Africa will win an order against Israel to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide against the Palestinians. And then we will have an official determination by the International Court of Justice itself, the highest legal authority in the United Nations system, that genocide is going on. And under Article I of the Genocide Convention, all contracting parties, 153 states, will then be obliged, quote, “to prevent,” unquote, the genocide by Israel against the Palestinians.

Second, when the World Court gives this cease-and-desist order against Israel, the Biden administration will stand condemned under Article III, paragraph (e), of the Genocide Convention, that criminalizes complicity in genocide. And clearly we know that the Biden administration has been aiding and abetting Israeli genocide against the Palestinians here for quite some time. This has also been raised by my friends in the Center for Constitutional Rights and in the National Lawyers Guild in a lawsuit against Biden, Blinken and Austin.

So, I believe we will be able to use the World Court order. Right now my sources tell me the hearing will be January 11, January 12. Based on my experience with the Bosnians, we can expect an order within a week.

I would also say, with respect to the Biden administration, they are currently in violation of the Genocide Convention Implementation Act, that makes genocide a crime under United States law. And again, once we — South Africa wins this order, the Biden administration also will stand in violation of the Genocide Convention Implementation Act.

So, I believe this is where we will be going between now, I would say, and the end of this month. And it is up to all of us, as American citizens, to figure out and support what South Africa is doing at the International Court of Justice here.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Francis Boyle, what’s the difference between the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, which is already considering allegations of war crimes by both Israel as well as the Palestinian militant groups?

FRANCIS BOYLE: Right, Juan. The International Court of Justice was originally established back in 1921, its predecessor, legal predecessor, in law. And that is where I filed the genocide case. I was the first lawyer ever to win two orders in one such case since the World Court was founded in 1921, and it was on the basis of the Genocide Convention. The International Criminal Court is a separate international organization, set up in 2000.

The problem, Juan, is this. Back in 2009, after Operation Cast Lead, I advised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to accept the jurisdiction of the International Court — of the International Criminal Court for Palestine, which he did. I regret to report that the International Criminal Court has not done one darn thing to help the Palestinians since 2009. The International Criminal Court has all the blood of the Palestinian people on its hands since 2009. And, Juan, that is why we set up a campaign to find a state willing to file a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice, the World Court.

The ICC basically operates at the behest of its funders and founders and masters, which is the U.S., the NATO states, the European states, etc. Until their expedited indictment of President Putin as U.S.-NATO lawfare against Russia, the International Criminal Court had not indicted one American, one European, one Brit, one NATO citizen and one Israeli, and one white person.

So, we’ve gone — we have a campaign now to support the Republic of South Africa at the International Court of Justice. And we are asking — we’re starting this campaign today. I’m part of a coalition. We’re starting this campaign today to get members of the Genocide Convention to file declarations of intervention at the World Court in support and solidarity with South Africa against Israel and in support of the Palestinians. That material hopefully will go out today.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Francis, I wanted to ask you, though — Joan Donoghue is the president of the International Court of Justice. She previously worked in the U.S. State Department. How do you think she will approach South Africa’s application? What power does she have to shape the proceedings?

FRANCIS BOYLE: That’s a good question, Juan. Yes, Donoghue is a lifelong, careerlong U.S. State Department legal apparatchik, which is how she got the job. And I am sure she’s in contact right now today with the U.S. State Department, giving them a heads-up on everything going on over there at The Hague behind the scenes. She will toe the State Department party line in these proceedings. I regret to report the president does have a lot of power there to shape these proceedings. I suspect she will use that power to shape the proceedings in favor of Israel.

However, I have also been advised that the Republic of South Africa is, as of now, nominating a judge ad hoc. That is their right under the statute of the International Court of Justice. I don’t have a name yet, but I would hope the South African judge ad hoc will do his or her best to try to keep Donoghue straight.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to South Africa, who has done this genocide filing. In 2008, I had the opportunity to speak with the South African anti-apartheid icon, the Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I caught up with him at the South African vice consul’s apartment in New York right before Archbishop Tutu received the Global Citizens Circle award. I asked him about Palestine.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you compare the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank to apartheid South Africa?

ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU: I have to speak about what I know. I mean, most people — a Jew will usually speak about their experiences and maybe compare whatever it is that is happening with what happened in the days of the Holocaust. For me, coming from South Africa and going — I mean, and looking at the checkpoints and the arrogance of those young soldiers, probably scared, maybe covering up their apprehension, there’s no way in which I couldn’t say — of course, that is a truth. It reminds me — it reminds me of the kind of experiences that we underwent.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Francis Boyle, talk about the significance of it being South Africa and what it means for one state to bring a charge against another state. Who are signatories here? And how binding is this? Explain what happened, for example, in Bosnia.

FRANCIS BOYLE: Sure. Well, first, the connection there with the late, great Archbishop Tutu, the current lead counsel now in the lawsuit for South Africa is professor John Dugard, a longtime friend of mine. Professor Dugard was one of the very few courageous white professors of international law who internationally opposed the criminal apartheid system in South Africa, at risk to his life. Second, later on, Professor Dugard became U.N. special rapporteur for Palestine. I read all of his reports. They are excellent. Professor Dugard’s heart and head are in the right place with the Palestinians, and he is one of the top professors of international law in the world.

So, there is a direct comparison between the Israeli apartheid system on all the Palestinians, including Palestinian citizens of Israel, and what happened in apartheid South Africa. Indeed, Professor Dugard has written that the Israeli system of apartheid against the Palestinians is worse than the apartheid that the Afrikaners applied to the Black people in South Africa.

I was involved in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, and that is my assessment, too. Indeed, the parallels here then led me, in November 2000, to call for the establishment, in a speech — the establishment of the divestment/disinvestment campaign against Israel, for the exact same reasons we had a divestment/disinvestment campaign against the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa. And then, in 2005, Palestinian civil society contacted me to go in with them on establishing the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, against apartheid Israel, for the exact same reason we had a BDS campaign against the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa.

So, Tutu, Dugard, I and, I would — Ramaphosa, the foreign minister in South Africa, who’s made very compelling speeches, they all understand what’s going on here and what’s at stake.

AMY GOODMAN: And the issue of genocide in Bosnia, if you could explain, for people who are not familiar with what happened? And then what came of the charges at the International Court of Justice?

FRANCIS BOYLE: Yes. Well, Yugoslavia exterminated about 200,000 Bosnians, raped about 40,000 Bosnian women. I was the lawyer for all of them, arguing their case at the International Court of Justice. And I won these two orders on 8 April, 1993, and 13 September, 1993. Until I won that order, 8 April, 1993, everyone was denying that genocide was going on. And once I won that order, that was massive and overwhelming in favor of the Bosnians, no one could deny anymore that genocide was going on.

As for the effectiveness, when I walked out of the World Court on 8 April, 1993, and won that order, I walked into the foyer there outside the grand courtroom. The whole world news media were there. And I said at the time, “The World Court has just determined that genocide is going on in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Under Article I, every state party to the Genocide Convention has an obligation to prevent genocide in Bosnia. And I hereby request direct military intervention by the United States and the NATO states to save the Bosnians from genocide.” Later that day, the United States and NATO announced that they were instituting a no-fly zone, enforcing a no-fly zone over Bosnia. So these orders by the World Court can have consequences.

And it will be up to us here in the United States to devise the strategy for consequences for the Biden administration, because we have to pressure the Biden administration to order Israel to stop the genocide. They will do what we Americans tell them to do. In Operation Cast Lead, that had been going on for a period of time under President Bush Jr., Obama — the Obama people were coming into power. Obama was about to be inaugurated. And in order not to spoil Obama’s inauguration, the United States government told Israel to stop Operation Cast Lead. So we have to understand we here in the United States of America have the power to stop this. But we have to figure out how to use the order that South Africa will win here in the United States of America.

This is exactly what happened in Nicaragua. You’ll remember, Amy, I was involved in advising almost every peace NGO and lawyer here in the United States on the legal issues with respect to Reagan’s war against Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala. My teacher, mentor and friend, the late, great Abe Chayes at Harvard Law School, won a World Court order against the Reagan administration in 1984, and then also a final judgment on the merits in 1986. We here in the United States used that World Court order and the final judgment to stop Reagan’s war against Nicaragua. Regretfully, 16,000 —

AMY GOODMAN: We have 20 seconds.

FRANCIS BOYLE: Regretfully, 16,000 Nicaraguans were killed, including U.S. citizen Ben Linder, but we did stop that. And I believe that with this World Court order that South Africa will win, we can stop what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.

AMY GOODMAN: Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. His books include The Bosnian People Charge Genocide, Palestine, Palestinians, and International Law, as well as World Politics, Human Rights, and International Law.

[admin]

From Plagiarism to Gaza: Khalil Gibran Muhammad on How a GOP Campaign Ousted Harvard’s Claudine Gay
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 03, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/3/h ... transcript

We look at the resignation of Harvard University President Claudine Gay, the first African American and second woman to lead the Ivy League school, after conservative-led allegations of plagiarism and backlash over her testimony at a congressional hearing on antisemitism that is part of a broader effort to censor pro-Palestinian speech on college campuses. “This is a terrible moment for higher education,” says Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of history, race and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He says plagiarism became a “pretext” to oust Gay, and discusses the larger right-wing war on education aimed at undoing progress on race, gender and addressing inequality.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

The first African American and second woman to lead Harvard University resigned Tuesday after allegations of plagiarism and backlash over her testimony at a congressional hearing on antisemitism last month that’s part of a broader effort to restrict pro-Palestinian speech on college campuses. Claudine Gay’s six-month tenure is the shortest of any Harvard president in history. Claudine Gay will remain at Harvard as a tenured professor of government and African and African American studies.

In a letter Tuesday, she wrote, quote, “It has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor — two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am — and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus,” she wrote.

The plagiarism allegations against President Gay were part of a campaign started last month, led in part by conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who cheered her resignation on X, writing in all capital letters, ”SCAPLED” [sic]. The conservative website The Washington Free Beacon published new plagiarism allegations against Gay Tuesday. One of the authors Rufo accused Gay of plagiarizing was her thesis adviser, Gary King, who has dismissed the allegations, telling The Daily Beast, quote, “There’s not a conceivable case that this is plagiarism. … Her dissertation and every draft I read of it met the highest academic standards,” he said.

The Harvard Corporation issued a statement Tuesday, saying Gay, quote, “acknowledged missteps” and showed, quote, “remarkable resilience in the face of deeply personal and sustained attacks,” unquote.

Claudine Gay’s resignation comes after the University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill also resigned, just days after the two appeared, along with MIT President Sally Kornbluth, at a congressional hearing led by right-wing Republican Congressmember Elise Stefanik. This is Stefanik questioning President Gay.

CLAUDINE GAY: … free speech extends —

REP. ELISE STEFANIK: It’s a yes-or-no question. Let me ask you this. You are president of Harvard, so I assume you’re familiar with the term “intifada,” correct?

CLAUDINE GAY: I have heard that term, yes.

REP. ELISE STEFANIK: And you understand that the use of the term “intifada” in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews. Are you aware of that?

CLAUDINE GAY: That type of hateful speech is personally abhorrent to me. …

REP. ELISE STEFANIK: Well, let me ask you this: Will admissions offers be rescinded or any disciplinary action be taken against students or applicants who say “from the river to the sea” or “intifada,” advocating for the murder of Jews.

CLAUDINE GAY: As I have said, that type of hateful, reckless, offensive speech is personally abhorrent to me.

AMY GOODMAN: That was last month. On Tuesday, Congressmember Stefanik celebrated Gay’s resignation on social media, writing in all caps, ”TWO DOWN.” Stefanik added this is, quote, “just the beginning of what will be the greatest scandal of any college or university in history,” and vowed to hold more hearings.

Congressmember Stefanik is a major Trump ally and a Harvard alumna who was removed from a Harvard advisory board in 2021 over her comments about voter fraud in the 2020 election that had, quote, “no basis in evidence.”

Meanwhile, the conservative activist Christopher Rufo announced Tuesday evening he was, quote, “contributing an initial $10,000 to a 'plagiarism hunting' fund.”

For more on all of this, we’re joined by Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of history, race and public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He’s the author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America.

Professor, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. First, if you can respond to, and were you surprised by, the resignation of Claudine Gay yesterday?

KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD: Thanks, Amy, for having me on.

I have to admit I wasn’t surprised, but I was extremely disappointed. This is a terrible moment for higher education. Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania are just the beginning. The political attacks that you’ve just profiled by Elise Stefanik and most other members of the House committee that held those hearings on December 5th have actually declared war on the independence, on academic freedom, on the truth of American history and our present at all colleges and universities, just as Governor DeSantis has done in Florida and Greg Abbott has done in Texas and other governors and legislative bodies in many other states.

This is the next step in now a three-year-long campaign to destroy this country’s capacity to address its past and its present, to deal with the structural racism, the systemic inequalities that cause premature death amongst millions of Americans every year. And right now the Republicans and their allies are winning.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can put Claudine Gay in context? The first Black president, the first Black woman president, the second woman to lead Harvard University, now her presidency is the shortest in Harvard’s history. And put it in the context of the whole attack on DEI, the whole attack on critical race theory. And if you can talk about this campaign by Stefanik, by Rufo, as they go from the congressional hearing, which didn’t succeed in taking her down, to this issue of plagiarism?

KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD: OK. Well, let me start with the fact that Harvard is the oldest, wealthiest, most prestigious university in this country and globally. So, for almost 400 years, Harvard has systematically excluded white women and people of color, by and large, from its hallowed corridors, from entering its gates. That’s just an absolute fact, a fact that the university, under the previous president, Larry Bacow, admitted to in a report called the Harvard Legacy of Slavery report, that was issued just over a year ago, a report that points out precisely how not only did the university exclude people of color from getting an education, but in fact collected the bodies of Indigenous people and enslaved people for scientific research, and led, into the 20th century, calls for scientific racism that helped to construct the racial hierarchies that we still live with in this country today. That’s Harvard’s own history as a leader.

So the very university that finally arrived at a moment where it not only reckoned with its own history, but also recognized the talent is universal and that the best of us actually have the ability to move this country and world forward, in a time when the planet is literally on fire and most people who will suffer most from that will be people of color, that is the context that brought Claudine Gay to the presidency. And she was ably and excellently qualified for that role. She had proven herself in previous administrative roles as a dean of the largest school on Harvard’s campus.

So, when we put that in context, the affirmative action decision last June was the first victory for the conservative right in this country to dismantle the very possibility that people like Claudine Gay would have the qualifications, the Harvard and Stanford degrees, necessary to take on such positions. And so, within that political context, the attack on affirmative action is one example of what’s been going on, which is 30 years old, a battle. But additionally, and more proximate to this moment, people like Christopher Rufo in late 2020, in response to George Floyd’s killing, have initiated an effort, what we would call a whitelash or a backlash, forms of misinformation to essentially define a body of knowledge known as critical race theory, that is the intellectual basis for understanding how systemic and structural racism work, as anti-American, as Marxist, as a threat to American civilization. And that led to 24 states criminalizing the teaching of history in all its truth about race, about racism, about sex, about gender. That led to the banning of DEI in places like Florida and, to some degree, in Texas.

And what we saw happen here with this campaign against Claudine Gay, where plagiarism became the pretext, kind of like a Black motorist with tinted windows being stopped only to look for drugs so that they could be incarcerated as part of a war on Black people during mass incarceration, that is the context where Christopher Rufo, who initiated the critical race theory, anti-woke campaign, has now culminated in yet another victory with taking down Claudine Gay over a very, very minor offense within academic context.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of history, race and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. I want to turn to an op-ed published in The Harvard Crimson by Bernie Steinberg. He was the executive — he was the executive director of Harvard Hillel from 1993 to 2010. It’s headlined “For the Safety of Jews and Palestinians, Stop Weaponizing Antisemitism.” In his essay, Steinberg supports President Gay.

He wrote, quote, “During my long career as a Jewish educator and leader — including thirteen years living in Jerusalem — I have seen and lived through my community’s struggles. Now, as an elder leader, with the benefit of hindsight, I feel compelled to speak to what I see as a disturbing trend gripping our campus, and many others: The cynical weaponization of antisemitism by powerful forces who seek to intimidate and ultimately silence legitimate criticism of Israel and of American policy on Israel.

“In most cases, it takes the form of bullying pro-Palestine organizers. In other [cases], these campaigns persecute anyone who simply doesn’t show due deference to the bullies.”

Steinberg continued, quote, “The recent effort to smear our new University President, Claudine Gay, is a case in point. I applaud the decision by the Harvard Corporation to stand by Dr. Gay amid the ludicrous charges that she somehow supports genocide against Jews, and I hope Harvard will continue to take a clear and strong stance against any further efforts by these powerful parties to meddle in university affairs, especially over personnel decisions.”

Now, again, those are the words of Bernie Steinberg, who was the executive director of Harvard Hillel from 1993 to 2010. Of course, this was before the resignation of Claudine Gay. And we can only assume that the Harvard Corporation, the kind of board of overseers of Harvard, made a deal with her, you know, helped to force her out. So, they had first supported her, and now, with tremendous pressure also from billionaire donors, she is out. If you can talk about the significance of Harvard Hillel — the former head of Harvard Hillel talking about the weaponization of antisemitism as a way to suppress dissent over what Israel is doing in Gaza right now, Professor Muhammad?

KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD: Well, I think that his comments and his testimony in the op-ed that he wrote from his vantage point speaks very clearly to the absence of a balanced discussion about Claudine Gay’s testimony, as was true of the two other presidents, Liz Magill and Kornbluth. The truth is that they all performed as they should have. They spoke clearly and directly to personally condemning expressions of antisemitism, of which “intifada,” by definition, is not necessarily, which we could talk about more. But putting that aside, they were following the instructions of general counsel and, likely, the board chairs of their various universities. In the case of Claudine Gay, for example, you can see Alan Garber, who is now the current president, the interim president, sitting behind her in glasses and a beard, almost mouthing her responses, because as second in charge of the university, they were both prepared to explain the current policies that deal with hate speech and academic freedom.

And so, what Mr. Steinberg is talking about is the context in which that entire hearing was a setup, where there was no correct answer to a lawful question, a legal question, about whether or not certain forms of speech violate the code of conduct. It always depends. And the weaponization of Jews in this case, as he described in his op-ed, suggested to me, in watching that hearing for five hours and 40 minutes, that people like Virginia Foxx had no intention of extending protections to Jews at Harvard or anywhere else. This was a setup to take down DEI and antiracism and all of the other things that the right has been going after, because that’s what she said when she opened the hearing. She described the hearing as a case of people like me teaching classes which she identified in her opening remarks as the real problem, as a prime example of antiracism and critical race theory creating institutional antisemitism. That’s a lie. It’s a form of fascist propaganda. I actually teach about antisemitism in that class.

And so, what Mr. Steinberg is describing is exactly what is happening here. Jews have been used as a wedge for the right to take down all the entire edifice that has been put in place to deal with structural racism in the society.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel a chill at the Kennedy School? What about other African American professors? Your response to Christopher Rufo cheering the resignation of Gay, writing the word “scalped”?

KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD: Well, listen, I mean, you know, speaking of history, in order to even understand that reference, one would have to understand the war against Indigenous people, the genocide committed against them and forms of settler colonialism that birthed this country. This is an evocation of that history in Christopher Rufo, who is leading the charge against people like me, against Claudine Gay, against everyone who works in a university who believes in truth and justice and a future that is better than our past.

It’s not an accident that in the same news week that ultimately brings us the resignation of Claudine Gay, Nikki Haley was on tape being a slavery denier. I mean, this is the debate we’re having in this country about whether you can actually be honest about the country in all of its complexity. No one is saying that is the whole story, that all the terrible things that happened in the past are the only thing that matters. But the truth is that in half the states — let me repeat — you can’t teach that. And the way things are going now, you won’t be able to teach it at private universities, either.

***

Assassination of Hamas Official in Lebanon Raises Risk of Israel’s War on Gaza Expanding Across Region
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 03, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/3/i ... transcript

A top Hamas official was assassinated in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday amid growing fears that Israel’s war on Gaza could entangle Lebanon and other countries in the region. Hamas’s deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri was killed in a suspected Israeli drone strike that also killed six other members of Hamas, though Israel has not confirmed its involvement. “What many analysts in the region are concluding is that Israel clearly would like to see greater regional escalation,” says analyst Mouin Rabbani, co-editor of Jadaliyya and host of the Connections podcast. He says that while it’s not certain that the war will expand, particularly because the U.S. is intent to contain the fighting, “the confidence Israel has that it can do as it pleases and not suffer any consequences for any of its actions is the key variable here.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

Fears of a regional war in the Middle East are growing after a top Hamas official was assassinated in a Beirut, Lebanon, suburb Tuesday. Hamas’s deputy leader, Saleh al-Arouri, was killed in a suspected Israeli drone strike that also killed, it’s believed, six other Hamas members. Al-Arouri was the chief of Hamas’s operations in the occupied West Bank, also credited with strengthening ties between Hamas and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

While Israel has not claimed responsibility for the assassination, one prominent Israeli lawmaker congratulated the Mossad and Shin Bet on social media. An Israeli army spokesperson said the military is in a, quote, “very high state of readiness in all arenas, in defense and offense,” unquote.

At the United Nations, a spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general urged nations to show restraint.

FLORENCIA SOTO NINO: Because of the escalating tensions and the fragility of the situation in the region, we are calling for maximum restraint from all parties. We don’t want any — any rash actions that could trigger further violence.

AMY GOODMAN: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the drone strike, warning the attack, quote, “aims to draw Lebanon into a new phase of confrontations,” unquote.

The assassination came a day before the fourth anniversary of the U.S. assassination of the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike inside Iraq under the Trump administration January 3rd, 2020. Earlier today, at least 73 people were killed in a pair of bomb blasts in Iran near Soleimani’s tomb during an event marking his death. A hundred seventy-three, at least, were injured in the blast, which local officials describe as a terrorist act.

We’re joined right now by Mouin Rabbani. He is Middle East analyst, co-editor of Jadaliyya and host of the Connections podcast. He was previously a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group. His latest piece for Mondoweiss is headlined “The long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip.”

We’re going to begin with what’s happened in Lebanon and the significance of it. Thanks so much for being with us, Mouin Rabbani.

MOUIN RABBANI: Good to be with you.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can talk about the assassination of the Hamas leader and what exactly this means, who al-Arouri is — was?

MOUIN RABBANI: Well, Saleh al-Arouri was a West Bank founder of the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. He spent many years in Israeli prisons and was then deported, most recently was living in Beirut, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, effectively under Hezbollah protection. He was a key liaison between Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon and also with the Iranian government. He’s said to have been close with Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, respectively, the political and military leaders of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the architects of the Hamas attacks of October 7th.

So, I think this assassination is significant in two respects. First of all, that Israel has managed to assassinate the senior leader of Hamas, and measured against their failure to really achieve anything of military significance in the Gaza Strip over the course of the last three months, this can be considered a significant achievement for them, although I think its impact on Hamas as an organization, apart from a serious blow to their morale, I don’t think there will be much consequence.

The second and perhaps more important is that Hezbollah has clearly identified any such act by Israel on Lebanese territory, and particularly in the capital Beirut, as a redline to which Hezbollah will respond with a significant escalation. And although Hezbollah is known to be very strategic in its actions and not to be impulsive in its reactions, I think a response is inevitable. And the question people are asking now is whether it will respond in a way that maintains the kind of controlled escalatory ladder between Hezbollah and Israel or whether Israel’s assassination has now set in motion a process that will lead to full-scale war, not only between Israel and Lebanon, but perhaps also a wider regional conflict.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you know about the others who were killed in this attack?

MOUIN RABBANI: Well, seven people in all were assassinated yesterday. In addition to Arouri, there were two commanders of the Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing, in addition to four other Hamas cadres. It’s quite clear that Arouri was the key target.

And I think one thing that requires explanation from Hamas’s side is how these seven people were meeting in a Hamas office in Beirut at a time when it was very clear that Arouri was wanted, not only by Israel, but also by the United States, which approximately a decade ago put a price on his head, and why they didn’t take greater precautions in terms of operational security, that allowed Israel to book this achievement. And some are even, you know, describing it as an own goal by Hamas, at a time when it is denying Israel any significant military achievements in the Gaza Strip.

AMY GOODMAN: So, what does this mean for a wider regional, perhaps, war? I mean, you have, I think, privately, the U.S. has been reaching out to leadership in Lebanon. This then takes place, not clear what the U.S. knowledge of this was. You have — at the time of this broadcast, Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, has not yet spoken, but he’s expected to give a major address. The significance of this attack, on the killing of the Hamas — some of the Hamas leadership?

MOUIN RABBANI: Well, I think what many analysts in the region are concluding is that Israel clearly would like to see greater regional escalation, and that a key reason it would like to see this escalation is because it knows that it will enjoy the support and, eventually perhaps, the participation of the United States in that escalation. To be clear, Washington has indicated to Israel that one of its main priorities is to prevent precisely the kind of regional escalation that we may now be about to witness. But Israel, I think, also understands that although it is acting in contradiction to U.S. policy preferences, that it can essentially do as it pleases, because, apart from a potential verbal slap on the wrist, there will be no consequences from either the United States or from key European governments, and so, therefore, it can continue on this path.

And you mentioned the terrorist attack in Kerman, in Iran, today near the grave of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, who was assassinated by the United States. And I think — ultimately, I think Israel’s ideal situation would be one in which it is able to draw the United States into a direct confrontation with Iran. I don’t think it’s a likely scenario at this point, but it’s one that’s becoming increasingly plausible as we see intensified genocide, not only in Gaza, but also these kinds of greater escalations in Lebanon, in the Red Sea, in Yemen, and in Iraq, in Syria, and now potentially elsewhere, as well. So, I think a regional war is very much on the cards. It’s by no means a certainty. But I do think the confidence Israel has that it can do as it pleases and not suffer any consequences for any of its actions is the key variable here.

