Headlines:
Chicago PD Arrests Protesters at Israeli Consulate; 16 Activists from U.K.’s Palestine Action in Prison
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
Aug 21, 2024
In more news from Chicago, protests continued for a third day inside and outside the DNC. On Tuesday, CodePink and other pro-Palestine groups disrupted Minnesota governor and Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz during a Women’s Caucus meeting.
Medea Benjamin: “We need an arms embargo now! We need to stop killing women and children every day with our weapons. It’s not right! It’s not right!”
Meanwhile, dozens of people were arrested Tuesday night outside the Israeli Consulate in Chicago as police clashed with protesters demanding an end to Israel’s war on Gaza. The Chicago Tribune reported at least two independent journalists were among the arrests. This is Chicago resident Jonathan Bell.
Jonathan Bell: “They are starving the people. They are bombing schools and hospitals. And the people here are protesting to say that that’s not right and the United States should not be aiding and abetting a terrorist like Netanyahu. He is a terrorist. And his Cabinet, who are calling for the starvation and the annihilation of the Palestinian people, it is a terrorist act on the part of Israel.”
Elsewhere, in the U.K., five activists were handed prison sentences of between 12 and 16 months Tuesday after occupying the Thales weapons factory in Glasgow, Scotland. The group Palestine Action says 16 of their activists are in prison as a result of their actions to stop the genocide in Gaza.
U.S. Doctors Share Horrors They Witnessed in Gaza at DNC Press Conference
Aug 21, 2024
In other news from the DNC, American doctors who treated patients in Gaza held a press conference Tuesday to shine a light on the ongoing atrocities inflicted by Israel’s U.S.-backed war. This is pediatrician Dr. Ahmad Yousaf.
Dr. Ahmad Yousaf: “She had burns that covered over 70% of her surface area, which is a death sentence in an environment where you can’t find gauze and there isn’t clean water and there aren’t antibiotics. We all knew what this meant on the ground in the trauma bay the first minutes we met her: She was going to die there, and her baby would die there. And there was nothing we were going to be able to do about it, because the Israeli government, the IDF, had made it impossible to care for people to the extent which they deserve. Every human being deserves the right to medical aid in that situation. She was no fighter. She was a pregnant woman who was sitting in her home when a bomb dropped on her head.”
Israel Continues Its Genocidal War, Attacking Another Gaza School and Pushing Gazans Out of Deir al-Balah
Aug 21, 2024
Scores of Palestinians have been killed over the past day as Israel continues its unrelenting attacks on Gaza. An Israeli strike on another school, this time the Mustafa Hafez School in Gaza City, killed at least 12 people Tuesday.
Umm Mohammed: “We were sitting peacefully, and we did not see the explosion. The people are gone. They’re dead! They are under the rubble, our people! … Our children! We don’t know where our young girls are, my dears! Where are they?”
Hundreds of people had taken shelter at the school. Displaced Palestinians are yet again on the move after Israel issued fresh evacuation orders for the densely packed Deir al-Balah. It’s not clear where they can take refuge since there is no safe place in Gaza.
Released Palestinian Describes Detention at Ofer Prison, Site of “Systematic Torture and Humiliation”
Aug 21, 2024
In the southern city of Khan Younis, a Palestinian man who spent over two months in Israel’s Ofer Prison, was released and reunited with his family. Hubb Al-Deen Maqat recounted the horrors he and other Palestinian prisoners were subjected to.
Hubb Al-Deen Maqat: “We stayed for about 40 to 50 days blindfolded with this cloth. This way for 50 days! We were sitting down with our hands and feet bound. What’s happening in the prison, there is no living person of conscience who can bear it.”
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society says detainees at Ofer Prison suffer “systematic torture and humiliation.”
This all comes as another ceasefire deal appears to have stalled.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday it’s still waiting to receive polio vaccines amid a growing risk of a major outbreak across the besieged territory.
Israeli Strikes in Lebanon Kill at Least 6 as Cross-Border Fighting Adds to Growing Tensions
Aug 21, 2024
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least five people were killed Tuesday in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon. At least one other death was reported today. Hezbollah said it launched a barrage of rockets and drones at Israeli troops in response.
