Headlines:
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 20, 2024
Hezbollah Leader Says Israel Has Crossed “All Red Lines” as Israel Escalates War with Lebanon
Sep 20, 2024
Israeli military jets bombarded southern Lebanon Thursday, while Hezbollah struck sites in northern Israel, after mass walkie-talkie and pager explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday killed at least 37 people in Lebanon and injured thousands of others in what is widely believed to be a coordinated attack by Israel. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accused Israel of crossing “all red lines” as he addressed the week’s attacks in televised remarks.
Hassan Nasrallah: “War crimes or a declaration of war — you can call it anything, and it deserves those words. … Undoubtedly, we have been subjected to a major attack in terms of security and humanitarian aspects, unprecedented in the history of resistance in Lebanon. … We say to the enemy’s government, army and society that the Lebanese front will not stop before the aggression on Gaza stops.”
Despite the widely condemned attacks on Lebanon, Israel is doubling down on its intent to expand its war on Lebanon. This is Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Yoav Gallant: “Over the past several days, we have held a series of important discussions. This is a new phase of the war. It includes opportunities but also significant risks. Hezbollah feels it is being persecuted, and the sequence of military and defense actions will continue.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has postponed a trip to Israel early next week amid the mounting tensions. The Associated Press reports Yoav Gallant warned Austin ahead of the attacks this week that Israel was launching a military operation in Lebanon, but did not give any more details.
Video Shows Israeli Soldiers Pushing Bodies of Palestinians They Killed Off West Bank Roof
Sep 20, 2024
Deadly Israeli raids are continuing in the occupied West Bank, including in Jenin and Qabatiya, where a video has been circulating showing Israeli soldiers pushing dead bodies off a roof after a raid that killed at least five Palestinians. The desecration of corpses is considered a war crime, but Palestinians say the Israeli military frequently violates the deceased bodies of its victims. During the Qabatiya raid, Israeli forces also opened fire on a group of journalists filming the events. This is an eyewitness.
Zakaria Zakarneh: “Israeli special forces, fully equipped, raided and surrounded the area. They started shooting grenades and missiles. They struck young men at our place on the rooftop as they were trying to escape the trap.”
U.N. Panel Accuses Israel of Unprecedented Violations of Children’s Rights in War on Palestine
Sep 20, 2024
Israeli attacks on Gaza have also continued with deaths reported over the past day in Gaza City, Jabaliya, Nuseirat and Beit Hanoun. The official death toll in Gaza since October 7 has topped 41,000 with over 95,000 wounded, though the true toll is certainly much higher.
A U.N. committee on Thursday accused Israel of engaging in unprecedented violations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child over the past 11 months.
Ann Skelton: “More children have died in this war than men or women. That is massive. And I think when we think about it and we know that under international humanitarian law, that Israel admits it is bound by, killing of civilian targets on this scale is unacceptable in international humanitarian law and international human rights law, as well. And children are always civilians.”
Here in the U.S., three Democratic lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bill that would restore emergency funding to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, after the U.S. suspended its contributions in January and later passed a bill barring any further funding of UNRWA until March of next year.
Students Across U.S. Continue to Protest Universities’ Complicity in War on Gaza
Sep 20, 2024
Resistance to Israel’s U.S.-backed war on Gaza continues on college campuses as the new school year gets underway with more protests and calls to divest from Israel. On Wednesday, Cornell students shut down a career fair featuring weapons manufacturers supplying Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Meanwhile, a chapter of the activist group Students for Justice in Palestine is suing the University of Maryland in College Park after the school canceled an October 7 Gaza vigil.
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“Declaration of War”: Hezbollah Girds for Israeli Invasion of Lebanon After Mobile Device Attacks
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 20, 2024
Right after we broadcast, Israel carried out “targeted strikes” in Beirut as it appears to be preparing for a ground invasion of southern Lebanon as an expansion of its war on Gaza.
Following deadly Israeli attacks that blew up walkie-talkies and pagers across Lebanon this week, killing at least 37 people and wounding around 3,000, Israeli officials have pledged to ramp up their campaign against Hezbollah. Hezbollah characterized the devastating pager explosions as a “declaration of war.” In Beirut, we hear from journalist Rania Abouzeid about the aftereffects of the attack and the prospects of war on the Lebanese front. “There is certainly a sense of heightened anxiety as people wonder what else, what other devices in their vicinity, may explode,” she says.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Lebanon, where reports suggest Israel appears to be linking its southern Lebanon border to Gaza. As we broadcast, the Associated Press is reporting Hezbollah has launched 140 rockets into northern Israel in what is said is retaliation for Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon.
