U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 12, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/12/headlines

Israel Fails to Meet 30-Day U.S. Deadline to End Starvation Campaign in Northern Gaza
Nov 12, 2024

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip. On Monday, at least 10 civilians were killed when a pair of Israeli missiles struck a crowded tent cafe west of Khan Younis, an area Israel had designated as a so-called safe zone. That followed Israeli attacks on the Nuseirat refugee camp that killed 20 people, some of whom were reportedly shot as they tried to flee the onslaught. Meanwhile, Palestinian health workers say three medical staffers were injured in an Israeli attack near the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital near Beit Lahia. It’s been just over 400 days since Israel began its assault on Gaza. For thousands of displaced Palestinians forced to live in makeshift camps, life has become a daily struggle for survival.

Ibtissam Sobh: “The 400 days that have passed feel like 400 years, maybe even more. If there was no war, we wouldn’t have known such hunger and displacement. Before, we were living decently. We were fine and happy, receiving aid packages twice a month. Now there’s no food, no water, no medicine. There’s nothing. We are deprived of everything, even the air we breathe.”

Israel has failed to meet a 30-day deadline set by the Biden administration to end its starvation campaign in northern Gaza, where the U.N. says a famine is imminent. Despite the deadline, the Biden administration still has not triggered U.S. laws requiring it to withhold military support to Israel over gross human rights abuses. In a report co-signed by Oxfam, Refugees International and Save the Children, relief groups write that Israel entirely failed to meet 15 of 19 U.S. demands, warning the situation in northern Gaza is “in an even more dire state today than a month ago.”

Israel Bombs Beirut Suburbs as Defense Minister Rules Out Ceasefire with Lebanon
Nov 12, 2024

Israel’s military has bombed Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hreik after warning residents to flee the area. Today’s attacks came after Lebanese officials reported one person was killed and four injured after an Israeli airstrike targeted the town of Hermel in the eastern Baalbek-Hermel governorate. On Monday, Israel’s newly appointed Defense Minister Israel Katz ruled out even a temporary peace deal, declaring, “There will be no ceasefire and no pause.”

Israel’s Smotrich Lauds Trump’s Victory, Orders Preparations to Illegally Annex West Bank
Nov 12, 2024

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told Israeli lawmakers he has ordered work to begin so that Israel can annex the occupied West Bank.

Bezalel Smotrich: “Year 2025 will be, with God’s help, the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.”

Smotrich, who is himself a resident of an illegal Israeli settlement in Palestine’s West Bank, said he hopes the incoming Trump administration will back his plans, which violate international law.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 13, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/13/headlines

“Gravest International Crimes”: U.N. Aid Chief Blasts Israel’s Deadly Siege on Gaza
Nov 13, 2024

In Gaza, the Palestinian Health Ministry reports Israeli strikes have killed at least 47 people and wounded more than 180 others in the past 24 hours. Among the dead is a child who was killed when a massive Israeli airstrike tore through a makeshift camp for displaced Palestinians in al-Mawasi, an area in southern Gaza designated by the Israeli army as a so-called safe humanitarian zone. This comes as the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has again warned famine is “imminent” in northern Gaza. On Tuesday, top U.N. humanitarian official Joyce Msuya told the Security Council that Israel has committed grave international crimes by blocking aid to Palestinians. She added, “The daily cruelty we see in Gaza seems to have no limits.”

Joyce Msuya: “Most of Gaza is now a wasteland of rubble. What distinction was made and what precautions were taken, if more than 70% of civilian housing is either damaged or destroyed? Essential commercial goods and services, including electricity, have been all but cut off. This has led to increasing hunger, starvation, and now, as we have heard, potentially famine. We are witnessing acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes.”