***

“Voluntary Migration” or Ethnic Cleansing? Mouin Rabbani on Israel’s Push to Expel Residents of Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 03, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/3/i ... transcript

Dutch Palestinian policy analyst Mouin Rabbani says Israel is using the Hamas attack of October 7 as a pretext to carry out its “long-standing ambition” to push Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. He notes Israeli officials started proposing mass displacement of civilians to Egypt and other countries almost immediately after fighting began, and that this reflects Zionist policy since even before the founding of the state of Israel. “Ethnic cleansing, or what Zionists would call transfer, is intrinsic to Zionist and later Israeli policy towards the Palestinians from the very outset,” says Rabbani, co-editor of Jadaliyya and host of the Connections podcast. His latest piece for Mondoweiss is headlined “The long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Mouin Rabbani, I want to ask you about your new piece for Mondoweiss headlined “The long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip.” Israeli news outlets report that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told a group of Israeli lawmakers last week, quote, “Regarding voluntary immigration … this is the direction we are going in,” Netanyahu said. Israel’s minister of national security, the man who’s been convicted of terrorism, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has made similar comments.

ITAMAR BEN-GVIR: [translated] The solution of encouraging the residents of Gaza to emigrate is one that we must advance. It’s the right, just, moral and humane solution. I call on the prime minister and the new foreign minister, who I congratulate on his appointment: Now is the time to coordinate an emigration project, a project to encourage the residents of Gaza to emigrate to the countries of the world. Let’s be clear: We have partners around the world whose help we can use. There are people around the world with whom we can advance this idea. Encouraging their emigration will allow us to bring home the residents of the communities near the Gaza border and the residents of the Gush Katif settlements.

AMY GOODMAN: Those were the words of Israel’s minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir. On Tuesday, the U.S. State Department issued a statement rejecting Ben-Gvir’s comment, as well as those made by Bezalel Smotrich. Meanwhile, The Times of London reports Israeli officials have held secret talks with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and several other countries to take in Palestinians from Gaza. If you can talk about the history of this, Mouin? And also talk about when they refer to “voluntary migration” in Gaza. And also talk about Egypt and the pressure that’s being brought to bear on Egypt to open its borders to the Palestinians of Gaza.

MOUIN RABBANI: Yes, and voluntary immigration is now, referencing that article you mentioned, being marketed as humanitarian emigration. In other words, we’re doing these people a favor by ethnically cleansing them.

I think the problem here is that many people associate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians with the Israeli extreme right, with people like Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, Netanyahu and so on. But the point I was seeking to make in that article, which is actually a lengthy Twitter thread that I then posted on Mondoweiss, is that ethnic cleansing, or what Zionists would call transfer, is intrinsic to Zionist and later Israeli policy towards the Palestinians from the very outset.

So, as early as 1895, Theodor Herzl, the founder of the contemporary political Zionist movement, wrote that we need to “spirit the penniless population across the borders” and find employment for it in other lands. If you go to the period between the British Mandate and the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, you find that the Zionist movement set up a Transfer Committee, with very clear terms of reference, to ensure that refugees who were expelled would not be able to return to Palestine, to destroy their villages, and things of that sort. And the Gaza Strip, in fact, with a population that consists of more than three-quarters of Palestinian refugees who were ethnically cleansed in 1948, has, since the 1950s, been a key target for depopulation by Israel, because it doesn’t want all these refugees living within sight, so to speak, of their former homes on its borders. And it has produced a number of proposals and initiatives over the years to achieve that goal, including even one in the late 1960s to send over some 60,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Paraguay, in return for which the Mossad would discover that it no longer had the resources to hunt Nazi fugitives being sheltered by the Stroessner regime.

So, my point was really to demonstrate that this is not a recent policy proposal by the extreme fringes of the Israeli political spectrum, but has been intrinsic to mainstream Zionism and later Israeli policy from the very outset.

AMY GOODMAN: You say at the end of your piece, Mouin Rabbani, “As importantly, the 1948 Nakba did not defeat the Palestinians, who initiated their struggle from the camps of exile, those in the Gaza Strip most prominently among them. It would take a Blinken level of foolishness to assume the expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip would produce a different outcome.” Talk about Netanyahu’s goal to de-Hamasify Gaza, and what exactly that means, and the effect of the killing, at this point, of over 22,000 Palestinians.

MOUIN RABBANI: Yes. Well, that takes me back to the second part of your previous question, which I had neglected to answer, which is that at the outset of the current war, Israel saw that it had unqualified, unconditional Western support from its U.S. and European sponsors, and resurrected this long-standing ambition to cleanse the Gaza Strip of Palestinians.

And the proposal that was put front and center, literally on October 7th and onwards, was to move the population of the Gaza Strip to the Sinai Desert, to Egypt. And this was an idea that was very enthusiastically embraced by the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. And on his first trip to the region, he actually sought to market this to Washington’s Arab allies. And I think, you know, he is somewhat of a clueless airhead when it comes to the Middle East. And I think he was expecting to hear from U.S. allies, Arab allies, you know, “How can we help you help our Israeli friends?” And instead he was met with categorical refusal and rejection for this proposal, first and foremost by Egypt.

And the U.S. and European governments later came out with a position that they would oppose forced displacement from the Gaza Strip, leaving open the possibility of what we’re seeing now, an Israeli military campaign, a primary objective of which is to make the Gaza Strip unfit for human habitation, and then the encouragement of voluntary, or what is now even being called humanitarian, emigration in order to achieve the ethnic cleansing. And I think the genocide that we’re now seeing in the Gaza Strip — and this is something, of course, that’s going to be adjudicated by the International Court of Justice in The Hague after South Africa recently made an application under the Genocide Convention — you know, all these things put together making the Gaza Strip unfit for human habitation.

AMY GOODMAN: Mouin Rabbani, we’re going to have to leave it there. I thank you so much for being with us, Middle East analyst, co-editor of Jadaliyya. We’ll link to your piece, “The long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip.”

[admin]

Deadly Bombing in Iran Kills Dozens as Tensions Rise Across the Middle East
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 04, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/4/i ... transcript

Twin explosions in the Iranian province of Kerman killed dozens and injured hundreds Wednesday at a memorial for top Revolutionary Guards general Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in a U.S. drone strike four years ago in Iraq. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but Iran has placed blame on Israel and the U.S, while U.S. officials and regional experts have suggested ISIS as the culprit. Our guest, Iranian historian Arash Azizi, discusses the potential sources of the attack, the scale of the tragedy — which occurred on Mother’s Day in Iran and may count among its victims civilians visiting their mothers’ graves — and fears of wider war in the midst of Israel’s ongoing violence in Gaza. Azizi, who has authored a book on Soleimani’s assassination, calls the double blast “one of the deadliest — if not the deadliest — attacks of its kind in recent history.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Iran is observing a national day of mourning as the death toll from twin explosions Wednesday has reached 84, with many others injured. The blasts in south-central Kerman province killed attendees to a memorial for top Revolutionary Guards General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in a U.S. drone strike four years ago in Iraq. This is a survivor who was being treated in a nearby hospital.

SURVIVOR: [translated] I suddenly felt a burn in my back. And then, when I tried to move, I couldn’t.

REPORTER: [translated] What happened?

SURVIVOR: [translated] I just remember hearing the sound of an explosion.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Iran has placed blame on Israel and the U.S. The White House said the Islamic State could be behind the bloody bombings, and rejected claims Israel or the U.S. was involved.

The tragedy comes amid mounting fears that Israel’s war on Gaza could lead to a wider regional conflict. One day before the blasts, a senior Hamas leader and Iran ally, Saleh al-Arouri, was killed in a strike in southern Beirut, which Lebanese officials blamed on Israel. And earlier today, a drone strike killed four members of an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia in Baghdad. Iraqi authorities have blamed the U.S.-led international coalition for the attack.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Arash Azizi, Iranian historian and writer. His book is titled The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the U.S., and Iran’s Global Ambitions. His recent piece in The National is headlined “Who are the likely suspects in the Kerman blasts, and what does this mean for Iran?” His forthcoming book, out next, is titled What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom.

Thanks so much for joining as, Arash Azizi. Can you start off by talking about the significance of these two attacks in Iran? No one has yet claimed responsibility, but what you think this looks like?

ARASH AZIZI: These are really terrible attacks if you look at the death toll, although the death toll is actually being readjusted, with lower now. Now it’s between eighties and nineties, but it still makes it one of the deadliest — if not the deadliest — attack of its kind in recent history, perhaps even in sort of modern Iranian history. So they’re truly terrible.

And, of course, they do come at a time when the region is very tense. There’s been a shadow war between Iran and Israel and the United States for many years now, but especially in the last few months. And the anniversary of Soleimani’s killing four years ago is already a very tense day, because, you know, it involves a lot of groups in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Iran and Israel, Syria. A lot of them are linked to Soleimani in one way or the other. So it’s a very tense time, and the attack comes at that time.

Now, it is true that we don’t really know who did the attack yet. No one has really claimed it yet. A lot of experts that I’ve spoken to, and myself looking at the existing evidence, believe that it’s sort of — the likely culprit, in my opinion, is to be the Islamic State, particularly its group, its regional group, based in Afghanistan, known as ISIS-Khorasan, in Khorasan province. And this is a group that because of the kind of attacks that it did, kind of a mass civilian killing, because of the — you know, putting the bombs in briefcases, and some of the more — you know, some of the more specific methods used and the targets that they’ve picked, this makes them to be the most likely culprit that have committed the attacks.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Arash, can you explain — I mean, you’ve written this book on Qassem Soleimani — the significance of this attack taking place on the day, the fourth anniversary of his death, as people were gathering in his burial place, where his body is? But why would the Islamic State, as you said, Islamic State-Khorasan — why would they — what would be the incentive for them to carry out an attack now in the midst, as you say, of the — what’s going on in Gaza, just — the attack now in Kerman taking place just a day after al-Arouri was assassinated in Beirut? Why Islamic State?

ARASH AZIZI: You know, it’s likely that they might have planned this attack long ago. It might have also been more recent, but certainly longer than al-Arouri’s assassination. So it might not be directly sort of related to that, so they probably planned it a while ago.

Now, this group has tried to gain power in Afghanistan in recent years. They are also an adversary of the Taliban regime there, which they see it as some sort of a — in some sort of a tacit alliance with Iran, although the Taliban regime and the Islamic Republic of Iran have a complicated relationship, but they’ve sometimes worked together in the last couple of years, although Iran doesn’t even officially recognize it as the government of Afghanistan. But this group has tried to raise its profile. That’s one thing. And also, they regard Soleimani as the leader of this Shia force that they consider as an enemy, as sort of a symbol of Shia Islam and a symbol of the Islamic Republic and also a sort of symbol of Iran in the sense they regard it as such.

So, it would make sense for them to attack it. Although I would say the fact that they haven’t taken responsibility yet does give me a bit of pause, because if they did it, you know, why wouldn’t they already take responsibility for it? And there’s possibility that there might be other groups and smaller groups. But again, if it’s them, why haven’t they taken responsibility? So, that’s one question that a lot of us are asking right now.

I should also say that the National Security Council of Iran met this morning Iranian time, and after the meeting, they issued a statement in which they’re also very clear that they also don’t know who committed the attacks yet and that they put sort of the first priority in finding out who did the attacks, who are behind it. So, while the Iranian officials, in broad terms, condemned Israel and the U.S. as sort of enemies that are behind troubles against Iran, as they always do, they haven’t actually sort of — the bodies, like the Supreme National Security Council, haven’t pointed direct fingers as who would be the perpetrator. And they have promised, of course, to act against whoever did the attacks.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Arash, the people who were killed, as we said, about 84 — you said somewhere between 80 and 90 people — none of those people were in any way associated with the government, the Revolutionary Guard? Because as you’ve said also, I mean, when there have been attacks perpetrated by either the U.S., Israel, as you say in your piece — has carried out many operations in Iran, but they tend to be targeted against specific people, I mean, most notably the series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. But in this case, who was among the dead?

ARASH AZIZI: That’s right. They usually target either IRGC officials, this militia that really rules things around, or the nuclear scientists, and do they have a specific attacks — specific targets, which in this case there doesn’t seem to have been any even sort of a mid-ranking IRGC official there. So that makes it, in my opinion, less likely that it was an attack by them, although not impossible, but much less likely.

So, in terms of who was the — who were the victims, from what we can see so far, you know, ordinary people, ordinary civilians. Yes, a lot of them might have been there to mourn Qassem Soleimani in some ways, but I should also say this is a big cemetery in Kerman. It’s my maternal city, and I’ve been to this cemetery many times. There are tons of ordinary people who are buried there. In fact, it was Mother’s Day in Iran, also Iran that day, so many people might have been just going to their mother’s grave, as is customary on such a day. We see a large number of children are among the killed and the injured, dozens, which really shows, you know, the kind of victims that this attack had, and also first responders who came, because this was a double blast, so the first responders who came to help with the victims of the first blast, unfortunately, were killed in the second blast, which is another sort of signature of ISIS and makes it more likely to be that, although, as I said, we really don’t know, and it’s a bit of a speculation at this point.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Arash Azizi, remind us how Qassem Soleimani died and his significance.