This comes as Al Jazeera reports Israel’s reserve forces commander said earlier today, quote, “It is time for Lebanon to suffer as well, … the power plants, bridges, airports and seaports as well,” unquote. Al Jazeera has also reported on videos from Israeli government media sources that show Israel’s minefields on Lebanon’s border are being cleared to, quote, “make way for what most likely will be a movement of ground forces into southern Lebanon.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday Israel will keep up military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
YOAV GALLANT: [translated] Our goal is to ensure the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes. As time goes by, Hezbollah will pay an increasing price.
AMY GOODMAN: This all comes after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah denounced the deadly Israeli attacks that blew up walkie-talkies and pagers across Lebanon Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people, including children, and wounding thousands more. As Nasrallah delivered a televised address Thursday, sonic booms from Israeli warplanes shook Beirut.
HASSAN NASRALLAH: [translated] We say to the enemy’s government, army and society that the Lebanese front will not stop before the aggression on Gaza stops. We have been saying this for 11 months now. It might sound repetitive now, but these words come after these two big blows, after all these martyrs, all these wounds, all this pain. I say clearly, whatever the sacrifices, whatever the consequences, whatever the possibilities, whatever the horizon to which the region heads, the resistance in Lebanon will not stop supporting the people of Gaza and the West Bank, who are oppressed in that Holy Land.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, the World Health Organization says the explosions in booby-trapped pagers and radios in Lebanon seriously disrupted Lebanon’s health sector. The WHO’s representative in Lebanon said a hundred hospitals were involved in responding to the crisis.
DR. ABDINASIR ABUBAKAR: You know, what happened for the last two days actually was an unprecedented incident, the explosion of different gadgets. And it’s been used not the normal explosion material. It’s been used a different. So, it’s sometimes — it’s very difficult actually to know exactly the short-term and the long-term impact of this substance that’s been used for the explosions. But I think the experts, and as well as in collaboration also with WHO now, we are trying to study more exactly what happened, how it happened, what kind of material is being used and how it’s affecting the people that have already been wounded, which is over 3,000 people. And also, 37 people have died so far.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Beirut, Lebanon, where we’re joined by Rania Abouzeid, Lebanese Australian journalist and author, who is based there.
Welcome to Democracy Now! First off, as you join us from Beirut, where there has been this wave of attacks, people are concerned about a second wave of explosions involving electronic devices. At this point, the figures are something like 3,500 people injured; 37, including children, are dead. Talk about the response on the ground, Rania.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, there’s certainly a sense of heightened anxiety as people wonder what else, what other devices in their vicinity, may explode. They wonder if anything that they’re holding in their hands or that might be in their homes could be weaponized, turned into an improvised explosive device to maim and kill either them or the people around them.
There is also anger about the attacks, the fact that people — you know, they didn’t target combatants in a battlefield, but, rather, people going about their everyday lives. These devices exploded in supermarkets. They exploded as people were driving their cars. They exploded in people’s homes.
The hospitals, as you mentioned in that report, were overwhelmed. More than a hundred hospitals rallied to try and help the thousands of wounded, as well as some of the dead that were coming into the hospitals.
So, it’s a — there’s also been an escalation on the southern Lebanese front with northern Israel. Overnight, there were more than 50 Israeli attacks on southern Lebanese villages. And as you mentioned in your report, more than a hundred Hezbollah rockets have been fired across the border today.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what Nasrallah said yesterday?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, it was a very wide-ranging speech. Part of it was he looked at these attacks and he said, “Let’s consider what Israel’s aims were in this attack.” And he pointed out three things. He said the first was to try and separate the Lebanese front from Gaza. And he said that won’t happen until the war in Gaza ends. The second was to splinter and to pressure Hezbollah’s support base to say, “Enough. We have had enough of this.” That aim also has failed. On the contrary, we have seen people who are wounded in the hospitals saying that this is a sacrifice that they are prepared to make. The third thing was to disrupt Hezbollah’s communications infrastructure. And Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that that didn’t happen.