Biden Won’t Enforce U.S. Law Requiring Halt of Arms to Israel Despite Clear Human Rights Abuses
Nov 13, 2024

The Biden administration said Tuesday it will not limit weapons transfers to Israel — even after Israeli forces failed to meet a U.S.-imposed 30-day deadline to increase the flow of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza. Aid groups say Israel has only worsened the catastrophe over that period, with the amount of aid reaching Gaza now at its lowest level since December. The decision to continue arming Israel despite widespread evidence of gross human rights abuses appears to violate multiple U.S. laws, including the Leahy Law, the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act. On Tuesday, a coalition of former Biden administration employees who’ve resigned in protest of U.S. policy released a video calling on Biden to uphold the law and halt U.S. weapons transfers to Israel.

Stacy Gilbert: “There is no provision in U.S. or international law that allows extra time to starve people.

Josh Paul: “Joe Biden’s administration has repeatedly put Israel’s interests over the interests of the American people.”

Alex Smith: “Even at the expense of not enforcing our own laws.”

Josh Paul: “That’s why I resigned from the State Department.”

Stacy Gilbert: “The State Department.”

Annelle Sheline: “State Department.”

Hala Rharrit: “The State Department’s diplomatic corps.”

Tariq Habash: “The Department of Education.”

Maryam Hassanein: “The Department of the Interior.”

Harrison Mann: “Army.”

Lily Greenberg Call: “Department of the Interior.”

Riley Livermore: “Department of the Air Force.”

Click here to see our interviews with many of the Biden administration officials who’ve resigned over Gaza.

Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens in Beirut Suburbs and Mount Lebanon Governorate
Nov 13, 2024

Israel has continued its relentless air and ground attacks on Lebanon, killing at least two dozen people in Beirut’s southern suburbs and towns in Mount Lebanon Governorate. Israeli forces have persistently targeted residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure. Meanwhile, Israeli authorities issued new forced evacuation orders for residents in certain areas south of Beirut ahead of more Israeli military attacks.

National Press Club’s Press Freedom Award Goes to Wael al-Dahdouh for Gaza Coverage
Nov 13, 2024

The National Press Club has handed its top award for press freedom to Wael al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, for continuing to report on Israel’s assault on the besieged territory despite enduring “unspeakable personal tragedies.” Just weeks into the war, al-Dahdouh was live on air when he was informed his wife, 7-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp. Another of al-Dahdouh’s children, Hamza al-Dahdouh, who was also a journalist and cameraperson for Al Jazeera, was killed in a separate Israeli attack early in January. Earlier this year, al-Dahdouh was evacuated from Gaza to receive medical care in Qatar for injuries he suffered while covering an Israeli attack on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis. At the time, al-Dahdouh’s cameraperson, Samer Abudaqa, was left to bleed to death as Israeli forces blocked ambulances from reaching the scene for several hours. Al-Dahdouh is now living in Germany.

Mike Huckabee, Who Declared “There’s No Such Thing as a Palestinian,” Named U.S. Ambassador to Israel
Nov 13, 2024

Donald Trump has selected former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to become U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is a leading U.S. Christian Zionist who in recent years has led all-inclusive evangelical Christian tours of Israel. Huckabee has openly advocated for Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. During a failed run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, Huckabee declared, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” adding, “That’s been a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.” In 2017, he told Politico, “There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”

Meanwhile, Trump has named his longtime friend and golfing partner Steve Witkoff as a special envoy to the Middle East. Witkoff is a real estate investor from Florida with no foreign policy experience.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 14, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/14/headlines

U.N. Report Finds Israel’s Assault on Gaza “Consistent with Genocide,” Including Starvation Campaign
Nov 14, 2024

A U.N. special committee has found Israel’s actions in Gaza since October 2023 are “consistent with genocide,” including using starvation as a weapon of war and recklessly inflicting civilian casualties. The report, released today, comes one day after a Human Rights Watch report found Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity through its mass forced displacement of civilians in Gaza. HRW is calling on nations to adopt sanctions and halt weapons sales to Israel.

But Israel’s indiscriminate slaughter continues, with at least five Palestinians killed today in central Gaza’s al-Maghazi refugee camp. Elsewhere, at least two people were killed by an Israeli strike on a tent encampment for displaced Palestinians near Nuseirat.