Report Says Countries and Oil Co’s Supplying Israel May Be Complicit in Genocide Under Int’l Law
Aug 21, 2024
A new report by Oil Change International lays out the countries and companies that have transferred the most fossil fuels to Israel since it launched its war on Gaza, and says they could be liable for complicity in war crimes and genocide under international law. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Gabon are the top three countries supplying crude oil to Israel. Brazil ranks in fourth place, supplying nearly 10% of Israel’s crude, despite President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva speaking out against the war. The U.S. supplies JP-8 jet fuel for Israel’s warplanes, sourced from a Valero refinery in Texas. Corporations including BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies and Shell are also named as main culprits. The report holds up Colombia as an example for other nations after it halted coal exports to Israel over the war.
In related news, the Scottish government announced it will stop holding meetings with Israeli ambassadors until “real progress” is made toward a Gaza ceasefire.
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As Gaza War Is Largely Ignored on DNC Stage, Doubts Grow over Blinken’s Claims on Ceasefire Talks
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
Aug 21, 2024
The Israeli military has ordered new forced evacuations in parts of central Gaza, signaling the expansion of ground operations and the latest displacement of Palestinians, many of whom have already been displaced multiple times over the course of Israel’s war on the territory. At least 50 Palestinians have been killed in the last 24 hours, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, pushing the official death toll past 40,200. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended his ninth visit to the Middle East since October without securing any breakthrough for a ceasefire deal. In Chicago, where Democrats are gathered for the DNC, Gaza has been mentioned only in passing from the main stage of the convention. The party’s official platform adopted this week does not call for an arms embargo on Israel and reasserts unwavering U.S. support for Israel. “There’s been an almost competition between Democrats and Republicans on 'how much can we show Israel that we support them and that we have their back?'” says human rights lawyer Zaha Hassan, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and previously the senior legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team during Palestine’s bid for U.N. membership. “Why should Israel ever compromise its positions if they know that by holding out, they’ll get more goodies from the U.S.?”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The Israeli military has ordered new evacuations from areas in Deir al-Balah, signaling an expansion of Israel’s ground operations in central Gaza. Deir al-Balah is the only remaining standing city in the entire Gaza Strip and is currently home to more than a million displaced Palestinians. An Israeli airstrike on a market in the city on Tuesday killed at least seven people and wounded dozens more. At least 50 Palestinians have been killed in the last 24 hours, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended his ninth visit to the Middle East since October without securing any breakthrough for a ceasefire deal. Blinken has said that Israel has accepted a so-called bridging proposal put forward by the U.S. and now the focus should be on Hamas to, quote, “get on board” as soon as possible. But few details have been released about what is in the bridging proposal, and Hamas has called it a reversal of what it had previously agreed to, accusing the U.S. of acquiescing to new conditions from Israel.
Over 40,200 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza and nearly 93,000 wounded since October.
AMY GOODMAN: Here in Chicago, Gaza has hardly been mentioned by top Democrats speaking on the main stage at the DNC this week. On Monday, the Democratic National Convention voted to adopt the party’s official platform — that’s the Democratic National Committee — which does not call for an arms embargo on Israel and reasserts unwavering U.S. support for Israel. President Biden gave a 50-minute address on the opening night of the convention. This is all he had to say about the war on Gaza.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: We’re working around the clock, my secretary of state, to prevent a wider war and reunite hostages with their families and surge humanitarian health and food assistance into Gaza now, to end the civilian suffering of the Palestinian people and finally, finally, finally deliver a ceasefire and end this war. … Those protesters out in the street, they have a point. A lot of innocent people are being killed, on both sides.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Zaha Hassan, a human rights lawyer, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She was previously the senior legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team during Palestine’s bid for U.N. membership.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Zaha. We want to talk about what the Democrats are saying about Gaza now, and, you know, back to Obama, Clinton. But let’s start with the latest news. Antony Blinken has just finished his trip, did not secure a ceasefire. Explain what’s taken place.