ARASH AZIZI: Soleimani was killed in a drone strike on January 3rd, 2020, ordered by President Trump at the time, which was a really shocking action. Just to give you an idea, a few years before, during the Bush administration, when the Bush administration was trying to kill a Hezbollah leader, they repeatedly — at least once — postponed the attack just to make sure they don’t hit Soleimani. And that’s why — that’s because he was easily one of the most powerful men in the Middle East. He was — you could easily say he was the most powerful military figure in Iran at the time. His official job title, he was the head of the Quds Force, or the Jerusalem Force, which is basically the external operations wings of the IRGC. What he really did was that he controlled a very large multinational army of Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis, Lebanese all around the region and had really commanded and directed Islamic Republic’s interventions in countries of the region. So he was of a big significance, and also he was a ranking official of a nation-state called the Islamic Republic of Iran. So, it was sort of highly unusual to assassinate a figure like that in a strike. Some people would say, not since the Second World War, when the United States helped killed a Japanese admiral, had such a figure of another country been targeted like that.

Of course, the official sort of explanations for it was that there were — you know, there have been tons of attacks by forces directed by Soleimani, these groups based in Iraq, on U.S. forces, and this has been going on. Even in the last few months, we’ve seen more than a hundred attacks by these forces on — by these sort of Iraqi forces aligned with Tehran on U.S. forces. So, that was — you know, that was one official reason, the other being that the IRGC was put on the terror group list by the Trump administration, so they regarded Soleimani as having a double role, as on one side being a sort of a uniformed official of Iran, but at the same time they saw it as a leading figure in what they considered a terror organization. So —

AMY GOODMAN: And let me —

ARASH AZIZI: — that’s why they did the attack here.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about Sayyed Razi Mousavi, who — right around Christmas, an Israeli airstrike outside the Syrian capital Damascus killed a senior adviser of the Iran Revolutionary Guard. The sources told Reuters the adviser was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran, and apparently he was with — right? — Qassem Soleimani when Soleimani was killed. Now he has been killed.

ARASH AZIZI: That’s right. Sayyed Razi Mousavi was perhaps, I would say, easily the most important, definitely one of the top three IRGC officials, the sort of Iranian militia officials, in Syria. And he had been in Syria a very long time. You know, people would know him in Damascus. He had played an important role in the Syrian civil war. Effectively, this is when the government of Syria of Bashar al-Assad helped kill hundreds of thousands of his own civilians, and Iran and the IRGC were helping him. So, Sayyed Razi had an important role there, but really even years before. He had effectively been based in Syria since the 1990s, late 1990s, I would say, for sure. He would go back and forth. But at some point he was entirely based there. His wife taught at the Iranian school in Damascus. So he was an old-timer. When the Iranian intervention really increased in the aftermath of the Syrian revolution, followed by the civil war that’s in 2011 and ’12, Sayyed Razi became this old guy who — you know, who could help everybody else there, because he had just been there such a long time.

So, his assassination, which just happened recently, was very important, since, you know, it signaled Israel and the U.S. probably sort of targeting a really high-value Iranian target in Damascus, and which really escalates things, given the conditions that we are in. And it also possibly points out to Israel having something like what it did in the aftermath in the 1970s of the Munich attacks, which — you know, in the aftermath of that in the 1970s, Israel started an operation known as Operation Wrath of God, in which it went to Iran and then killed a lot of leaders of groups that were in some way or the other linked to the terror Munich attacks. So, the killing of al-Arouri, Sayyed Razi and others might show that Israel has a similar quest.

AMY GOODMAN: Arash Azizi, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Iranian historian and writer. His book, The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the U.S., and Iran’s Global Ambitions. We’ll link to your piece in The National, “Who are the likely suspects in the Kerman blasts, and what does this mean for Iran?” His forthcoming book, out next month, What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom. He’s speaking to us from Charlotte, North Carolina.

[admin]

“My Heart Is Still in Gaza”: Palestinian Scientist Flees Israeli Bombs, Begs World to Stop Genocide
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 05, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/5/m ... transcript

In Gaza, the death toll from Israel’s 90-day bombardment has topped 22,600, with another 7,000 people reported missing and presumed dead. As the IDF intensifies its attacks on refugee camps in central and south Gaza — areas deemed by Israel to be safe zones — we speak with Mohammed Ghalayini, an air quality scientist and co-founder of Amplify Gaza Stories, who made the “impossible choice” to flee from Gaza to Britain, where he has dual citizenship. “It was really hard to imagine things getting any worse on any particular day, but they did keep getting worse,” says Ghalayini. “I’m fearful for everyone I know that’s in Gaza, from either meeting an explosive death or a death by trigger-happy genocidal soldiers who are like drunk, obviously, on the power that they are wielding.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Gaza, where the death toll from Israel’s 90-day bombardment has topped 22,600, with another 7,000 people reported missing and presumed dead. Health officials in Gaza say Israel killed at least 162 Palestinians over the last 24 hours as the IDF intensifies its attacks on refugee camps in central and south Gaza — areas deemed by Israel to be safe zones. Doctors in Gaza describe horrific conditions inside the few hospitals still open.

In a minute, we’ll be joined by a Palestinian man who just arrived in Britain after fleeing Gaza. Mohammed Ghalayini is an air quality scientist who spent nearly three months in Gaza, where he had been visiting family. He just returned to Manchester, England, Wednesday, where he has dual citizenship. This is Ghalayini speaking at the airport after his arrival in Britain.

MOHAMMED GHALAYINI: After spending 65 days under Israel’s brutal bombing, I made what was to me an impossible choice, one that I’d been fearing since the beginning of the attacks, and that was to use the privilege of my British passport to leave Gaza. It’s a choice not available to the majority of Palestinians in Gaza, people who are currently suffering from malnutrition, severe dehydration and an overwhelming public health crisis, as Israel relentlessly and openly pursues a campaign to force all the people out of Gaza, be it by death or forced relocation to Egypt. I actually fear that I may never — we may never see our home again.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohammed Ghalayini, speaking after landing in Manchester Wednesday, joining us now from Manchester, also the co-founder of Amplify Gaza Stories, which works to share voices from Gaza.

Mohammed Ghalayini, you were in Gaza with your family. You fled first to Egypt on December 10th, and now you’re home in Manchester. Can you lay out what you saw? Can you talk about Israel’s bombardment of Gaza?

MOHAMMED GHALAYINI: Hi, Amy. Thank you for having me on. Goodness, that’s quite a — quite a difficult question to answer comprehensively, but I’ll try. I guess — sorry, I just need to take a moment.

It’s — it was really hard to imagine things getting any worse on any particular day, but they did keep getting worse. I think that’s probably like one way to look at it. You know, I think we —

AMY GOODMAN: Can you start off by telling us where you were? We’ll just go through some of the facts.

MOHAMMED GHALAYINI: Yeah, of course.

AMY GOODMAN: You had gone to Gaza to see your family. When did you go?

MOHAMMED GHALAYINI: I traveled to Gaza on the 18th of September for an extended visit, both to see my family but also to look at moving back there for work. I’ve been out of Gaza for almost 20 years now. And, you know, the trip was going, I guess, as planned. On the morning of the 7th of October, I had got up quite early to go harvest olives with my cousins, and as I woke up, I saw rocket trails. That gave me the first tipoff that something was off. I guess as the rocket fire lasted into more than an hour, then it started becoming apparent how significant the day was. Then there was a bombing, an Israeli aerial bombardment, 50 meters from our apartment, that shattered all the glass there. And we, at that point, started taking the decision to leave the apartment, because it’s actually quite close to the beach, so not a great place to be.

And then began a succession of displacements, first to an apartment about a kilometer away, then to my father’s home and IVF center, then to a hotel in north Gaza that was supposedly a safe haven because of its — you know, shelters journalists and aid workers. I’ve since learned that that’s been destroyed, as has my father’s IVF center and home.

On the 13th of October, you know, with bombing happening all around us, we saw tower blocks, that housed thousands of people, being bombarded for 36 hours, and eventually they were brought down after this one-ton bombardment. There was, I mean, destruction everywhere that you looked, wherever you went.

And, yeah, on the 13th of October, Israel issued an order to the population of Gaza — an illegal order, I might add — telling people to leave, to go south of Wadi Gaza, the Gaza River. And, you know, it set a lot of people into a panic. And anyone that had an ability to leave, a lot of people left, and we were among them. It was a very, very difficult choice then, because it’s like an impossible choice or a false choice between, I guess, your safety and your home. And then, you know, if you consider the headlines that you were — you know, the headline about the bombardment in areas of Khan Younis in the south that were deemed as, in quote, “safe zones,” we found out, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, that nowhere was actually safe in Gaza.

And I think that’s all part of this strategy of terrorizing Palestinians, sowing deliberate confusion, until people, like, at the end of their tether, because they have no access to water, scarce food and no access to healthcare. And people eventually are going to be asking themselves, “Well, where should we go?”

And, you know, I truly am of the belief, and I think there is — like, evidence suggests that Israel is trying to push Palestinians into the Sinai. They’ll deny it, and their supporters will deny it, but, ultimately, Israel is a master of creating facts on the ground and plausible deniability, I guess. And I can carry on, if you want, recounting our journey.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me ask you something. You’re an air quality scientist. Can you talk about the air quality in Gaza with this massive level of bombardment?

MOHAMMED GHALAYINI: Excuse me. So, I’ve got a cough now. And I think throughout my time in Gaza, I had a cough, and I think that coughs are quite common right now. And part of that is because of the number of respiratory irritants that are in the air because of the bombardment, so starting with the rubble from buildings that, when it’s bombed, are pulverized into fine particles, that every time there’s a gust of wind spread in the air and create an elevated level of particulate matter.

But then, it doesn’t stop at rubble from buildings and other explosive residue and what have you, because you also have — because of the lack of power right now, people are relying on alternative fuels to — so, for example, solid fuel for cooking is so common. So, you walk down any street, and it’s thick with smoke from countless fires that are being lit just to substitute for gas. And then add to that, because of the lack of transport fuel, people are fueling their cars with cooking oil, that, again, is not a good substitute for diesel, because it has like a higher — a worse emission profile that, again, causes untold public health harms. And I think those are the key air quality —

AMY GOODMAN: Mohammed, can you —

MOHAMMED GHALAYINI: — issues right now. Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the Israeli so-called fire belts, the name of the rapid-succession strikes that destroy whole Gaza city blocks?

MOHAMMED GHALAYINI: Yeah. It’s really something horrific to behold, because, you know, you just — you hear the whoosh of a jet, and then you hear the explosion, the results from, say, a one-ton bomb that’s laid down. And then you think, “OK, is that it?” And then you hear 10 more in quick succession that just, like, surround or saturate a neighborhood with bombardment. And people have nowhere to go.

So, for example, as I was saying, we were in this location in north Gaza next to the Mukhabarat towers in north Gaza by the beach, and these towers were subject to an almost 24-hour successive fire belt. Some people came to us — they came to seek shelter where we were. And they said, you know, “We couldn’t leave. We were pinned down by bombing all around us.”

And, you know, it’s this massive, indiscriminate use of explosive power in densely populated areas without any regard for civilian lives in those areas. And, you know, it’s very — it’s very cynical, because, you know, they — and I think, initially, an Israeli military spokesperson says, “We are seeking damage, not accuracy,” in their bombing. But then, at the same time, they keep saying, “Our strikes are very targeted, and our strikes are only focused on terrorist structure,” like, you know, that kind of tired terminology of terrorism that they use. And then, later on, we find out that more than 50% of the munitions dropped on Gaza were not smart, targeted bombs, but rather just — yeah, so it’s really hard, I mean, being in it, but also just being around it and hearing, knowing that every explosion is another family being killed and displaced and losing their home.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohammed —

MOHAMMED GHALAYINI: It’s really —

AMY GOODMAN: On an Instagram post in early November, you said, “Really sad to hear that my dear Cousin Laila El-Haddad’s uncle’s family have been killed by the Israeli bombing of their home in Gaza city. I didn’t know them but feel your pain Laila!” you write. You said you “acknowledged their murder on an interview with BBC 5 Live just now and the presenter tried to mince words that they needed to verify.” Your response?

MOHAMMED GHALAYINI: Again, the ultimate slight or cynical denial of the suffering of Palestinians. You know, on the one hand, we are expected to mourn and kind of acknowledge the death of Israelis — and, you know, as humanitarians, we do — and expected to accept the Israeli government’s narrative of that. But on the other hand, Palestinian suffering, Palestinian deaths, that are much more documented, are — each one is dissected and analyzed ad infinitum to deny, deny this, deny the genocide that is going on. And I will call it a genocide. I mean, it’s very — it’s just — it’s the ultimate in dehumanization, I’m sorry. Every time I report someone that I know or a relative that’s been killed by Israel, I’ll be asked, “But do you have proof that it was Israel? Do you have” — you know, we can’t verify that, surely, so we can’t mention it. It’s horrible.

AMY GOODMAN: Eighty members of your extended family have died in Gaza?

MOHAMMED GHALAYINI: Yes. So, 15 of my mother’s cousins were killed in their home in Khan Younis in early October. Later in October, another 10 of my mother’s cousins, 20 of my father’s cousins, and others that I’ve almost, like, lost track or lost count. And it’s just, we — I mean, my coping strategy is, in some way, to try and not know. But obviously you can’t avoid it.