Meanwhile, the U.N.’s humanitarian affairs office warned Palestinian children are at high risk of injury or death from unexploded ordnance left after more than 13 months of Israeli attacks. Among the victims is severely wounded 8-year-old Mohammed Qarmash. This is his mother.

Amal Al-Wadiya: “No one was there to tell him that these are explosives that the Israelis throw. The children play with them, and they blow up. What is happening to us is not fair. His father died at the Karni border, and his body stayed there. What is happening to us is not fair, really.”

Israeli Airstrikes Pound Beirut; WaPo: Israel Planning to Offer Lebanon Ceasefire as “Gift” to Trump
Nov 14, 2024

In Lebanon, Israel launched at least seven airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight after ordering residents to leave their homes. At least eight people were killed in Israeli attacks on the village of Dawhit Aramoun, south of the capital. Israeli warplanes also struck Damascus and the Syrian city of Homs. In southern Lebanon, Israel’s army says six soldiers were killed on Wednesday in an exchange of gunfire with Hezbollah fighters defending Lebanese territory. The deaths were announced after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had expanded Israel’s military ground operation in southern Lebanon.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post is reporting a close aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner this week that Israel is rushing to advance a ceasefire deal in Lebanon as a “gift” to Trump ahead of his inauguration in January.

CIA Officer on Trial for Leaking U.S. Documents Detailing Israel’s Plans to Attack Iran
Nov 14, 2024

A Central Intelligence Agency official is due to appear in federal court in Guam today, charged with disclosing classified documents that revealed Israeli military planning to attack Iran. The documents reference recent Israeli drills involving air-launched ballistic missiles, as well as covert drone activity. The official, Asif Rahman, was arrested in Cambodia last week and indicted on two counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act.

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Report from Gaza: Palestinians Feel They Are Being “Slowly Exterminated” in Israel’s Genocide
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 14, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/14 ... transcript

We go to Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, where we get an update from Arwa Damon of the humanitarian organization INARA on “deteriorating conditions” as Palestinians are “slowly exterminated” by disease and starvation caused by Israel’s brutal siege. A special U.N. committee has found that Israel’s actions in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.” Palestinians in Gaza feel that “they are living through their own annihilation,” says Damon. “There is actually a real sense that the worst is yet to come.”

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 turn to Israel’s war on Gaza. A special U.N. committee reported today Israel’s actions in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” unquote. Another report by Human Rights Watch finds Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity through its mass forced displacement of Gaza’s civilians.

This comes as the Biden administration has decided to continue arming Israel, even though aid groups say Israel has failed to meet a U.S.-imposed 30-day deadline to increase the flow of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza.

We go now to Deir al-Balah in Gaza, where we’re joined by Arwa Damon, founder of INARA, a nonprofit currently providing medical and mental healthcare to children in Gaza, previously spent 18 years at CNN, including time as a senior international correspondent.

Thanks so much for being with us, Arwa. This is your fourth trip back to Gaza since October 7, 2023. Tell us what you see there.

ARWA DAMON: You know, Amy, you think you can’t get worse, and then it does. You think people, quite simply, could never cope with these deteriorating conditions, and yet somehow they do. It’s a situation that they have been forced into.

Arguably, the conditions when it comes to access of humanitarian organizations and our ability to distribute aid, aid actually getting into the strip, we’re talking about the lowest levels yet. And this is exactly during the timeframe that the U.S. had given to Israel to actually improve the situation. We’ve seen it getting significantly worse. We’re not just talking about a shortage in things like flour, food, water, fresh vegetables, you know, hygiene kits. We’re also talking about shortages in what’s available on the commercial market. So, even if you somehow had money to be able to go buy what you need, it quite simply isn’t here.