ZAHA HASSAN: Well, you said in your opening remarks that Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, said he had a bridging proposal — right? — that this was supposed to get us to a ceasefire and that all we needed was Hamas to agree. The bridge apparently is a bridge to nowhere, because a deal was struck on May 31st, and that was supposed to be a deal that Israel wanted and that the U.S. supported. Hamas agreed to it. And what we have now is a new agreement that’s being called an implementing agreement, but we don’t have the details. But what we do know is that Israel has said it’s not after a permanent ceasefire, and it’s not intending to leave the Philadelphi Corridor, which is along the border between Egypt and Gaza. These are nonstarters for Hamas, and the Israeli security officials that are involved in the negotiations know that. And they’re baffled by this notion that, you know, according to the U.S. position, that we’re closer than we ever were, because they know that these aren’t positions that Hamas is going to agree to.
Hamas has their concerns. They want to be able to stay in Gaza. They want to make sure that they have achieved something, after all the destruction and all of the death. And for them, the achievement would be being able to pick the hostages or the prisoners that they want released. And it would be being able to stay in Gaza and being able to rebuild and to show Palestinians that they’ve achieved something and they’ve made Israel concede something. And that’s not what’s happening in this latest rendition of an agreement.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, even The New York Times today is reporting that, according to some people close to the negotiations, that the U.S. has changed the original proposal that Biden said had been agreed to, to please some of the concerns of Israel. I’m wondering, this whole thing of constantly saying, “We’re almost there. We’re almost there,” while more and more people are being killed every day, what that does to the — again, to the credibility of the United States before the world community.
ZAHA HASSAN: No, it’s completely shattered at this point, because we all know what it’s going to take to get across the finish line in terms of an agreement. We have Qatar and Egypt putting all pressure on Hamas. Hamas is reliant on Egypt for that border, that it needs to have some kind of, you know, movement and access. And Qatar has Hamas officials, and it can force them out of its country. So there’s a lot of pressure on Hamas’s side. On the Israeli side, you have zero pressure from the U.S. There is no willingness to use any pressure on Israel to get to an agreement. We know that the families of the hostages, the Israeli hostages, they’ve beseeched the U.S. to, “Please, use your leverage on Israel,” because they know that their prime minister has no incentive to conclude a deal.
AMY GOODMAN: So, instead, it was announced last week that the Biden administration and Congress have approved $20 billion more in military sales, before this final negotiation, as opposed to holding out as a carrot to Netanyahu after.
ZAHA HASSAN: So, yes, exactly. What’s the message, then, to Netanyahu? That he can continue to hold out, hold his position, avoid accountability for his failure of leadership for October 7th, avoid corruption charges that are awaiting him, and stay in office and maintain his coalition, and he’ll still get benefits from the U.S.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’m wondering — at last night’s convention, even Bernie Sanders, who has spoken out in the past, he did mention that we must have an immediate ceasefire, but even he didn’t mention all that is needed for a ceasefire is for the U.S. to cut off arms supplies to Israel. That would be the real leverage that the United States has.
ZAHA HASSAN: You’re right. I mean, there could have been a lot more said by a lot of different people that took to the main stage last night and the night before. You know, saying that we’re working for a ceasefire or that we’re calling for a ceasefire is not what’s needed. But, you know, these conventions are heavily managed stagecraft, and everyone wants to have, you know, sort of a uniting voice and a uniting spirit in this convention setting, given how much is riding on this next election, given what might happen in November with a Republican return with Donald Trump at the helm. So, there is this idea that, you know, we don’t want to show too much disunity.
So I think that there has been much more muted references to Gaza in this convention, which is unfortunate, because if you go to the streets and you see the thousands that have shown up here in Chicago to demand — people from all walks of life, diverse backgrounds, coming to say, “No, this is an important issue to us,” and it should matter to the Democrats, given the battleground states and how close things are going to be.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s interesting. Every time there’s even a passing reference to Gaza or to Israel-Palestine from the main stage, there is deafening applause. When Raphael Warnock, the senator from Georgia, the reverend, mentioned at the end, you know, that Palestinians, Israelis, Ukrainians are all children of God, I mean, deafening applause, right through to last night. And these are passing references. Zaha Hassan, you have written in +972 Magazine about U.S. policy, and particularly Democratic policy, over the years, from Clinton to Obama to what we’re seeing now. And last night was the big night of the Obamas on the stage. Both Michelle Obama spoke and President Obama. Can you talk about the trajectory and whether it is significantly or meaningfully different from Republican policy on Gaza, Israel, Palestine?