I think one of the most horrific incidents that really stood with us, though, was in late December. Well, on the 19th of December, we got the news that six of my cousins, along with their in-laws from the Hanan family, so the Ghalayini family and the Hanan family, who were sheltering in the home of the Hanan family in Gaza City, they had been surrounded by the IDF for a couple of days, and then the Israeli army went into the house. They separated the men from the women. So, like, in that process in itself, in being able to separate men from women, it is telling. It is telling in terms of the level of respect, or lack thereof. And then, 15 of the men in the home were shot by the Israeli army. And then they also threw explosives into the rooms that the women were sheltering in, and many of them were injured, as well. This has been documented by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. It’s also been — a press statement was issued by the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

And the Israeli army has form when it comes to summary executions. They executed their hostages as they were walking towards them barechested, waving white flags. And, you know, I’m fearful for everyone I know that’s in Gaza, from either meeting an explosive death or a death by trigger-happy genocidal soldiers who are like drunk, obviously, on the power that they are wielding. And also —

AMY GOODMAN: Mohammed, I wanted to get your response —

MOHAMMED GHALAYINI: — kind of — yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — to Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, where you have dual citizenship, Tzipi Hotovely, who has openly embraced destroying the whole of Gaza. She made the comment during an interview on the London radio station LBC.

TZIPI HOTOVELY: One of the things we realized, that every school, every mosque, every second house has an access to tunnel. So, this is — and, of course, ammunition.

IAIN DALE: But that’s an argument for destroying the whole of Gaza, every single building in it.

TZIPI HOTOVELY: So, do you have another solution how to destroy the underground tunnel city, that this is the place where the terrorists hide?

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s the Israeli ambassador to the U.K. Can you first respond to Tzipi Hotovely?

MOHAMMED GHALAYINI: Of course. Tzipi Hotovely needs to be expelled from the United Kingdom. She is a purveyor of fake news that is a way of manufacturing consent for Israel’s genocidal actions. And the U.K. government needs to expel her as a diplomat. She is a propagandist, not a diplomat. And, you know, she is someone that is, you know, making the case for Israel to continue with this impunity in its war crimes. And it’s all fake news, with no proof. But, like, in the end, if you have a position of power and access to the media, then it doesn’t — you’re often unchecked and unquestioned.

Unfortunately, not all media — I mean, I’m glad the presenter challenged her, but I don’t think — I don’t know how far the challenge went in that piece. And ultimately, ultimately, there’s a lot of bad, bad journalism going on. And I guess this is like one of the reasons why this is so important to have like independent media like Democracy Now! and also like independent voices on social media kind of making sure that the checks and balances when it comes to political statements and propaganda are in place.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohammed, I want to ask you a last question. If you could talk about your decision — when you left Gaza, you stayed in Cairo to try to readjust, almost afraid to come home to Manchester. Can you talk about that transition, what you face now, what you’re calling for?

MOHAMMED GHALAYINI: I mean, so, my heart is still in Gaza. I did not want to leave Gaza, because I knew — when I was in Gaza, I knew that I could — I was there, I was present in the moment, and the only struggle that I was facing was that of surviving and telling our story. And now, I guess, outside Gaza, it’s a much — in some ways, it’s, obviously, I’m glad to be physically safe, but at the same time, I have like a very, very heavy weight of responsibility to keep honoring and amplifying the voices of, like, my country, people in Gaza, and making sure that we keep up the political pressure to make sure, you know, that, first of all, there’s a ceasefire and that Israel and its allies are held accountable. And so, I’m so glad that South Africa has brought this case at the International Court for Justice. And, you know, I think this would not have been possible without the voices of millions of supporters of Palestine protesting, and protesting in very, very difficult conditions, like a political climate that is so hostile, that accuses you of antisemitism, even though it’s the last thing that people are doing by criticizing Israel. And I think it’s so important to keep up that pressure, and I’m adding my voice to that.

And if I may, maybe just for a moment, speak of Amplify Gaza Stories, an initiative that I set up with friends and campaigners in Manchester, where, you know, we, like, ultimately wanted to — obviously, you know that there’s a narrative that’s predominant in terms of putting the Israeli narrative in front of the Palestinian narrative. And we felt there was always space for getting more Palestinian voices out there. And so we did this by — I took testimony. I interviewed people in Gaza. And we translated it and got it either published on social media or on — pushed it to other platforms. And it’s something that we’re continuing, along with like a network of contacts in Gaza, to make sure that the Palestinian voices are heard. And it’s a two-way thing, as well, because we’re also working on practical solidarity. So, for example, we have a — at the moment we’re raising money on a crowdfunder to support families cooking hot meals for their immediate communities. So it’s kind of about ensuring that they have the means for resilience, because I think right now one part of Israel’s strategy is battering down the resilience of Palestinians, so that people are so battered and broken that they can’t, like, resist through their existence. And that’s what we’re trying to do to help them with that.

AMY GOODMAN: There’s so much more to talk about, Mohammed, but we have to end here. Mohammed Ghalayini is a British Palestinian air quality scientist, spent nearly three months in Gaza, has just recently returned to Manchester, England. He returned on Wednesday, co-founder of Amplify Gaza Stories.

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“The IDF Should Not Exist”: Meet Meital Yaniv, Former Israeli Soldier Turned Anti-Zionist Organizer
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 05, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/5/t ... transcript

We speak with anti-Zionist organizer and former IDF soldier from Tel Aviv Meital Yaniv, who joined hundreds of Jewish activists and their allies to shut down the California state Capitol in Sacramento Wednesday to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and condemn the roughly $600 million in California taxes that is used annually for U.S. military aid to Israel. Yaniv recalls how they were raised “extremely Zionistic,” their experience in the Israeli Air Force and eventual turn to fight for Palestinian rights. “What Israel is doing right now has nothing to do with antisemitism. What Israel is doing right now is a genocide. What Israel has been doing for the past 75 years is apartheid, is occupation,” Yaniv says. “There is no need for any one of us to serve in the IDF. The IDF should not exist. The state of Israel should not exist.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We continue our coverage of Gaza as we turn now to California, where hundreds of Jewish activists and their allies shut down the California state Capitol in Sacramento Wednesday during its first floor session of the new year, to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

PROTESTER: [echoed by the people’s mic] Repeat after me: We shut down the first session of the California state Legislature today.

AMY GOODMAN: As chants rang out, the activists dropped banners that read “No U.S. Funding for Israel’s Genocide in Palestine.” Another banner noted California taxpayers contribute some $600 million to U.S. military aid to Israel each year. The direct action was organized by Jewish Voices for Peace, IfNotNow and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, among others.

One of the protesters was a former Israeli IDF soldier, an Israeli Defense Force soldier, who will join us in a minute from San Francisco. This is Meital Yaniv addressing their fellow demonstrators.

MEITAL YANIV: My elders, state, family had meticulously taught me how to recognize genocide from infancy, how naked bodies get rounded up for torture and execution, how mass graves smell, how starvation and hate shakes a body, how ethnic cleansing martyred entire lineages and buries the wisdom of the land caretakers. The black-and-white images are now in color. The stories are live. And in this cycle we don’t need gas chambers, because we have U.S.-made bombs.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Meital Yaniv addressing Wednesday’s protest that shut down the California state Assembly, an organizer organizer with Shoresh, a new Israeli anti-Zionist group based in the U.S. They were born in Tel Aviv. They’re a former IDF soldier, which they write about in their new book, bloodlines.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Meital. Can you talk about why you’ve decided to take this stand? And talk about what you did as an Israeli soldier, and your change of heart.

MEITAL YANIV: Yes. Thank you, Amy, for having me, and thank you for the work that you do.

So, I was raised in a very, I would say, extremely Zionist family, but also very common way of being raised in Israel. I have a lot of war heroes in my family, fallen soldiers, Lehi quarters, Air Force commanders and the like, Mossad agents. And as the child of my father, I was recruited into the Air Force.

And after six months of serving, my base was moved from Tel Aviv to the south. This was 2002. And I was asked to send planes to fuel planes that were going into Gaza to bomb Gaza. At that time, I didn’t have the language to understand exactly what’s happening. But as we returned to the base, I had my first panic attack and couldn’t enter the base, and the next day had to come and stand trial, and I was grounded to the base for three weeks. And in those three weeks, I understand that I have to leave the army, and that knowing in that moment made me want to take my life, because it was so against everything I was taught.

And that started a process that I will be in for the rest of my life, which is the undoing of that indoctrination and that brainwashing and the way that the Israeli identity has been merged with the Zionist identity. And what I’m doing with bloodlines and the prayer that is bloodlines is to really bring the Israeli identity and Israeli state to a loving and caring death for the liberation of the land of Palestine.

AMY GOODMAN: What year was that? What year did you bomb Gaza?

MEITAL YANIV: 2002.

AMY GOODMAN: So, 2002, we’re talking about 20 years. And you were in a very elite group, the Israeli Air Force. Talk about that. There are actually a number of dissenters within that, for example, the well-known resister Yonatan Shapira, and others. And what it means for you now to speak out, and how much support you have publicly in Israel, and maybe privately, people who are afraid to speak out?

MEITAL YANIV: Yeah. My need to leave the army at the time really came from — like, my body said no. And it was an elite situation. Like, we all want to be in the Air Force, for different reasons. We’re also 18-year-olds that, at the time, you know, we feel like that the Air Force has better conditions. And it is considered a perk. And leaving the army was — at that time felt an impossible decision, and also there was no other decision in my body, so I had to follow that.

And in terms of being heard, I am trying to be heard as loudly as I can, because I do think that the only thing that is really unique about my experience is that I was raised extremely Zionistic and have walked here to the very other shore. And I remember each step. And from that place, I can compassionately relate to where everyone is at. But to reach voices inside Israel is extremely hard. I’m grateful to be a member of Shoresh. And that is kind of like the work that we’re trying to do here, is really find ways to be heard here and there. Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: I should be more specific. As a former IDF soldier, you were responsible for assigning planes that the Israeli Air Force sent to refuel the other planes that were bombing Gaza?

MEITAL YANIV: Yes. So, I was —

AMY GOODMAN: That was your job.

MEITAL YANIV: Yeah, my job was to send, basically, fuel planes —

AMY GOODMAN: But you didn’t actually fly those planes.

MEITAL YANIV: — that were fueling the F-16, I’m assuming. No, no, I was on the ground.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can talk about the equation that some critics, pro-Israel advocates make of being anti-Zionist with being antisemitic?

MEITAL YANIV: Yeah. I think the issue here, you know, I was raised extremely Israeli, which also meant that I wasn’t raised very Jewish, which is also a very common thing. The way that the assimilation into Israeli identity happened within my lineages was to really, like, remove the Jewishness and really become this like tzabar heroic IDF soldier identity. And from that place, it — it’s almost impossible from that place to — sorry, Amy, can you repeat your question?

AMY GOODMAN: I was just saying the — if you can comment on those who say to be anti-Zionist is to be antisemitic?

MEITAL YANIV: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. Yeah, from that merging, you know, the Zionist identity, a part of that propaganda is to really hold it within the cage of antisemitism. Like, every time that we criticize Israel, someone can say you’re antisemitic. But in reality, there’s nothing antisemitic about criticizing Israel. The merging of Israel with Judaism is something that Israel would like us to hold as a way to protect itself. But in reality, antisemitism is a very specific thing, that we are not causing it, and we will not undo it. And the only thing we can do is to continue to resist it.

And at the same time, what Israel is doing right now has nothing to do with antisemitism. What Israel is doing right now is a genocide. What Israel has been doing for the past 75 years is apartheid, is occupation. The techniques that are being used in the West Bank are clearly apartheid techniques that have nothing to do with antisemitism. So, criticizing that, walking in streets that are only for Israelis, that Palestinians are not able to walk on, in Hebron, there’s nothing antisemitic about criticizing that. Like, that is something that we are doing as Israelis.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about how you are informed by your — by the fact that you’re a descendant of Holocaust survivors?

MEITAL YANIV: Yeah, and that is really something that I think has really formed my identity. And that is something also that I think really helps with the undoing of it all, because I really feel that that trauma seed really started there. And that is something that I’m also trying to do in bloodline, where I start with the story of my great-grandma, telling their story of survival, because in that story of survival, there’s also the need to escape and, in that need, the need to assimilate into a new identity of a colonizer of a settler colony. And in the doing of that, there wasn’t a moment of care, to take care of what just happened in their bodies. And that became a need to arm ourselves. I mean, I feel like I see it as a fear of annihilation, also an extreme form of victimhood, that is in our bodies. And from that place, it’s always been very, very hard when I see my elders to release the arms and to really tend to that original trauma and seed of the Holocaust.

AMY GOODMAN: Meital, as we wrap up, I wanted to ask you what message you have for young people, like Tal Mitnick, who is a refusenik, who’s refusing to be an Israeli soldier in the Occupied Territories, to these young people. And here you are in the United States shutting down the California Legislature. To the United States, your message?