These hospitals that we keep talking about as being partially functioning, what does that actually mean? It means that if you show up bleeding, someone inside is going to try to stop the bleed, but do they actually have what they need to save your life? No. I was inside visiting some kids here at Al-Aqsa earlier today and over the weekend. There’s a little 2-year-old boy here whose brain you can see pulsing through his skin. His skull bone was removed. This little boy was not stabilizing properly because the ICU was missing a pediatric-sized tracheostomy tube. Now, luckily, we were able to, you know, source some of them, and he has now stabilized, and he is off the ventilator. But this really gives you an idea of just how serious the situation here is.

People are gathering to demonstrate for things like flour, for bread, for whatever it is that you can imagine. Winter is coming. The rains are coming. This means flooding is coming. And on top of just, you know, water flooding, we’e also anticipating that the sewage sites are going to be flooding, as well. Aid organizations need to be able to have the capacity and the ability to, you know, shift those sites to areas where they’re not going to pose even more of a health hazard to the community. So, I mean, it’s a complete and total nightmare. It’s beyond being a nightmare.

AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk about this latest report? The special U.N. committee says Israel’s actions in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” coming at the same time as a Human Rights Watch report, and UNRWA talks about famine being imminent in northern Gaza.

ARWA DAMON: So, if we’re talking specifically about the north, the northern province of Gaza, this is an area where Israel launched its military operation there nearly four weeks ago. We have seen people repeatedly being forcibly displaced from their homes. There is very little access to medical assistance there. There has been absolutely no humanitarian assistance delivered there for about the last month. People are starving. They are dying. And it’s not just bombs that are killing people, it’s also disease.

So, when we look at the nature of what is happening in Gaza, you can’t spend a day here, Amy, and not come away with the notion that you are witnessing a population that is being slowly exterminated. And I say “slowly” because, yes, bombs kill quickly, but disease and starvation, they are slow killers. And that is what a lot of people are facing here.

And talk to anybody in Gaza, and there’s absolutely no doubt in their mind that, one, they are living through their own annihilation, and, two, what Israel is doing in the northern part is going to be repeated elsewhere. And this is also part of why you see a reluctance among the population to want to evacuate, because Gazans know, Palestinians know that when they leave, they’re not going to be able to go back home. This is what history has taught them. And there is this very real, ingrained fear among the population here right now that what they’re going through at this moment is not the end. There is actually a real sense that the worst is yet to come.

And they feel completely and totally abandoned by the international community, by global leaders, not to mention the United States. And everyone is convinced that right now Israel is going have even more free rein to do whatever it is that it wants here. When you talk to people about what it is that they’re going through, they do feel as if every single aspect of trying to survive here has been carefully orchestrated by Israel so that it is able to sort of meet America’s bare minimum of standards, to allow America sufficient cover to say, “Oh, no, there’s improvement that’s happening.” And yet, actually, at the core of it is just another way to continue to kill the population.

AMY GOODMAN: And as you talk about the United States, which has given tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, they did recently set a 30-day deadline to increase the flow of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza, but the U.S. has decided to keep arming Israel despite this and despite the number of officials in the State Department and other parts of the U.S. government who have quit over this.

ARWA DAMON: Yeah, and let’s just look at the numbers. Let’s just look at what happened when the U.S. started the clock for that 30-day deadline to improve humanitarian assistance. We saw, very shortly afterwards, the number of trucks accessing Gaza dip significantly, down to 30 a day, keeping in mind that one of the key demands that the U.S. had was that aid be increased to at least 350 trucks. So we saw this, you know, decrease consistent of roughly 30 trucks a day for most of the month of October. Now, in November, that number did go up to around 60-70, but we’re still talking about, you know, falling extraordinarily short, providing barely 20% of what it is that the population here needs.

We saw less access to these besieged areas in the north, where people are effectively trapped or having to basically risk their lives. We’ve had numerous instances where aid has been delivered to the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north, for example, where, shortly after medical evacuation teams have arrived there, there have been strikes. You have this very ingrained fear that exists among people right now, especially in the north, where some of them are saying, “Don’t deliver anything, because right after you’re delivering, strikes are happening.”