He also turned to these growing Israeli calls for a ground invasion of Lebanon or to widen the war in Lebanon away from the southern Lebanese border region, but to engulf the whole country. And he said at one point that Hezbollah welcomes a ground invasion. It prefers to target Israeli soldiers on its home turf rather than in northern Israel. And he said that if Israeli soldiers cross that border, they will find themselves in hell. And he also said at one point they will also face, quote, “hundreds of those who were wounded in Tuesday and Wednesday’s attacks.”
AMY GOODMAN: So, what about the response to the reports from Reuters and The New York Times and other places that it was Israeli agents who were reportedly responsible, but wouldn’t quite say — accurate to say rigging devices, manufacturing these devices, not clear, debate over where exactly they were manufactured, but possibly a Budapest, Hungary-based company was involved? Your response to this and the U.N. Secretary-General Guterres saying that — decrying the use of everyday electronics as a weapon of war?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, there’s — speculation is rife about exactly how these devices exploded and at what point did they — were explosives placed in them, were they remotely hacked. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah yesterday in his speech said that Hezbollah has set up a number of committees to investigate this and that it would, you know, soon release the results.
As for the use, you know, turning everyday objects into IEDs, basically, there was a press release recently, just moments ago, before we went on air, where U.N. experts said that it was a terrifying violation of international law, that you can’t booby-trap devices that civilians might use or that may be in the vicinity of civilians. So, it is a, to use Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s word again, “unprecedented” tactic and one that is very grave, because it also — it didn’t — it attacked so many different people. It wasn’t an attack, a mass attack, on people in the same location, but it was in at least three places across Lebanon: in south Lebanon, in the Beqaa Valley and in Beirut.
AMY GOODMAN: As Guterres decries the weaponization of civilian objects, can you talk about, on the ground, in the hospitals, the kind of injuries that these hospitals, that are overwhelmed, are dealing with? Word is that somewhere over 3,500 people were injured.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Yes, and we have seen — on Lebanese TV, we have seen trauma surgeons break down and cry as they describe some of the cases that they are dealing with. Injuries are predominantly to the eyes, to the face, to the torso and to the hands. We have heard surgeons say that in the same operation, there are sometimes three or four specialists who are trying to save some of these wounded people. Each one is focused on a particular body part. So they are really quite, quite devastating injuries. Some of them — there was a trauma surgeon this morning who was talking about how some of these wounded people might need multiple surgeries over a very extended period of time.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to the Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh speaking Thursday.
SABRINA SINGH: Yesterday, Secretary Austin spoke by phone with his Israeli counterpart, Minister of Defense Gallant, to review regional security developments and reiterate unwavering U.S. support for Israel in the face of threats from Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran’s other regional partners. The secretary emphasized the U.S. commitment to deterring regional adversaries, deescalating tensions across the region, and reaffirmed the priority of reaching a ceasefire deal that will bring home hostages held by Hamas, and an enduring diplomatic resolution to the conflict on the Israel-Lebanon border that will allow civilians on both sides to return home.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the U.S. response so far to these explosions in Lebanon? Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, was in Paris. He cautioned against any further escalations that would make a Gaza ceasefire deal even more challenging, though it looks like that has fallen apart, Rania.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, I can’t speak to what the U.S. is — to the U.S.’s point of view, but I can certainly tell you that over here, people very intimately link this Israeli offensive with the U.S. People point out the double standards in terms of international law. They also point out how, you know, Blinken and other U.S. officials talk about deescalating the conflict, while continuing to arm Israel, not only in Gaza, but also, of course, with regard to its offensive here in Lebanon. So, you know, the mask has fallen on the doublespeak that is coming out of Washington.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the formation of Hezbollah, what its political aspirations are, and its relationship to the Lebanese government?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, it is part of the Lebanese government. Hezbollah has more than a dozen parliamentarians. It also has Cabinet ministers. And it has had people in government for many, many years. It has a political wing. It has a military wing. And it also runs a lot of charities and schools and hospitals. It formed in 1982 as a resistance group in response to Israel’s occupation, invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon. And it maintains its arms because part of Lebanon remains Israeli-occupied and has been for decades.