ZAHA HASSAN: No. In fact, I think there’s been an almost competition between Democrats and Republicans on “how much can we show Israel that we support them and that we have their back?” And so, what we’ve had in terms of the U.S. position on negotiations is that each administration has tried to, you know, diminish the Palestinian negotiating position in order to gain support from Israel for, you know, domestically in the U.S., to show that this administration, whether Republican or Democrat, is the true friend of Israel. And in the process, it’s prevented really a resolution between Palestinians and Israelis. Why should Israel ever compromise its positions if they know that by holding out, they’ll get more goodies from the U.S. in terms of changing the parameters for a peace agreement?
And so, this sort of dynamic, we’re also seeing it play out in terms of the ceasefire negotiations. The U.S. is unwilling to offer any leverage to press Israel and, in fact, is offering it goodies in terms of more weapon supplies and more diplomatic cover at the U.N. and other fora. And this just prevents getting to an agreement.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about something related. You posted on social media recently about Israel’s targeting of a Palestinian journalist in Gaza who was working on a short documentary for Carnegie, where you are a fellow. What happened there?
ZAHA HASSAN: So, you know, we had this short documentary. We wanted to shed light on sort of how dangerous it has been for Palestinian journalists to cover the situation in Gaza. You know, foreign journalists are not allowed in. So, while these Palestinian journalists are covering, they’re also trying to stay alive. They’re trying to take care of their families. They’re facing evacuation orders. They’re being targeted. And so we wanted to just, in a very brief way, show what life is like every day for the journalists trying to cover. And during the course of this short documentary, the journalist that we were — that was offering a narration got targeted, and he lost his leg.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to play two clips for you. At the DNC last night, Democracy Now!’s Renée Feltz briefly spoke to Maryland Congressmember Jamie Raskin, who has supported a Gaza ceasefire.
RENÉE FELTZ: Representative Raskin, what did you think of the protest last night?
REP. JAMIE RASKIN: I was up there, so I didn’t see the protest.
RENÉE FELTZ: And they unfurled a banner. You know, they’re asking for a ceasefire.
REP. JAMIE RASKIN: Well, I thought that President Biden made a very powerful statement in his speech. … But right now I think the vast majority of the people in this room want to see the hostages come home, a ceasefire, and a comprehensive agreement that will break the cycle of terrorism, war and occupation. And I think everybody wants to get out of it as quickly as possible.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Democratic Congressmember Jamie Raskin of Maryland. Democracy Now! also spoke to Rima Mohammad, an “uncommitted” delegate from Michigan.
RIMA MOHAMMAD: I’m Palestinian. Both my grandparents were Nakba survivors of 1948. I have family still in Israel. So, they’re in Akka. They’re feeling traumatized as this goes on. I also have close family friends that have lost hundreds of their family members. So, this is very personal to me. But also, as this keeps going on, it is impacting my life and a lot of other Muslim and Palestinians here in the U.S., with an increase in anti-Palestinian racism, Islamophobia and so much hate, for something that we’re asking for humanity. We’re not asking for anything more, but just to respect. So, that’s why — this is how this is impacting me personally. …
Regardless of who the Democratic nominee is, you know, or who even the president is, been living that throughout my life, but it has increased since Gaza, since the genocide that’s happening in Gaza is going on. So, it’s a little bit dehumanizing, to be honest, for me to have to be — all that weight to be on my shoulder as a Palestinian that is facing racism, facing hate, to then say, “Well, wait, why — who are you going to choose between Trump and Biden?” I want to choose true democracy. I’m a true Democrat, but I also don’t believe what we’re doing in Gaza is democratic.
AMY GOODMAN: Again, that was Rima Mohammad, an uncommitted delegate from Michigan who is Palestinian American. Your thoughts, Zaha Hassan? As, you know, we hear, last night was the virtual roll call vote. They had already taken it virtually, but actually it was the ceremonial one on the floor. And you would hear in certain states those that had not committed to Harris-Walz. Although it wasn’t talked about in that way, I assume that the vast majority of them had to do with being uncommitted, like Rima.