And just to illustrate how it is that we try to move, so if we’re moving from south to north, for example, or even if we’re moving within the northern areas, those movement requests have to be approved by Israel. And aid organizations are increasingly wary of moving around with what we call soft-skin cars, which is basically your normal vehicle that we use to move around in, because of the increasing frequency of instances at Israeli checkpoints where aid convoys have been shot at by IDF troops after receiving the green light, the OK to cross through, which means that for a lot of aid organizations, movement is limited to those who have access to armored vehicles, vehicles that are more secure. And those don’t really exist in Gaza in high numbers at all. And we’re not allowed to bring in more to sort of beef up our capacity to be able to move around safely.

I mean, no matter which way you look at it, Amy, you’re constantly faced by numerous obstacles that don’t need to be there. It feels very deliberate, not to mention the complete and total breakdown of security. Now we have numerous looting instances of aid trucks. We’ve repeatedly asked the Israeli side to be able to use alternative routes, to be able to use secured routes. Those requests are not being met. I mean, it’s just — it’s such an impossible situation to operate in. I feel like I keep saying the same thing over and over and over again each time I come in. And the words to demonstrate how much worse it’s getting, quite simply, lack in our vocabulary.

AMY GOODMAN: You also wrote a piece recently, “The Devastation of Lebanon,” for New Lines. And we had this headline, The Washington Post reporting a close aide to Netanyahu told Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner that Israel is rushing to advance a ceasefire deal in Lebanon as a gift to Trump ahead of his January inauguration. Your response to the significance of Trump’s election and what it means to the people of Lebanon and Gaza?

ARWA DAMON: You know, first of all, anyone who lives in the Middle East and anyone who’s kind of been focusing on the Middle East knows very well that it really doesn’t matter who’s in the White House. Whether it’s Republican or Democrat, that really is not going to change significantly U.S. policy towards this region.

But the thing that we’ve been hearing, specifically when it comes to the reelection of Donald Trump, is at least he’s not lying to us. At least whatever America is going to let Israel do, it’s going to be done faster. So, if our end is coming, at least it’s going to come faster. Whereas when it comes to, you know, specifically the Biden administration, the sense is that the Democrats are far more willing to allow this slower, more painful death. But the end result, no matter who it is, people are fully convinced, is exactly the same.

And all people really want right now is for this to end. People are suffocated. They’re crushed. They cannot keep going like this. And they very much feel as if, you know, no matter what it is, no matter who it is, Arabs are viewed by the United States and by the Western world as somehow being less than. Their lives are not that valuable. You constantly hear people in Gaza — and we were hearing the same thing in Lebanon — making comments like, “Well, you know, America, it doesn’t care if we live or die. It doesn’t care how much we suffer. Our lives don’t matter to them.” And that is not really a perspective that changes all that much, no matter who is sitting in Washington.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds, Arwa. Why did you give up journalism for humanitarian work? What do you think you can accomplish at INARA that you couldn’t do as a journalist?

ARWA DAMON: There’s a certain sort of privilege of being able to spend extensive periods of time with people and really get to know who they are. And I feel as if, you know, moving around in the humanitarian sphere, I’m getting a different understanding of sort of people’s emotional journeys, what it actually takes to be able to provide them with assistance. And it’s provided me a different way of being able to continue to sort of share people’s stories and experiences, but also be able to immediately at least try to provide assistance. You know, the challenge that we have when we’re out in the field as journalists is that you don’t always see the impact. But when you’re in the humanitarian space, there’s a certain kind of magic when you’re able to just bring a smile to a child’s face. And I needed that.