AMY GOODMAN: And what you see happening now with the Israeli government, the Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying the war is widening, the reports of troops being used, Israeli troops being moved to the north from Gaza?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, that’s the big question. That’s the question that is on the minds of many Lebanese: What happens next? Will there be a ground invasion? Will there be airstrikes? We heard the Israeli official point out targets. He mentioned the airport. He mentioned the port, Beirut’s port. These are all civilian infrastructure. And let’s not forget that in 2006 war with Israel, the airport was hit on day one. Beirut airport was hit on day one, rendering it unusable. So, the idea that Israel would broaden its war not just to target Hezbollah, but to target Lebanese civilian infrastructure, is a very — is a grave concern over here.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to your New Yorker piece. You said, “Earlier this summer, I met with a Hezbollah military strategist in a small village in southern Lebanon, a few kilometres from the Israeli border. At one point during our off-the-record conversation, his pager beeped. He decrypted the message using a neatly folded piece of laminated paper. I hadn’t seen a sheet like that since the 2006 war with Israel, when another Hezbollah militant in another southern Lebanese village pulled one out of his pocket to relay a coded message over a walkie-talkie. The group has long used various low-tech methods, including pagers, as part of its strategy to avoid Israeli tracking and surveillance of cell phones. It also has its own landline network.” Take it from there, Rania.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, I mean, I’ll just go back to the 2006 incident. Not only did the — I saw two fighters in a southern Lebanese village, and they were using the walkie-talkies and this laminated piece of paper. But they told me about how they use coded messages. One man said, “If I tell my friend to meet me under the tree where he met his fiancée, I understand it, he understands it, but even if a message like that is intercepted by the Israelis, they will not understand it.” This is the advantage that Hezbollah has on its home turf. These are local men fighting in their villages. They are fighting in their towns. The are fighting in territory that they are very intimately familiar with. And they’re a very disciplined, very highly trained, very motivated fighting force.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the sonic booms that you’re hearing and how that affects the Lebanese population?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, they’re terrifying, first of all. It’s just — you don’t know if it’s a sonic boom, and you wait to hear if there’s an explosion that follows the noise. Now, this is also — you know, let’s not forget that Beirut has long been terrorized by Israeli overflights by Israeli warplanes. All of these things, incidentally, are violations of sovereignty and acts of war. Every year, the United Nations tallies up these violations and presents a report about them. They’re usually in the hundreds, sometimes in the thousands, these cross-border violations.
So, they’re not a new development per se. But given the heightened tensions, they are certainly a terrifying sound to hear in the middle of the day, because you just don’t know if this is the opening salvo of an expanded war or if it is just the boom itself and not followed by an explosion.
AMY GOODMAN: Are people afraid to use pagers, walkie-talkies, even their cellphones?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Beyond that, people are wondering if perhaps — you know, there were reports that people were disconnecting the lithium batteries in their homes from the solar panels to provide electricity. People were wondering what other devices might explode, what electronics in their home might explode. Some people were telling each other not to use cellphones, but to go back to landlines to communicate. So, they’re really — you know, this is psychologically — it’s broken something, because this is a new sort of development, when an everyday object can be weaponized and it can be weaponized en masse.
AMY GOODMAN: Rania Abouzeid, we thank you for being with us, Lebanese Australian journalist and author based in Beirut.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: We will link to your article in The New Yorker magazine, “Explosions Across Lebanon.”
RANIA ABOUZEID: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Next up, weeks out from the U.S. election, the Uncommitted National Movement has announced it’s not going to endorse Kamala Harris, even as they say they oppose President Trump and that voting for a third party a mistake. We’ll speak with the co-founder of the movement. Stay with us.
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No Endorsement: Uncommitted Mvmt. Won’t Back Harris, Trump or Third Party as U.S. Keeps Arming Israel
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 20, 2024
The U.S. presidential election is just 45 days away, and for antiwar voters, the policy differences between the two leading candidates are vanishingly thin. As the Biden-Harris administration continues to supply billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, the Uncommitted National Movement, which for months has attempted to steer the Democratic Party toward a more critical stance on Israel, has announced it is not endorsing Kamala Harris. Neither does the organization recommend casting a third-party vote, citing the risk of splitting the two-party vote and ushering in a second term for Donald Trump. “We were not met in good faith with our policy demands,” says the Uncommitted National Movement’s co-founder Lexis Zeidan about its attempts to parley with the Harris campaign. Zeidan says the organization will continue to pressure Democrats from within and outside of the party. “What we’re asking is not outrageous.”
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.
We’re just 45 days away from the U.S. election. As the Biden administration continues to supply billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, demands for a U.S. arms embargo to Israel remain a key issue among antiwar voters, who say they feel ignored by both major political parties. Now the Uncommitted National Movement, which pressured by the Democratic Party — or, pressured the Democratic Party to shift its policy towards Israel and to end the war on Gaza, has announced it will not endorse Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, saying her campaign failed to accept the movement’s demands, which also include meeting with Palestinian American families who have had many of their relatives killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.