MEITAL YANIV: My message is, first of all, for everyone who can, to just find their heart and to liberate themselves from this identity that we call an Israeli identity. And there is no need for any one of us to serve in the IDF. The IDF should not exist. The state of Israel should not exist. We can be free without it. We can have a true connection to our heart without that identity.

To the U.S. legislators in California, you know, the fact that we were even able to take a break while there’s a genocide happening is an impossible idea to hold. And in this moment, when you’re back from the break, we shut it down on one day, but now you really need to make decisions. And, you know, in the federal level, we are not being heard. So, please, ,I beg of you, make this stop, in whatever way you can.

AMY GOODMAN: Meital Yaniv, organizer with Shoresh, a new U.S.-based Israeli anti-Zionist group, born in Tel Aviv, former IDF soldier, descendant of Holocaust survivors. Their new book is titled bloodlines.

***

Ralph Nader on Gaza Ceasefire & Why Suppression of Palestine Advocacy Is the Real Problem on Campus
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 05, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/5/r ... transcript

Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic and four-time former presidential candidate, joins Democracy Now! to discuss Americans pushing the government to end “this genocidal war in Gaza,” large donors influencing free speech and curriculum at universities, and his new book, The Rebellious CEO: 12 Leaders Who Did It Right.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman.

We end today’s show with Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic, four-time former presidential candidate. We’ll talk to him about several topics, including his new book, The Rebellious CEO: 12 Leaders Who Did It Right. He’s also the founder of Capitol Hill Citizen newspaper, has been named by Time and Life magazines one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century.

But, Ralph, let’s begin with U.S. policy in Gaza. Amidst the protests nationwide calling for a ceasefire, senior Biden education official Tariq Habash resigned this week — he’s the first Biden appointee — over what he called Biden’s, quote, “complete unwillingness to demand an immediate and permanent cease-fire” in Gaza. Biden is facing reelection amidst a broader Middle East conflict. Ralph, you said, quote, “Biden and Congress are vigorously enabling the annihilations” in Gaza. What do you mean? And what do you feel needs to happen?

RALPH NADER: Well, the important thing in the U.S. here is to focus on Congress and the White House, because they are waist deep in this genocidal war in Gaza. The Congress is basically a rubber stamp and doesn’t even have public hearings as it shovels billions of dollars to Israel. And it’s about to pass, unless Bernie Sanders and others who are opposed, a $14.3 billion — with a “B” — appropriation for Israel, military arms and other aspects of the Israeli right-wing regime’s priorities.

And $14.3 billion is larger than the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s 20 times the budget of the Occupational Safety and Health Agency. It’s four times the budget of the National Park Service, which has 300 million visitors. So there is rising opposition to it in the Congress, mostly among Democrats, but not enough. And I think the Jewish Voice for Peace and other valiant people who are resisting should focus more on the Congress.

As far as Biden is concerned, it really gives a new meaning to hypocrisy. He keeps saying publicly that Israel should reduce its impact on civilian casualties and let humanitarian trucks in. At the same time, he’s sending ships full of munitions and cargo planes full of munitions to Netanyahu. You cannot have humanitarian trucks coming in — and there needs to be about 700, at least, a day — if you don’t have a ceasefire, because who’s going to go in? The roads are torn up. They can’t get to their destination. The hospitals and clinics have been destroyed or disabled. There’s no markets. There’s no ability to receive these materials. And the Israelis are letting in maybe 10, 20 trucks a day, but they’re delaying hundreds and hundreds of trucks ready to come in, which Biden has already paid for. So, Biden is playing Netanyahu’s game, but he’s trying to get away with highfalutin adherence to international law.

We don’t hear enough about the violation of international law, U.S. treaties, Geneva Conventions. It’s as if the U.S. can do anything it wants in Syria and Iraq, and Israel can continue to bomb repeatedly in Syria and do other violent acts, and the press never raises the issue of law. Without law, you have anarchy. You have what you’re seeing now.

And the U.S. is very much involved. And people are very concerned about a wider conflict here. The Israelis already struck in Beirut. And you have the Red Sea situation with the Houthi boats. And the U.S. is all over the place, aircraft carriers. They have 24/7 drones over Gaza. So, that’ll be a very good record when the reckoning comes after this war is over.

AMY GOODMAN: In fact, you are Lebanese American, Ralph, is that right, your family from Lebanon?

RALPH NADER: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you a question that relates to this. You know, the protests around Gaza on college campuses around the country ultimately have led to the ouster of two college presidents, Liz Magill at UPenn, and now you have Claudine Gay. And I wanted to ask you about the protest yesterday led by Al Sharpton outside the New York office of the billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who helped lead a campaign that led to this week’s ouster of the Harvard University president, the first Black president of Harvard, Claudine Gay. Ackman, a Harvard alum, major donor to the university, has publicly railed against Harvard and other schools for supporting DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — programs. Al Sharpton vowed to keep protesting outside Ackman’s office. This is what he said.

REV. AL SHARPTON: We have started these weekly one-hour protests in front of Mr. Ackman’s office. He has said that the resignation of Dr. Gay at Harvard is not the end of it. They are going to keep fighting 'til they end DEI, which is diversity, equity and inclusion. That's declaring a war on all of us — Blacks, women, gays. DEI was designed to bring fairness and equality to people that had been historically marginalized and eliminated.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Al Sharpton. As part of his campaign to oust Gay as Harvard president, Bill Ackman helped amplify allegations that Gay had committed plagiarism in her academic work, but now Ackman’s wife, the MIT professor Neri Oxman, is facing a plagiarism scandal of her own. Business Insider has revealed Oxman plagiarized parts of her doctoral dissertation at MIT. On Thursday, she apologized and admitted making mistakes. Of course, there was no plagiarism panel that was set up — that’s the process at Harvard — that would evaluate President Gay before she was, ultimately, I guess you could probably say, pushed out by Harvard Corporation, with a lot of pressure from these major donors, like Bill Ackman. Your response, before we move into your book on corporate executives who did it right?

RALPH NADER: What’s been revealed is the big donors to these universities, especially private universities like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, have been exercising their baleful influence for many years over the curriculum. You know, it’s not surprising that Harvard Law School, for decades, never had a course on corporate law — corporate crime, rather. So, these large donors now have been revealed to have enormous power over the board of overseers over Harvard University. And that’s the next investigation for good student newspapers like The Harvard Crimson.

The stuff on plagiarism, it could be serious, but not in this case, given the review of the president’s past writings. The big issue is the slaughter, is the suppression of speech on college campuses dealing with the slaughter over there in Gaza.

And the fatality count is grossly undercounted, Amy. I know you refer to the official Hamas health authority count, where they only count people whose names they know who died, and so it’s over 22,000, 58,000 injuries. This is a massive undercount.

As the head of the global health department at University of Edinburgh said in an article in The Guardian the other day, there’s going to be half a million Gazans who are going to die before the end of this year, not only from the bombing, but from the effect of the bombing in terms of the destruction of the healthcare system, infectious diseases, polluted water, diarrhea, which little children — which is often a high rate of fatality, and very quickly — lack of any food, no shelter, 85% of the 2.3 million people homeless. They have no connection to sanitation, food, protection, the winter elements. My estimate now is at least 100,000 have died. And more will die every day because of the effects that I’ve just described.

The World Health Organization said they’ve never seen a situation like this in decades. The amount of — number of children being killed, in November, it was 150 a day from the Israeli bombing, and that’s compared to two a day in Afghanistan and less than one a day in Ukraine. So, that’s the main issue.

And the campus controversy talking about slurs and ethnic slurs and so forth, what’s behind it all is to repress the academic world from speaking out and acting on what our government is doing to make all this possible.

And then, we also have to focus on these corporations, for a lot of this aid to Israel bounces back into contracts for missiles. Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, they’re raking it in. And people talk about the lobby in this country supporting any Israeli government can do no wrong, no matter how extreme. We have to talk about the military-industrial complex here on Capitol Hill pushing for more and more of these immense sales and profits.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph, you just wrote a book. You are deeply critical right now of the corporations you just mentioned. But your book is The Rebellious CEO: 12 Leaders Who Did It Right. Some may be surprised to see you, this corporate critic, writing this book, famous for Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile, among other things. But in this last minute — and then we’ll do a post-show interview — talk about why you wrote it.

RALPH NADER: Because there are not enough good yardsticks to evaluate the misbehavior of giant CEOs of these multinational corporations, who distort markets, control markets, but they tell you, when you take — you criticize them for their munitions production, for opiates, for fossil fuels, for high drug prices, “Oh, we’re just meeting market demand.” Well, these 12 CEOs, they made profit, but they reversed the business model, focusing on protecting and treating workers right, consumer right, and the environment. And they spoke out against war. They spoke out against — Anita Roddick of The Body Shop spoke out against the cosmetic industry’s harm on young customers. Ray Anderson changed his entire —

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph, we have to leave it there, but we’re going to do Part 2 and post it at democracynow.org. Ralph Nader, author of The Rebellious CEO: 12 Leaders Who Did It Right. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.

[admin]

“Huge Miscalculation”: Biden’s Refusal to Push for Gaza Ceasefire Could Drag U.S. into Middle East War
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 08, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/8/g ... transcript

Middle East policy expert Trita Parsi says President Biden’s reluctance to press Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza has the potential to drag the U.S. into a war with Iran and its allies in the region. On Monday, Israel reportedly killed a Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, just days after an airstrike killed a senior Hamas leader in the capital Beirut. Meanwhile, the U.S. has exchanged fire with Yemen’s Houthi forces, who have attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea to pressure Israel to stop its war. “The Biden administration clearly do not want an escalation,” says Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. But the longer Israel’s war on Gaza continues with full U.S. support, the less likely regional actors are to continue showing restraint, he says. “This is not going to work in the long run.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Secretary of State Antony Blinken is back in the Middle East to meet with leaders across the region. During a stop in Qatar, Blinken warned the war in Gaza could, quote, “easily metastasize into a regional war.” While Blinken is publicly calling for deescalation, the Biden administration continues to face criticism for sending more weapons to Israel while carrying out its own attacks in Iraq and Syria, as well as targeting Houthi forces in Yemen. This comes as Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has entered its fourth month, as the U.N. top humanitarian official warns the relentless assault has left Gaza “uninhabitable.” According to Palestinian health officials, the death toll in Gaza is nearing 23,000, including almost 10,000 children.

Israel’s attacks continue to take a devastating toll on Palestinian journalists. By one count, at least 100 Palestinian journalists have been killed so far since October 7th. On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza killed two journalists: Mustafa Thuraya of Agence France-Presse and Hamza al-Dahdouh of Al Jazeera. Hamza was the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh, who had already lost his wife, daughter, another son and a grandson in an Israeli airstrike in October, and then was wounded in another strike that killed his cameraman, Samer Abudaqa. On Sunday, the BBC’s Julian Marshall interviewed Israeli spokesperson Eylon Levy.

JULIAN MARSHALL: Are Al Jazeera operating in Gaza legitimate journalists, as far as Israel is concerned?

EYLON LEVY: I’m not sure what standard we’re using to measure legitimate journalists. We have intense criticism of Al Jazeera in the way that they have been fueling a lot of violence in this conflict with their incorrect reporting.

JULIAN MARSHALL: OK. So, Israel, the Israeli government —

EYLON LEVY: But this is not a relevant question.

JULIAN MARSHALL: The Israeli government is not a fan of Al Jazeera. Is that what you’re saying to me?

EYLON LEVY: Correct.

JULIAN MARSHALL: Right.

EYLON LEVY: We are not big fans of Al Jazeera, that is correct. We much prefer the BBC.

JULIAN MARSHALL: Right. But so, you would possibly prefer Al Jazeera not to have a presence in Gaza?

EYLON LEVY: We’d prefer for Hamas not to have a presence in Gaza, and that is what we’re talking about now.

JULIAN MARSHALL: Well, I’m talking about — I’m talking about Al Jazeera. You would prefer Al Jazeera not to have a presence in Gaza?

EYLON LEVY: We would prefer that all media reporting about this conflict be accurate and not spread lies and disinformation in the way that Al Jazeera has been doing.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His piece for The Nation is headlined “Will Israel Drag the US Into Another Ruinous War?”

Trita, welcome back to Democracy Now! So, we’re talking to you —

TRITA PARSI: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: — on the Blinken trip through the Middle East, something like the fifth time he’ll be going back to Israel and the West Bank. And when he was in Qatar this weekend and held a news conference the day he arrived in Qatar, Al Jazeera’s reporter Hamza al-Dahdouh, the son of the Gaza bureau chief of Al Jazeera, Wael al-Dahdouh, was killed in a U.S. airstrike on a car that also killed an AFP reporter. Can you talk about the significance of this?

TRITA PARSI: Well, this is the conflict in which we have seen more journalists being killed than in any other recent conflict. And it increasingly appears as if those are not accidents but actually targeted, particularly in the case of this journalist. As you mentioned in your program, his family has been targeted, he has been targeted, and now his son has been killed, as well. It increasingly looks as if Israel is desiring to make sure that Al Jazeera no longer can operate in Gaza. And it is largely thanks to Al Jazeera that we know so much about what has been happening in Gaza, because they had a presence there from before the war began, so they were already there once the war started. This is a tremendous danger, because with what the South Africans are accusing Israel of when it comes to genocide, not having eyes and ears on the ground there completely changes the pictures in terms of what the Israelis can and cannot do.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about what this means in terms of an escalation — not a deescalation, although Tony Blinken keeps talking about deescalation — of a wider war in the Middle East, why he’s in the Middle East, having gone from Turkey and Greece to Qatar — he’s going to Saudi Arabia today — to Israel and to the West Bank and beyond.