AMY GOODMAN: Arwa Damon, we thank you so much for being with us. Stay safe. Award-winning journalist, was with CNN for 18 years but now has founded INARA, a nonprofit currently providing medical and mental healthcare to children in Gaza, speaking to us from Deir al-Balah in Gaza outside Al-Aqsa Hospital.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 15, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/15/headlines

Israeli Airstrikes Devastate Beirut, Baalbek, Killing Dozens of People and Forcing 100,000s to Flee
Nov 15, 2024

Israel’s military launched more deadly airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight, shortly after issuing new forced evacuation orders. The attacks on the Ghobeiry and Burj al-Barajneh neighborhoods leveled entire residential buildings. The districts, where some 700,000 people used to live and work, are largely empty due to Israel’s assault, now in its eighth week. Lebanese officials say the latest Israeli attacks killed at least 37 people, including at least 12 emergency rescue workers killed in a strike on a civil defense center in the city of Baalbek.

Meanwhile, Syria’s government says at least 15 people were killed and 16 others wounded, including children, when Israeli fighter jets bombed the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday.

Rashida Tlaib Calls on Blinken to Resign for Violating U.S. Laws on Aid and Arms Trade
Nov 15, 2024

Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, has called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to resign after he refused to hold Israel accountable for failing to allow U.S. aid into Gaza. Humanitarian groups report aid deliveries have fallen to an all-time low since Blinken issued his ultimatum, with just 37 trucks entering Gaza per day in October and an average of 69 trucks per day in early November. Congressmember Tlaib spoke from the House floor Thursday, displaying a photograph of an emaciated Palestinian child.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “U.S. law is very clear. No nation blocking U.S. humanitarian assistance can receive U.S. weapons. The Biden administration cannot pick and choose when they comply with our own laws. Children are forced to eat pet food and bug-infested flour. Look at this, and do not turn your back on, again, being complicit to this war crime. But Blinken says there’s no need to change our own policy.”

Netanyahu’s Aides May Have Doctored Phone Records on Israeli General’s Pre-Attack Warning on Oct. 7
Nov 15, 2024

The New York Times is reporting aides to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are being investigated for altering official records of a phone call by a top general who warned of the Hamas attacks on the morning of October 7, 2023. The probe suggests Netanyahu may have been informed of the attack before it happened, which he has denied. Over 1,100 people were killed in the Hamas attacks. In the more than 13 months since, Israel has killed over 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza, though some estimates put the true death toll at over 300,000.

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Historian Enzo Traverso: Israel Is Using the Memory of the Holocaust to Justify Genocide in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 15, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/15 ... transcript

In the acclaimed new book Gaza Faces History, historian Enzo Traverso challenges Western attitudes toward Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza by reckoning with the larger historical context of the Holocaust and the Nakba. Traverso details how memorializing the Holocaust became a sort of “civil religion” that honored human rights and the values of Western liberal democracies after the Second World War. However, in recent decades, Traverso warns, “the memory of the Holocaust experienced a paradoxical metamorphosis, and it was weaponized by Israel and by most Western powers in order to become a policy of an unconditional support of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.” Witnessing this distortion of history, “I was shocked by the way in which many words, many concepts had been abused and misunderstood,” says Traverso. “Now we are facing a paradoxical situation in which the perpetrator is Hamas and the Palestinians, and the victims are the Israelis. And this is a reversal of reality.”

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.” I’m Amy Goodman, broadcasting from PBS12 in Denver. Nermeen Shaikh is in New York.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We end today’s show with the acclaimed historian Enzo Traverso, author of the new book Gaza Faces History. One reviewer has said the book offers, quote, “a devastating indictment of the rhetorical subterfuge by which Israel and its supporters in the West have justified Gaza’s slaughter.”

AMY GOODMAN: Enzo Traverso joins us from Ithaca, New York, where he teaches at Cornell University. His other books include The Origins of Nazi Violence and The New Faces of Fascism: Populism and the Far Right.

Professor Enzo Traverso, welcome to Democracy Now! Your field of study has been fascism, the Nazis. Talk about why you’re now taking on Gaza.