With less than two months to go until the election, Harris has repeatedly defended the Biden administration’s support of Israel amidst its relentless war on Gaza. During an interview on Tuesday with the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia, Vice President Harris was questioned on the issues by reporter Tonya Mosley of WHYY Radio.
TONYA MOSLEY: You’ve called for a ceasefire-hostage deal and a two-state solution as an end to the war for many months now. And while you’ve expressed support for Israel to defend itself, a two-state solution and a ceasefire are at odds with what Benjamin Netanyahu has said is their right to defense. If it matters, as you say, how Israel defends itself, where do you see the line between aggression and defense, and our power as Israel’s ally to do something?
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: OK, a lot to unpack in what you just said. So, let’s start with this. I absolutely believe that this war has to end, and it has to end as soon as possible. And the way that will be achieved is by getting a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done. And we are working around the clock to achieve that end. Stepping back, October 7, 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered — and actually, and some Americans, by the way, in that number, slaughtered, young people who were attending a concert. Women were horribly raped. And yes, so I have said Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And —
TONYA MOSLEY: But, Madam Vice President —
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: But, no.
TONYA MOSLEY: — I think my ask —
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: But let me finish.
TONYA MOSLEY: — is the difference —
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: But, no, no. Let me finish.
TONYA MOSLEY: — between aggression and defense here.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: No, but it’s important to put it in context, which is what I’m doing, and I’ll get to that. And so, how it does so matters. And far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed, women and children. We have seen with horror the images coming out of Gaza. And we have to take that seriously.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Vice President Kamala Harris being questioned Tuesday by reporter Tonya Mosley as part of a panel of journalists at the National Association of Black Journalists event in Philadelphia.
Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Thursday Jewish voters will be to blame if he loses November’s election. Trump stood in front of an Israeli flag as he spoke at the Israeli-American Council national summit. He also used the term “Palestinian” as a pejorative to describe Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and New York Democrat, and claimed if Kamala Harris wins in November, Israel would cease to exist.
DONALD TRUMP: The Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if I’m at 40%. If I’m at 40, think of it. That means 60% of voting for Kamala, who in particular is a bad Democrat. The Democrats are bad to Israel, very bad. … I mean, Chuck Schumer is a Palestinian. … But if we don’t win this election, Israel, in my opinion, within a period of two to three years, will cease to exist. It’s going to be wiped out. It’s what’s going to happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Trump previously referred to President Biden as a, quote, “very bad Palestinian,” unquote, in their only presidential debate in June.
This all comes as the Teamsters union has said it’s not endorsing a presidential candidate for the first time since 1996. The union, which endorsed Biden in 2020, says neither candidate have enough support from their 1.3 million-strong membership.
For more on the election and the “uncommitted” movement’s announcement it will not endorse Kamala Harris, we go to Detroit — actually, we go to Michigan, where we’re joined by Lexis Zeidan, co-founder and co-chair of the Uncommitted National Movement.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you explain the statement that you put out yesterday, Lexis?
LEXIS ZEIDAN: Yeah. Hi, Amy. Thank you so much for having me on the show.
As many know, Uncommitted put out a statement yesterday where we announced we will not be endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. And in that same statement, we had announced that we are vehemently opposing Donald Trump and that we do not recommend a third-party vote.
And to put it into a little bit of context, we have been working for months, where we, you know, started in Michigan, 1.5 million voter contacts, mobilized over 101,000 people to go to the polls and vote uncommitted as a protest vote against Biden and the administration and their ongoing support for Israel as it relates to the occupation and killing of Palestinians.
And what we offered to VP Harris is that if Vice President Kamala Harris is able to do two things — either change policy as it relates to current U.S. policy that backs bombs, or simply does the thing of ensuring and upholding current international and human rights laws as it relates to the way that Israel is violating war crimes — that we would do — that we would repeat what we did in Michigan to mobilize our base to go to the polls and vote for her come November. It was the offer we put on the table that was declined by Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign team.
And so, because we were not met in good faith, we had to make the decision to not be able to endorse her. And to be clear, an endorsement is an opportunity for us to do the same thing that we did in Michigan: mobilize our voters. An endorsement means that we are offering something and doing something. And because we were not met in good faith with our policy demands, it is something that we cannot do.