ZAHA HASSAN: Yeah. I mean, you know, I was on the floor yesterday and the day before, and I’m coming across the uncommitted voters. I’m coming across just plain old Democrats that are really hungry to hear some kind of policy difference between Biden’s approach and what a prospective President Harris’s approach would be, and they’re not hearing it.
We know from a YouGov poll that was recently done by the Institute for Middle East Understanding that between like 34% and over 40% of the independent and Democrats that were polled say that if the Democratic nominee would say that they would have an arms embargo on Israel or if they would be able to deliver a ceasefire, that if Biden was able to deliver a ceasefire, that they would be more likely to support the Democratic nominee.
I mean, this should be, you know, a clarion call for the Harris campaign. They should be willing to come out and offer a vision of what a Harris presidency would look like. They should be putting pressure on the president himself to do something before November 4th. But you don’t see this urgency. What you’re seeing in this heavily managed convention is an effort to avoid talking about Gaza at all. And this is problematic if you want to win in November.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you for being with us, Zaha Hassan, human rights lawyer, fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, previously the senior legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team during Palestine’s bid for U.N. membership.
Democracy Now! is expanded to two hours during this week, broadcasting from Chicago from the Democratic National Convention. In our other hour, we will speak with a congressmember who was targeted by AIPAC and ultimately lost his seat. He is Andy Levin of Michigan. He was a synagogue president. We’ll also be hearing from doctors who have just returned from Gaza, American doctors who came to the DNC to speak about their experiences.
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What I Saw Was “Unfathomable”: Doctor Who Worked in Gaza Speaks Out Against U.S. Arming of Israel
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
Aug 21, 2024
A group of American doctors who treated patients in Gaza held a press conference in Chicago on Tuesday to describe the suffering they saw among Palestinians injured and killed in Israel’s war on the territory. The press conference, taking place during the Democratic National Convention, was organized by the Uncommitted National Movement, which is pressuring Democrats for an end to blanket U.S. support for Israel. Among those who spoke was Dr. Ahmed Yousaf, who returned from Gaza just weeks earlier. “When we got to the hospital, everything I saw on TikTok and Instagram and all the television, all the stuff that we had in alternative media … it was 100 times worse than I could have ever imagined,” he said.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency: Breaking with Convention.” I’m Amy Goodman, here in Chicago with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: In Gaza, at least 50 Palestinians have been killed in the last 24 hours as the Israeli military continues its assault on the territory and expands its ground operation in Deir al-Balah. Over 40,200 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 93,000 wounded over the past 10 months.
AMY GOODMAN: Here in Chicago, a group of American doctors who treated patients in Gaza gathered on Tuesday for a press conference here at the DNC inside the McCormick Place Convention Center. The press conference was organized by the Uncommitted National Movement. Among those who spoke was Dr. Ahmed Yousaf, who just returned from Gaza three weeks ago. This is some of what he had to say.
DR. AHMED YOUSAF: My name is Ahmed Yousaf. I’m a board — double board-certified internal medicine, pediatrics doctor focused primarily in the ICU. I come from Arkansas. I may have a hard time doing this. I went to Gaza, about three weeks ago came back, after being there for about three weeks. I primarily worked in the ICU and in the emergency room in Al-Aqsa Hospital.
I thought — I’m not a politician, and I’m not a military strategist, but the moment we drove through Rafah with a U.N. convoy towards the middle area where we were going to be stationed, it became clear to me that what I was seeing was unfathomable. And at the same time, I had a small hope that when the doors are opened and the ceasefire is had, that when you all are allowed back in there, that it doesn’t require a military strategist to realize what they’re doing.
They are making Gaza unlivable. They’ve destroyed the water infrastructure, and so we were seeing kids die of diarrheal illness. They prevented all medical supplies in. And I can tell that by firsthand witness, not by hearsay. They refused me the medical supplies that I was able to gather over months from wonderful people in Arkansas, things like endotracheal tubes and Foley catheters, things like antibiotics and sedative medications, that were denied at the border. Firsthand experience. They do not allow medical supplies in to treat children that are dying.