ENZO TRAVERSO: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, I’m a historian of modern European history. I was deeply affected by what is happening in Gaza now, like everyone, but I am not a scholar of the Middle East. And at the beginning, I did not think to write a book on this war and this genocide. But I quickly realized that history, and even a lot of words, a semantic, related to the history of wars, the history of violence and genocides, and that European history itself was hugely mobilized in order to interpret the Gaza war. And I was shocked by the way in which many words, many concepts had been abused and misunderstood, and mislead, concepts like pogroms, Holocaust, antisemitism, Zionism. And so, facing such misunderstanding of reality, so I thought it was important to clarify the meaning of such concepts.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Professor Traverso, you begin the book by citing Sebald’s extraordinary work, On the Natural History of Destruction, in which he tries to understand, in part, why after the devastating aerial bombardments of German cities at the end of the Second World War, there was scarcely a word spoken by German survivors of those aerial assaults. Could you speak about how you use this as a kind of premise and how that one should interpret what’s happened after October 7th through that lens, the way in which victims and perpetrators have represented — how victims and perpetrators have been represented in the conflict?

ENZO TRAVERSO: Yeah. I open my book quoting this great German writer, W. G. Sebald, who pointed out how at the end of the Second World War Germans were silent about their own sufferings, which were uncontestable. So, German civil society had been destroyed by the Allied bombings. But this silence was related to the awareness that when Germans suffered these war crimes, Nazi Germany was perpetrating the Holocaust and worse crimes in Europe, particularly on the Eastern Front. And, well, at the end of the Second World War, the Nuremberg trial judged the Nazi crimes. And only many decades later, the German suffering during the Second World War were acknowledged, without appearing as a kind of exculpation or of relativization of Nazi crime.

Now we are facing a paradoxical situation in which the perpetrator is Hamas and the Palestinians, and the victims are the Israelis. And this is a reversal of reality. It’s like a Nuremberg trial in which, instead of the Nazi crimes, were judged the Allied atrocities perpetrated by the U.S. and the U.K. aircrafts.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Professor Traverso, could you explain why you think that this memory of the Holocaust, the way in which the Holocaust has been deployed since October 7th, is actually a desecration of the Holocaust itself? If you could elaborate on that point and why you think it’s been used for these ends by so many?

ENZO TRAVERSO: Yeah. The memory of the Holocaust was subterranean and underground, an occulted memory for decades after the Second World War. But through a very difficult and painful process of working through the past, the memory of the Holocaust became a central element of, a pillar of the, not only Western, but global memorial landscape. We cannot think of the 20th century without locating the Holocaust at the center of this picture. And the memory of the Holocaust had — so, I write in my book that it became a kind of civil religion of our liberal democracies and used in order to celebrate human rights and some fundamental values of our democracies. The Holocaust memory was extremely important as a kind of paradigm in order to elaborate the memory of other forms of violence and genocide.

But during the last decades — I would say two last two decades — the memory of the Holocaust experienced a paradoxical metamorphosis, and it was weaponized by Israel and by most Western powers in order to become a policy of an unconditional support of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. And this has extremely dangerous consequences, because today we are facing a dramatic, a tragic situation in which the memory of the Holocaust is invoked and claimed in order to justify a war in Gaza which is taking genocidal features. And this means that the memory of the Holocaust is completely perverted.

And think of the possible consequences of that. Those who are protesting against this genocidal war are accused of antisemitism. But if the memory of the Holocaust is mobilized to defend unconditionally a genocidal policy, maybe people could think that the memory of the Holocaust is intrinsically bad. If criticizing a genocide is antisemitism, many people would think that antisemitism is not so bad. And finally, many people would start thinking that the Holocaust itself is a myth invented by Israel in order to justify its politics of occupation of the Palestinian territories and of oppression. So, I fear, I worry that in the long view, maybe not immediately, but people who are claiming an unconditional defense of Israeli occupation and war in the name of the struggle against antisemitism and in the name of the memory of the Holocaust are preparing a new wave of antisemitism.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Enzo Traverso, before we end today’s show, I wanted to ask you about the victory of Trump. You’ve said what astonished you was not his winning, but the extent of his winning. One of your previous books is titled The New Faces of Fascism: Populism and the Far Right. If you could elaborate on this?