AMY GOODMAN: So, explain each position — not endorsing Kamala Harris, telling people not to support President Trump or a third-party candidate.
LEXIS ZEIDAN: Yeah, great question. I think I’ll lead with, we have to be very clear, is that there’s two options come November at the top of the ticket. It’s going to be Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump. So, keeping that context in mind, we had to make a decision of what that means to grow the power that we’ve already built within our antiwar organizing movement. And so, for us, and like I said, an endorsement is meaning that we will mobilize voters to go to the polls and vote for VP Harris. That has to come with policy change. And no policy change came, so it’s a decision we had to make to not endorse her.
Donald Trump, we have to be very clear, is a direct threat to our society, our civil liberties here and Palestinians back home. As he has mentioned, he plans to annex the West Bank. As he has mentioned, that he plans to criminalize organizations here in our own country who are fighting for Palestinian human rights.
And then, to the third point of not recommending a third-party vote, we know that, unfortunately, a third-party vote is not viable in this broken electoral system. And so, inadvertently, a third-party vote would support a Donald Trump victory.
And so, knowing all this context, we believe that our power lies within our movement, that our power lies within our people, that our power lies in continuing to grow the antiwar organizing movement that we have, to truly pressure the Democratic coalition or the Democratic administration to change policy as it relates to its current U.S. policy of backing bombs.
AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of third parties, this month, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, published a follow-up poll that shows Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein ahead of Kamala Harris among Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin. So, can you talk about the significance of what this means of not endorsing Kamala Harris?
LEXIS ZEIDAN: Yeah. I mean, I think we have to recognize that a lot of people, especially people within the Arab and Muslim community — you know, as VP Harris put it in her speech, we’ve got to put things into context. And the context here is that these communities are communities that are suffering. They are communities that are grieving. And the idea of people going and asking them who you are voting for come November — we’ve said this repeatedly — is like asking them that question at a funeral. And so, we have to keep in context how people are grieving, feeling emotionally, the very same people who came out in 2020 and mobilized very well for Biden, who feels very betrayed by this administration.
And so, we believe, as a movement, that it’s our responsibility to do three things right in this very moment, is, one, educate voters across the country, including Arab and Muslim voters, provide them with voter education on the dangers of Donald Trump; two, recognize that the genocide is still happening, that we cannot wait ’til January to shift policy, and that we have to continue to pressure the Biden-Harris administration to change policy immediately to save as many Palestinian lives as possible; and the third thing is to continue to grow our antiwar organizing power with Democratic coalitions across the country. We have to recognize that our power has impacted elected officials speaking up for Palestine, as well, from school board members all the way up to congressional leaders that are talking openly about why we need to change our U.S. foreign policy as it relates to backing bombs.
And so, these people that are talking about voting Jill Stein and third party are people who are suffering. And we believe it is our job to continue to do the organizing work that we have to do ahead of November to educate our voters about what’s at stake come November and how we have to grow our organizing power to see long-term policy change to lead to a liberated and a free Palestine.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, your response to Senator Bernie Sanders preparing a joint resolution of disapproval against the planned $20 billion in U.S. arms sales to Israel? He spoke from the Senate floor Wednesday.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Netanyahu’s policies have trampled on international law, made life unlivable in Gaza and created one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history. … The simple fact is that we must end our complicity in Israel’s illegal and indiscriminate military campaign, which has caused mass civilian death and suffering.”
AMY GOODMAN: We have 30 seconds, Lexis. Your response?
LEXIS ZEIDAN: Yeah, I mean, he highlighted it perfectly, is that we are aiding and abetting in indiscriminately killing civilians. And it goes to the point of what we’ve been explaining in this movement and what we’ve been trying to get VP Harris and the administration to move on, a sentiment that actually resonates the majority of Democrats, 77% of Democrats, 61% of Americans, that oppose weapons aids to Israel. When we look at our international law and our U.S. law as it relates to violation of war crimes, this is something that we should not be funding.
So, what we’re asking is not outrageous. We’re making a very simple request to follow international law and do what’s right and create an opportunity to deescalate what’s happening in the region and to really make sure that we’re valuing Palestinian lives as much as any other lives.
AMY GOODMAN: Lexis Zeidan, I want to thank you for being with us, co-founder and co-chair of the Uncommitted National Movement, speaking to us from Detroit, Michigan.