TRITA PARSI: I think the Biden administration clearly do not want an escalation. They do not want to see a widening of the war. But the approach that they have pursued is one in which they’re trying to maximize Israel’s ability to continue to bomb Gaza, while putting pressure on other actors in the region for them not to escalate, while the administration itself admits that there is no desire in Hezbollah, in Iran for a wider war. So, it’s not as if they want that war, when it comes to Hezbollah, yet the pressure is supposed to be on them, while not putting pressure on the Israelis. This is not going to work in the long run. We’ve already seen that day by day we’re getting closer and closer towards a military confrontation that is much larger than just Gaza. Unless the Biden administration is willing to also put material support on Israel, we will most likely move further into that escalation.

And this is what is so perplexing about the Biden administration’s position. The fastest and easiest way to actually get a deescalation is most likely a ceasefire in Gaza. The groups such as Iraqi militias, the Houthis have made it clear that if there is a ceasefire, they will cease their attacks. Now, we have evidence of that, as well, because when there was a ceasefire in the end of November of last year for six days, there were no attacks whatsoever from the Iraqi militias. They completely stopped their attacks. There were six attacks the day before the ceasefire. But once there was a ceasefire, they were completely stopped. When it comes to the Houthis, there’s only one attack during that period that we can attribute to them, instead of daily attacks. So we have some clear evidence that if there is a ceasefire, there will be a deescalation. Yet that is the option that the Biden administration is unwilling to pursue. Instead, it is going around the region asking other countries to put more pressure on Iran, no Hezbollah, on other actors. Some of that pressure is probably quite needed. But in the absence of a ceasefire, it will probably not be effective.

AMY GOODMAN: As Tony Blinken, as President Biden calls for a deescalation, they continue to provide weapons, circumventing Congress twice, providing artillery shells for Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. You quote in your Nation piece retired Israeli Major General Yitzhak Brick, who conceded in November, “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S.” Can you talk further about this, this contradiction between what the U.S. is saying and actually how much power it has? Give us a history lesson in the past, going back to President Reagan and Lebanon, when the U.S. says, “Stop.”

TRITA PARSI: The Biden administration, I think, has been pushing a narrative that essentially says that Biden doesn’t have the leverage, the U.S. doesn’t have the leverage to be able to stop this. It doesn’t seem to be compatible with reality, because, as you pointed out, the Israeli major general himself admits that all of these weapons are coming from the United States, and if the U.S. were to put a stop to these shipments, then the Israelis would not be able to continue this fight for much longer.

So, a question is not whether the U.S. has leverage — it clearly does. The question is whether Biden is willing to use it. And so far he has not been willing to use it, because he’s actually buying into supporting the Israeli objective of completely defeating Hamas. He seems to want to see Israel do to Hamas what the U.S. couldn’t do to the Taliban.

But we have historical examples. In 1982, when Israel went into Lebanon, and the Reagan administration started to become increasingly concerned about this and viewed it as being detrimental to U.S. interests, eventually Ronald Reagan, both publicly and a private conversation with Menachem Begin, essentially told him, “You have to stop; otherwise, I’m going to freeze the shipments of F-16 airplanes to Israel.” Within 20 minutes, Menachem Begin called back and ordered a retreat of the Israelis out of Lebanon. We have clear examples in the past in which pressure, particularly public pressure, actually has been effective. The reason why Biden is not using it is because he’s bought into the Israeli objective.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, all the polls in the United States show the overwhelming number of young voters are opposed to his position right now when it comes to Israel and the West Bank — people of color, as well. Can you explain, as a person who understands a lot about what goes on inside the Beltway, why Biden is refusing to, in any way, stand up, not just signal on the outside calling for deescalation, but actually making those calls, since he’s had, to say the least, so many with Netanyahu?

TRITA PARSI: I think the Biden administration made a huge miscalculation from the outset. They did not think that there would be this type of a backlash amongst the American public, including his own supporters, against the Israeli campaign. Now when it has happened, it appears that the conclusion in the White House is that they have already lost these votes, they will not be able to gain them back if they shift their position, but if they shift their position, they will likely lose some of the voters that are in support of Israel’s campaign. That calculation, however, seems to leave out a very important component, which is that there’s also another bloc of voters, a bloc of voters that have not yet given up on Biden, but if this war continues, as it now appears that it will, and particularly if it enlargens and drags the U.S. into it, then Biden also risks losing that bloc. And if that bloc is larger than the bloc of voters who support Israel’s campaign, then Biden is compounding his initial miscalculation by further undermining his own ability to get reelected.

AMY GOODMAN: The Iraqi government is blasting the United States after a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad killed a top commander in an Iran-backed militia in Iraq. On Friday, the Iraqi government announced plans to expel U.S.-led forces from Iraq. Can you talk about the significance of this, Trita?

TRITA PARSI: This is very important, because this is highly problematic for the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government has tried to walk a fine balancing act. They wanted to keep a certain degree of a U.S. military presence in Iraq, at least for the next few years, while at the same time balancing that against the pressure from Iraqi militias and others who want to see the U.S. leave.

Once the U.S. is now actually assassinating leaders of those militias inside of Iraq — in the previous weeks, those attacks were taking place in Syria. Now they’ve also started to take place in Iraq itself. This is highly problematic. It’s a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty, according to the Iraqi government, and it further increases the pressure on the Iraqi government to ask the U.S. to leave, which I believe will happen relatively — you know, in the next years or so, it will happen. It’s not sustainable to have the U.S. troops there.

Ultimately, from a U.S. perspective, I think that’s actually a good thing. Those troops in Iraq are essentially sitting ducks, and they’re targets of these Iraqi militias. You take those troops out, and the Iraqi militias don’t have targets to shoot at — and as a result, a tripwire for the U.S. to get dragged into war. At least that one will be removed.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you, as we wrap up: A suspected Israeli strike in southern Lebanon has killed a senior commander in an elite unit of Hezbollah earlier today in a move that further escalates tension in the region; the significance of this, from Iraq to southern Lebanon, Trita?

TRITA PARSI: So, you have three major fronts in which the risk of escalation is significant. Of course, you have the Red Sea, with the Houthis attacking ships. You have the Iraqi militias and Syrian militias targeting U.S. troops. And then you have the desire of the Israelis to expand the war into Lebanon and try to take out Hezbollah, as well. The last one is getting really heated up right now. The attack this morning is yet another one. There has already been a bit of a shooting war, but it’s at lower level, between Israel and Hezbollah ever since the start of the war after October 7th, but it is escalating, and it’s getting deeper into both Israeli and Lebanese territory.

One of the things that I think is highly problematic in the way that the mainstream media has covered this is that it talks about how Biden is grappling with how to avoid an escalation of this war. And I genuinely believe that the Biden administration doesn’t want that. But these reports don’t seem to mention that the demand of some of these groups is a ceasefire. And if there is a ceasefire, they would also then deescalate their attacks on U.S. troops, etc. Now, the reporting doesn’t have to say that this is what is going to happen. It should be scrutinizing these statements by the Houthis and the Iraqi militias. But at a minimum, it needs to mention that that is their demand, so that the American public is aware that there appears to exist an option for deescalation through a ceasefire. The fact that it is not mentioned in most mainstream media is highly problematic, because it leaves the public with the wrong impression, that the only way Biden can deescalate is by further escalating the situation by increasing the deterrence and attacking, whether it’s the Houthis or the Iraqi militias. The option of actually going for a ceasefire to deescalate doesn’t seem to be mentioned in the mainstream media, and that’s a major mistake, I think.

AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi, we want to thank you for being with us, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. We’ll link to your piece in The Nation, “Will Israel Drag the US Into Another Ruinous War?”

We were just talking about Lebanon. The Reuters reporter Issam Abdallah was also killed there. Reuters did an investigation saying it was an Israeli artillery strike that killed him. More than 100 Palestinian journalists have died since October 7th.

***

Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate: Israel Is Targeting Media in Gaza to Hide Its Atrocities from the World
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 08, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/8/p ... transcript

More than 100 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7, when Israel unleashed a ferocious attack on the territory from land, sea and air. On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle killed two more journalists, including Hamza Dahdouh, the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, who had already lost his wife and other family to Israeli airstrikes. Palestinian journalist Anan Quzmar says media workers are being targeted in order to “shut down the coverage” of Israeli atrocities. Quzmar, a volunteer at the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, says the union has evidence that at least 96 of the 109 journalists whose deaths it has documented “were deliberately and specifically targeted by surgical Israeli strikes against them.” The PJS has filed an amicus brief in support of the Center for Constitutional Rights genocide lawsuit against Israel, citing the unprecedented number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza, saying they have been deliberately targeted for assassination by the Israeli military.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

As we’ve reported, two more journalists in Gaza were killed in an Israeli airstrike this weekend, among the victims, the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael al-Dahdouh. Just a few months ago, in October, he also lost 12 family members, including his wife, his 15-year-old son, his 7-year-old daughter and his infant grandson in an Israeli airstrike.

Like his father, Hamza al-Dahdouh worked for Al Jazeera. He was 27 years old. Hamza was reportedly driving in a car with other journalists on a road in Khan Younis when the vehicle was hit. The freelance journalist Mustafa Thuraya, who was a stringer for Agence France-Presse, AFP, was also killed, while a third, Hazem Rajab, was seriously injured. A video showed Wael al-Dahdouh crying next to his son’s body, holding his hand. Wael spoke on Sunday.

WAEL DAHDOUH: [translated] How can someone receive the death of their oldest son and everything in my life after I lost some of my family members, my wife, son Mahmoud and Sham and Adam? How can I receive this? … The world must see with their own eyes, and not with Israel’s eyes. It must listen and watch all that is happening to the Palestinian people. What has Hamza done to them? And what has my family done to them? What have civilians in the Gaza Strip done to them? They have not done anything. The world is blinded by what is going on in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Just last month, Wael al-Dahdouh was injured in an Israeli drone attack while covering the aftermath of an Israeli strike on a U.N. school sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis. His cameraman, Al Jazeera photojournalist Samer Abudaqa, bled to death over the course of more than five hours, as Israeli forces reportedly prevented rescue workers and ambulances from reaching Samer.

The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate says Israel has killed at least 102 journalists in Gaza since October 7th.

For more, we go to the West Bank. We’re joined by Anan Quzmar, a Palestinian journalist, volunteer at the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, which has filed an amicus brief in support of the Center for Constitutional Rights genocide lawsuit against Israel, citing the unprecedented number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza, saying they’ve been deliberately targeted for assassination by the Israeli military.

Anan, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the journalists who were killed this weekend, Al Jazeera’s Hamza al-Dahdouh, amazingly, killed on the day that Blinken arrived in Qatar — Qatar owns Al Jazeera — and Mustafa Thuraya of Agence France-Presse? And then put them in the broader context of how many Palestinians — we’ve not seen this anytime in war, more than a hundred Palestinian journalists, estimates from 70 to over a hundred, dead since October 7th.

ANAN QUZMAR: Yeah. Thank you very much for having me to speak about this, for us, very, very important issue.

Hamza al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Abu Thuraya are just the latest victims of Israel’s calculated and deliberate assassination campaign against Palestinian journalists that has been going on for the last three months. Unfortunately, every time we release a number, we have to update it, within hours sometimes.

Our indications so far, of the 109 journalists, up to this moment, that have been killed by Israel’s genocidal military campaign, indicates that at least 96 of those were deliberately and specifically targeted by surgical Israeli strikes against them, at home or in the line of duty. Twenty-two of those were killed in the line of duty, using sniper fire, drones and surgical airstrikes, similar to the one that took place yesterday that took the life of the two journalists. They were targeted in their car. The munition that was used was big enough to damage the car and kill everybody inside, but it didn’t hurt anybody around, and they were targeted at a moment where there was nobody close to the vehicle at the time. So it’s clearly indicating that they were specifically targeted.

Other than this, there is at least 74 cases of journalists that were killed at home in strikes that specifically hit their flats. Some are in big apartment blocks, where they are on the fifth or sixth floor, and their flat is targeted, and no damage to any or limited damage to other nearby flats or homes.

And in the remaining 13 cases, we were just not able to determine who exactly was the person targeted in the strike. So, for example, we excluded any cases where more than 10 people were killed. We excluded cases where people who were not at the flat or at the location with the journalists, so there is an element of, you know, what Israel likes to call collateral damage.

We’ve also excluded from the 96 that we suggest were — at least 96 specifically targeted, cases like Akram Al-Shafe’i, who a couple of days ago passed away because he was not allowed or he had no access to adequate healthcare — excuse me. And at least at the moment, there is 25 of our journalists are in similar life-threatening situations because of lack of access to medical healthcare.