And when we got to the hospital, everything I saw on TikTok and Instagram and all the television, all the stuff that we had in alternative media, because you can’t be there, it was a hundred times worse than I could have ever imagined. …
I have no ties to Gaza. I’m not from there. I have no blood there. But those people treated me better than I deserved as a member of the international community. With no food, they tried to feed me. And they’ll tell you the same. With no food, they tried to feed me. And when I asked them what we could do, because there was so little we could do as doctors, they said, “Just make sure people know we’re here.”
I’m going to mention the names of some of the girls that were in medical school that were with me. There was Lena. She was a fifth year medical student. There was Rahaf and Rahab. They were sixth year medical students. There was Fadah, who just graduated from medical school. These young women were displaced four or five times before I met them. They lived in tents, sometimes areas in the red zone, which mean they were free target practice if they crossed the roads. And they came every day to the hospital to learn, because their schools had been completely stopped. And they would take that trek every day knowing they could lose their lives, knowing that the value they present to their families as medical people could be lost, because they wanted to come and help in whatever way they could. …
On the first day I was there in Al-Aqsa Hospital, we were in a small trauma bay in the ER. And when the first mass casualty, which was one of almost one every day I was there, occurred, and we could hear the bombs in the distance, and we knew that about 45 minutes later people would come in pieces, that children would be carried in pieces by their loved ones, on donkey carts and in ambulances, four or five in one ambulance.
There was a young woman who got laid up right next to the young boy I was treating. She was 22 or 23 years old, full body surface area burns, and she was unable to speak, because she likely had inhalational injury, because the same burns that burned her skin likely burned her airway. And a woman screamed from outside the door, ”Hamil!” “She’s pregnant!” And so we turned her over quickly, because she had come and laid down on her belly. And somebody put an ultrasound probe on her belly, and she had a viable 18- to 20-week pregnancy. But when we did our secondary survey and tried to understand what other injuries she had, she had a shattered tib-fib from an explosive injury. She had burns that covered over 70% of her surface area, which is a death sentence in an environment where you can’t find gauze and there isn’t clean water and there aren’t antibiotics. We all knew what this meant on the ground in the trauma bay the first minutes we met her: She was going to die there, and her baby would die there.
And there was nothing we were going to be able to do about it, because the Israeli government, the IDF, had made it impossible to care for people to the extent which they deserve. Every human being deserves the right to medical aid in that situation. She was no fighter. She was a pregnant woman who was sitting in her home when a bomb dropped on her head.
And she eventually moved to the ICU. And every day she lived until she died, she was in pain, because we didn’t have the kind of medicine we needed to care for her pain. And when wound care came — in America, I’d give her two Dilaudid before changing her wound dressings. And there, I could give her nothing. And every morning, when we’d round, we’d stop by her bed first. And every one of us and the Gazan medical professionals, who are heroes — that one day will get to be here and tell you their stories themselves, so I don’t have to tell it for them — we’d all keep our mouth shut and keep the tears held back, because we knew we couldn’t do anything, and we knew the inevitable was coming, until one day I walked in, and the bed was empty.
And her story is just one of tens of thousands. And her family mourned for her just like we would mourn for our own family members. And she and every single person in Gaza deserves the dignity and support that humanity as a whole is burdened and has an obligation to provide.
I stand here, and I’ll conclude with this last thought, which is, the reason I lose sleep and the reason we cry tears isn’t sadness anymore. It’s a feeling that we have no ability, despite being from the most powerful country in the world, providing the bombs that drop on these innocent people, that we have no power to stop the bleeding. And so, we call for a ceasefire and a stopping of the bleeding by stopping the sales of bombs. There’s no reason that the bomb that dropped on that young woman’s head had to be made in America.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Dr. Ahmed Yousaf, who just returned from Gaza three weeks ago. The news conference he was a part of was organized by the Uncommitted National Movement.
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Andy Levin, Pushed Out of Congress by AIPAC, Calls for Change in U.S.-Israel Policy
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
Aug 21, 2024
We speak with former Michigan Congressmember Andy Levin, a former synagogue president, who lost his 2022 Democratic primary in a race that saw millions spent by pro-Israel groups to unseat the progressive Jewish lawmaker. AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and other lobby groups have used the same playbook over the years to defeat members of Congress who do not toe the line, and Levin says the Democratic Party has to act to stop such “dark money” from deciding elections and push for a new policy on Israel-Palestine that brings peace. “We need to all get along there, and we need to work together here to make that happen,” he says.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency: Breaking with Convention.” I’m Amy Goodman, here in Chicago with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to look at how AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has spent millions targeting Democrats who have criticized U.S. support of Israel. In June, AIPAC and the affiliated super PAC spent almost $15 million to defeat New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman. And then, two weeks ago, Missouri Congressmember Cori Bush lost her seat after AIPAC spent $8 million to defeat her.