Also, the wider context of what’s happening now is an indication that these journalists are being targeted. As the previous guest alluded to, Israel’s interest is to shut down the coverage. And our journalists are a main portal and play a key role in uncovering the ongoing military campaign by Israel.

Other than this, many of our journalists received direct and indirect threats and incitement against them that they had personally reported, either publicly or privately, to us, due to fear that the publication of such reports or threats would actually escalate the situation and put them higher up in the bank of targets for Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: You’ve said —

ANAN QUZMAR: There is also —

AMY GOODMAN: You’ve said that 9% of all Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip have been killed since October 7th, and that you feel that press freedom organizations around the world have let Palestinian journalists down. How?

ANAN QUZMAR: After 109 journalists have been killed, we are still hearing the same statements that are calling for investigations. There are clear patterns. Yes, we haven’t been able to establish every single case, but — I am sorry, but three months into a genocidal campaign that has made Palestinian journalists a primary target for them, 9% of our journalists in Gaza have been killed. This is eight points higher than the average across the Gaza Strip. I talked about the threats and the specific targeting, and we are still hearing the same thing. I think if press freedom organizations are satisfied at the level of reaction and outrage that they’ve shown, let alone the action that would actually save the lives of Palestinian journalists, then we should question even the very purpose of their existence, if that’s the best they can do and say.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, can you explain the lawsuit of the Center for Constitutional Rights that you have filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Palestinian journalists, the significance of this, and what this would mean?

ANAN QUZMAR: This lawsuit aims to block any further diplomatic and military support to Israel. It’s just one step, one of many things that we are trying.

But, unfortunately, this assassination campaign has continued. And we’ve seen it as part of a wider escalation of use of violence against Palestinian journalists also in the West Bank — not only journalists, also medics. We have, since the last three months, 47 Palestinian journalists in the West Bank have been arrested. Thirty-three of them are still in prison, 18 of them under administrative detention, and the rest haven’t been faced with any charges at all. This level of escalation of use of force is seen also in regular incursions where the Israeli army targets medical staff and journalists. For example, there has been, where I am, in Tulkarem, regular incursions that have an emerging pattern of trying to maintain a continued presence and curfew over Palestinian cities, almost as a practice in order for the eventuality of needing to control such cities for extended period of times, like I explained. And the focus of these attacks is collective punishment, digging down — digging out, for example, in Tulkarem, the water pipes to cut the water from the locals, shooting at the electricity grid to cut the electricity.

And also, all of this comes with a huge price on our local institutions, that Israel is trying to destroy. And this also goes back to the attack on Palestinian journalists in Gaza. If you look at the profiles of those who are targeted, you see that they are not just targeted for being journalists. They’re being targeted for being an important part of the social fabric. Our famous journalists in Gaza are not what you would expect from an elite journalist sitting outside. These are humble people who have been the foundations of our society for a long time. And alongside our journalists, there’s been lecturers, for example, most media lecturers and journalism lecturers, who are also reported as journalists being killed, but there are actually media lecturers, as well. And we’ve had heads of universities targeted, poets, and you name it. So, one needs to look at the Israeli bank of targets seriously and the deliberate nature of this.

And I would like to end with — I think one of the most striking things is, when you speak to Palestinian journalists in Gaza, they never complain about their own suffering or what they’ve been going through as journalists. They literally want to continue to do their work, to the last drop of their blood, in order to bring an end to this, to stop the genocide.

AMY GOODMAN: Anan Quzmar, I want to thank you so much for being with us, a Palestinian journalist with the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, speaking to us from Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank.

[admin]

“Complete Hypocrisy”: Activist Bree Newsome Bass on Biden Fighting Racism While Funding Gaza Genocide
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 09, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/9/b ... transcript

President Biden delivered his second campaign speech of the year Monday at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where a white supremacist gunman killed nine people in 2015. Biden remembered the victims, spoke of the “poison of white supremacy” and assailed his Republican rivals for not taking racism seriously, but Biden’s speech was interrupted at one point by protesters demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, where Israel’s U.S.-backed war has killed over 23,000 people. “There’s no way we’re fighting white supremacy … in the midst of genocide,” says artist and activist Bree Newsome Bass, who criticizes Biden for using the Black church as a political prop. “The last thing that we need is to carry on business as usual.” In 2015, Newsome Bass climbed a 30-foot flagpole outside the South Carolina Capitol to remove the Confederate flag following the church massacre.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We turn now to South Carolina, where President Biden delivered his second campaign speech of the year at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where in 2015 eight Black parishioners and their pastor were shot dead by a white supremacist. Biden remembered the victims.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: On June 17th, 2015, the beautiful souls, five survivors — and five survivors invited a stranger into this church to pray with them. The word of God was pierced by bullets in hate, of rage, propelled by not just gunpowder but by a poison, a poison that’s for too long haunted this nation. What is that poison? White supremacy. Oh, it is. It’s a poison. Throughout our history, it’s ripped this nation apart. This has no place in America, not today, tomorrow or ever.

PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: That’s all right. That’s all right.

PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now!

AMY GOODMAN: As he spoke, Biden was disrupted by activists demanding a Gaza ceasefire.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Without light, there’s no path from this darkness.

PROTESTER: If you really care about the lives lost here, then you should honor the lives lost and call for a ceasefire in Palestine!

PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!

AMY GOODMAN: As the protesters were removed from the church, supporters of President Biden began chanting “four more years.” He addressed the protesters.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I understand their passion. And I’ve been quietly working — I’ve been quietly working with the Israeli government to get them to reduce and significantly get out of Gaza. I’ve been using all that I can to do that.

AMY GOODMAN: Without naming Donald Trump, Biden blasted the former president and leading 2024 Republican candidate as a loser who tried to overthrow the 2020 election results by urging his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. A number carried Confederate flags and wore white supremacist and far-right symbols.

Following the massacre at the Emanuel AME Church in 2015, following the mass funeral at the University of Charleston arena that thousands came out for, our next guest, Bree Newsome Bass, scaled the 30-foot flagpole at the South Carolina state Capitol and removed the Confederate flag. As police officers shouted at her to come down, she shimmied to the top of the flagpole, took the flag in her hand and said, “You come against me with hatred. I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today.”

BREE NEWSOME BASS: You come against me with hatred and oppression and violence. I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today!

AMY GOODMAN: While Bree Newsome was arrested, along with an ally, it was only after this action that the Confederate flag was formally removed from the South Carolina Statehouse grounds. Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was governor of South Carolina at the time. She has faced fresh backlash after she didn’t mention slavery when asked about the cause of the U.S. Civil War during a recent town hall in New Hampshire.

Well, for more, we’re joined in Raleigh, North Carolina, by Bree Newsome Bass, artist, antiracist activist.

Bree, welcome back to Democracy Now! This certainly does take us back. As people debate whether it was Nikki Haley who ultimately forced the flag to come down, we’re going to the woman who actually took it down and risked your freedom to do it. Talk about why you did that then — ultimately, the Legislature would vote to take it down — and how you feel about what’s happening today.

BREE NEWSOME BASS: Yes. And thank you again so much for having me on.

You know, and I want to make it clear: Yes, I did scale the pole and take the Confederate flag down; this was an issue that people had been protesting for years and years and years. And that’s part of what made it so egregious in 2015, when we had the massacre at Emanuel AME and South Carolina refused to lower the flag, because part of the reason why they were refusing to lower the flag is that they had passed a law in the year 2000 saying that it couldn’t be lowered for any reason, after they moved it from the Capitol dome to the flagpole on the lawn, where it was at the time that I took it down. So this had been going on for years and years and years.

And Nikki Haley actually opposed taking the flag down, right up until those massacres occurred and the mounting political protest and, you know, the pressure made it where she basically had to, at that point, support the flag coming down. So, ideologically, she has never really had the stance of being opposed to either the Confederacy or — excuse me — symbols of the Confederacy, and certainly not opposed to racist policies. She went right from the governorship to serving in the Trump administration. And she’s had a number of incidents over the years, where the things that she says or the things that she does directly contradict with her claim of having led the way on taking the Confederate flag down. At one of her recent rallies, she played that song “Find Out in a Small Town,” you know, the song that people really raised a lot of concern about because it was obviously alluding to sundown towns and the racial violence that Black people have experienced here for decades and decades and decades. So this is not new for Nikki Haley. It just shows that she does not really represent antiracism in any real way.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Bree, I’d like to ask you — in response to President Biden’s speech, you posted on social media, quote, “How the Black church is used as a prop for white politicians actually proves the point that racism is alive & well & strong.” Could you expand on that?

BREE NEWSOME BASS: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, I think that the whole way that the incidents in 2015, both the massacre at Emanuel AME, the refocus on the Confederate flag there in South Carolina, the formal ceremony around taking the flag down, and the way that American politics returns to those moments again and again and again speaks to how relevant it still is, the fact that Black churches are frequently used as, you know, political campaign stops for politicians.

In this case with Joe Biden, you know, he is clearly trying to make an appeal not just to Black voters, but really trying to fend off criticism that he is racist, that he is sponsoring a genocide. And that criticism is completely well founded, because he is sponsoring a genocide, and genocide is the most extreme form of racial violence that there is. And so, to use the pulpit at Emanuel AME in this manner, to make it a prop, essentially, for Joe Biden’s reelection bid, to me, is the greatest assault on truth. I know Joe Biden stood there in the pulpit and said that there is an assault on truth that’s happening right now. Joe Biden is, in many ways, leading that assault. And I know that he’s running against Donald Trump, who we know is also a serial liar, but Donald Trump is not the one who is currently in office right now. It is Joe Biden.

And this effort to use the church, not just the Black church, but the site of racial violence, of a mass murder, to deflect from the fact that Joe Biden himself is bombing churches, bombing mosques, bombing places of worship and murdering many civilians, people who have sought shelter in those places, it just exposes the complete hypocrisy of this entire situation and the vacuum of moral leadership at the top. And that’s why I took offense to it. I think that’s why many people who watched it took offense to it. I’m very glad that the young people stood up and protested, because even though they were few in that audience, they represented the majority of people worldwide.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s interesting, Bree. The polls that have just come out today indicate that Nikki Haley is surging in the polls in New Hampshire. You referenced where she stood on the Confederate flag. I wanted to go back to 2014, when then-South Carolina Republican Governor Nikki Haley suggested South Carolina had resolved its image problem and that having the Confederate flag at the Statehouse was fine because not a single CEO had complained. She was speaking at a gubernatorial debate.

GOV. NIKKI HALEY: You know, the Confederate flag is a very sensitive issue. And what I can tell you is, over the last three-and-a-half years I spend a lot of my days on the phones with CEOs and recruiting jobs to this state. I can honestly say I have not had one conversation with a single CEO about the Confederate flag. What is important here is that we look at the fact that, yes, perception of South Carolina matters. That’s why we have everybody answering the phones, “It’s a great day in South Carolina.” That’s why we’re being named the friendliest state, the most patriotic state, and getting all these great accolades. But we really kind of fixed all that when you elected the first Indian American female governor, when we appointed the first African American U.S. senator.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Nikki Haley back in 2014. Bree Newsome Bass, your final comment?

BREE NEWSOME BASS: I mean, I think that says it all, right? So, first of all, she’s saying that it’s OK, the optics are OK. Right? We’re not talking about the substance. We’re not talking about the experience. We’re not talking about whether people are actually experiencing equal treatment under the law. Just the optics. So the optics are fine, because it’s not disrupting business, right? And then the other thing that she offers as evidence that everything is OK is the fact that she’s nonwhite, she is an Indian American woman, and then she points to other people in the administration — excuse me — who are nonwhite.

Well, that’s the entire problem right there. The idea is that so long as we can keep business going as usual, it doesn’t matter that there’s violence, it doesn’t matter that there’s racism. All that matters is the optics. And that is what Nikki Haley’s campaign represents in her falsely claiming that she led the way on taking the Confederate flag down. That’s what Joe Biden’s campaign represents in terms of thinking that all that matters is giving a speech at a church, and ignoring all of the churches that are being blown up and all of the Palestinians that are being killed, ignored the fact that young people are demanding a future, and we have people who are older who don’t seem to care at all that this assault in Palestine is disproportionately affecting children or killing children.

And then, in the case of Nikki Haley, again, she does not truly represent any of the things that she is claiming when it comes to being antiracist. You can say whatever words you want to say, you can put together whatever kind of events you want to put together, but the fact is that the truth is going to be the truth. We see what is actually happening.

And I support all of the disruptions, because the last thing that we need is to carry on business as usual when our democracy is absolutely under attack. Democracy is under attack worldwide. And genocide is the most extreme — the most extreme form of racial violence that there is. So there’s no way that we are fighting white supremacy simply by taking down a flag or having an event at Emanuel AME in the midst of genocide, in the midst of doing away with affirmative action, voting rights, the attack on abortion rights. This is where we are at. It’s a very dangerous place. And I hope that people look beyond the optics and support those people who are disrupting, because the last thing that we need is to carry on with business as usual.

AMY GOODMAN: Bree Newsome Bass, artist, antiracist activist. In 2015, following the massacre of the eight African American parishioners and their pastor by a white supremacist at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, Bree scaled the 30-foot flagpole at the South Carolina state Capitol and removed the Confederate flag.