We’re joined now in Chicago by former Democratic Congressmember Andy Levin of Michigan. In 2022, he lost his House seat after AIPAC spent millions in dark money to defeat him. Levin is a former synagogue president and self-described Zionist. Despite this, AIPAC labeled him as, quote, “arguably the most corrosive member of Congress to the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
AMY GOODMAN: Andy Levin is a former Democratic congressmember from Michigan. He’s part of a political dynasty.
We thank you so much for being with us. If you could start off by talking about — you know, when we hear about Bowman, we hear about Bush, you came before them. And talk about the race that unseated you — might surprise many that you were a synagogue president and a congressmember — and how you were driven out.
ANDY LEVIN: Right. Well, you know, I was a former — I had been a synagogue president until I went to Congress, and I felt I should stop doing that, because, you know, you have to devote all your time to Congress. And I had, you know, mezuzahs, the little things that Jewish people hang on their doors, on all my doors in Congress. I’m a really, like, joyous Jewish person.
And, you know, I think they felt particularly threatened by that, Amy and Juan. The idea — and plus, my dad and my uncle had served in Congress before me — my dad in the House, my uncle in the Senate. My dad was the president of the high school class of 1949 at Central High School in Detroit, right? They were from the bosom of the Jewish community there. And I think that these right-wing-on-Israel people can’t stand the idea that a Jewish person like me, who is fully for self-determination for my people in the Holy Land, was the loudest voice in Congress saying, “Well, that’s not going to be sustainable, and we’re not going to have peace there, until and unless we fully realize the human rights and the political rights of the Palestinian people, too.”
AMY GOODMAN: I just want to talk about your family dynasty, the political dynasty.
ANDY LEVIN: We don’t talk about it like that. Yes, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Your father, Sander Levin, the congressmember; your uncle, Carl Levin, head of Armed Services in the Senate —
ANDY LEVIN: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — at the same time your father was head of Ways and Means Committee?
ANDY LEVIN: Yeah, my — these two Jewish boys from Detroit. And my uncle, who passed away, never left the city of Detroit. They each served 36 years in Congress. They served 32 years together. In the 235-year history of our elected democracy in the United States, they are by far the longest-serving siblings, and even more than three Kennedy brothers, more than anybody. And I’m so proud of them and, you know, their contributions to our democracy.
But, you know, Uncle Carl got crosswise with AIPAC in the '90s, when Yitzhak Shamir was, I think, the secondly couped prime minister of Israel, and he said, “Land for peace? We're not doing land for peace.” And Carl, it may feel naive today, but he was like, “Oh my gosh! That’s the basis for any hope of peace.” And he wrote a letter to Secretary of State George Shultz, I think it was at the time. And he got 30 — on a Friday afternoon, he got, I think, 30 senators to sign this letter. It was supposed to be private. And they sent it to him, saying, “We have to have land for peace. Do something about this,” something like that. And one of the other senators or their staff made it public. Carl had shown the text to AIPAC beforehand. But when it went public, AIPAC went crazy, said, “This can’t be Carl Levin’s letter.” They demanded he retract it. They said, “It must have been the work of some staffer.” Uncle Carl totally stood by his staffer, who helped him write the letter. He said, “No, that’s my letter.” And anybody who knew Uncle Carl knew he went over every line, you know, himself before they sent the letter.
And so, you know, this is — look, if you are a Jewish person and you really want to be true to your faith, you have to treat the other as yourself. You have to love your — you know, the stranger, the neighbor. The most oft-repeated mitzvah, or requirement, in the Torah, I think 36 times, which is a very significant number for Jews, is some version of that. Who is the most important other for us, honestly, if not — OK, a homeless person, someone who looks different than you, you know, yes, treat them well. But, really, I think the acid test for Jewish people is how do we treat our Palestinian cousins. And so, we have to treat them as we would want to be treated. They are from the land. They’re there on the land. And if you come from Michigan, you know so many amazing Palestinian Americans who are your neighbors, your colleagues, your doctor, your friend, you know? And so, we need to all get along there, and we need to work together here to make that happen.
And I don’t care what AIPAC does. You know, the fact — it’s outrageous that they’re using money from Republican billionaires to decide who wins Democratic primaries. That’s a problem for democracy, and it’s a threat to the soul of the Democratic Party, even from a kind of a dry political science point of view, right? If you are in a political science class and your professor says, “Well, there’s multiple parties, right? And they each have to choose their candidate that represents that party’s values or beliefs, to go up against some other party, right?” — if any party lets a different party, interest groups from a different party, billionaires from a different party, come and choose its candidates, it’s kind of finished.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I wanted to ask you — you mentioned, obviously, Michigan, where you’re from. Talk about the rise of the “uncommitted” movement and what kind of impact it’s had on the Democratic Party and on the process of choosing a president.
ANDY LEVIN: Juan, I am so proud of this movement. These are young people. This is a true grassroots movement. I remember when I went to a phone bank that they had during the Michigan primary, which our primary for president was way back on February 27th. The energy in that room, the beautiful rainbow of people in that room, the food that someone had cooked, you know, you know — if you’re an organizer in the social movements of this country, when you walk into a situation like that, you know if something has life, is authentic, has power. And not only did they get over 100,000 people to vote uncommitted in just a few weeks in Michigan to say to President Biden, “We want to vote for you in November, but you’ve got to change course on Gaza to help us do that,” it obviously went national, too.
And I’m so proud of these young people, because I don’t want Donald Trump to get anywhere near the White House ever again, but even now, in late August, I feel like Vice President Harris — I hope that she can sort of reach out more. And it’s difficult as a vice president, right? But I think she has plenty of space to say, “Look, under a Harris administration, we’re going to follow U.S. and international law on military aid to Israel and all of any other military aid,” right? And she could say — she has a lot of room to say different things that would win the support of the uncommitted movement, which I think it would be very helpful to win Michigan, which is necessary.
AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly, you were on this panel, Palestinians and Jews, elected officials, that was the first DNC — first-ever panel on Palestinian human rights, held on Monday.
ANDY LEVIN: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And we played a part of that on Democracy Now! The demand of many in the uncommitted movement has been to have a Palestinian speaker on the stage of the Democratic National Convention.
ANDY LEVIN: Right, during primetime. Yeah, during primetime.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you expect that to happen?
ANDY LEVIN: We’re still holding out hope. I’m actually grateful. I understand that hostages’ families will be on the stage tonight, I think. I’m grateful for that. You know, it’s horrifying that Hamas took hostages. It’s totally a war crime, right? That should be exposed. But, my goodness, you know, with 40,000 people dead, 15,000 children dead, 19,000 children orphaned, a million children displaced, for our party to have a Palestinian American speaker to talk about this, I think, would be a really positive thing and indicate growth for our party.
And, you know, I think, look, Kamala Harris is going to be our next president. She needs to be. There’s no president in this century, two Republicans and two Democrats, who’s actually moved the ball forward for peace in the Middle East in a significant way. I need Kamala Harris to be that president who changes that dynamic. I think she can be. We’re hoping that she really finds a way to express that, in this convention and afterwards. Having a Palestinian speaker in primetime would certainly be a positive thing, and we’re still hoping for that.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, you mentioned billionaires of the other party. We just have 20 seconds. Explain what you mean, deciding Democratic primary candidates.
ANDY LEVIN: Right. Well, so, you know, there’s a lot we have to do to get dark money out of politics, right? Citizens United. But it’s up to the political parties to set their own rules. So, within Democratic primaries, our party, our leaders in the House and Senate, could set rules to say, “No, if you’re running for the U.S. House or U.S. Senate as a Democrat in a Democratic primary, we don’t want and we’re not going to let Republican billionaire dollars in here.” And that would be better for our party.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. Andy Levin is former Democratic congressmember from Michigan.
And that does it for our show. We’ve expanded to two hours every day from the Democratic National Convention. To hear or watch our other hour, go to democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, from Chicago.