ENZO TRAVERSO: Yeah, in this book, I proposed the category of post-fascism in order to depict this very large and heterogeneous constellation of radical right, extreme right, fascist and radical nationalist movements and parties, which are rising on a global scale. And Trump is not an exception. Trump is part of this global phenomenon. And I used this concept of post-fascism because, for evident reasons, we live in a different context with respect to the age of classical fascism, and because there are many uncontestable differences between Donald Trump or Milei in Argentina or Marine Le Pen in France or Giorgia Meloni in Italy and classical fascism, from this point of view, so it’s something different with respect to fascism. But at the same time, we cannot approach and interpret this new political phenomenon without comparing it with classical fascism. It’s something transitional between fascism and something unknown, which is emerging. Well, there is a debate in the United States about —

AMY GOODMAN: We just have 20 seconds, I hate to say to you. Professor, we just have 20 seconds.

ENZO TRAVERSO: Yeah. So, I said I have no difficulties to depict Trump as a fascist. He proved that he is ready to transgress the basic features of democracy, contesting the outcome of the election. But this kind of fascism is not a meteor that’s suddenly falling —

AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there, but we are looking forward to doing an extended interview when you come to New York City. Cornell professor Enzo Traverso is author of the new book Gaza Faces History.

And that does it for today’s show. We’ve been broadcasting here in Denver at the studios of PBS12 at the Five Points Media Center, which is also home to Free Speech TV. Thanks to the folks here at PBS12: Bobby Springer, Mary Latsis and the whole crew. Next week, we’ll be broadcasting from Baku, Azerbaijan, the U.N. climate summit. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 18, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/18 ... transcript

Pope Calls for Investigation into Gaza Genocide as Israel Kills Dozens More Palestinians Every Day
Nov 18, 2024

Pope Francis has called for an investigation to determine if Israel’s war on Gaza constitutes genocide. This comes as the official death toll in Gaza nears 44,000, but that is believed to be a vast undercount.

On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike on a residential tower in Beit Lahia killed as many as 72 people. On Saturday, Israel struck a school in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp housing displaced people. At least 10 Palestinians were killed. Another 10 Palestinians were killed in a strike on the Bureij refugee camp. This is Eid Abou Rikab, who lost cousins in the attack.

Eid Abou Rikab: “It’s one of the biggest crimes, something that doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. Why target peaceful people sitting in their home? What could they possibly have to justify hitting them in their own house? If you want to target military personnel, go and search for them. The one who dies is always the civilian. We were forced to flee from the north and went to al-Mawasi, which they said was a safe place. Then you come and strike there.”

Israeli Strikes Kill Another 8 Paramedics in Lebanon, Hezbollah Media Chief
Nov 18, 2024

Israel is continuing to bombard Lebanon despite talk of a possible ceasefire. Al Jazeera reports eight more paramedics have been killed in Lebanon. On Friday, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister urged Iran to persuade Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire deal with Israel. Meanwhile, Israel has assassinated Hezbollah’s media chief, Mohammed Afif. He was killed in an airstrike in central Beirut. Afif was one of the last remaining public faces of Hezbollah.

Protesters Arrested After Setting Off Flares Near Home of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu
Nov 18, 2024

In Israel, three protesters have been detained after flares were fired near the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The incident occurred as protests continue calling for a ceasefire deal to free the remaining hostages in Gaza.

COP29 Protesters Call for Energy Embargo over Gaza Genocide, Climate Catastrophe
Nov 18, 2024

The U.N. climate summit here in Baku, Azerbaijan, has entered its second and final week. On Saturday, activists held a silent protest to demand the phase-out of fossil fuels, climate financing for the Global South and a just transition to clean energy. Earlier today, activists called for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza. This is Mohamed Kamal from the Egyptian group Greenish.

Mohamed Kamal: “When we’re calling for an energy embargo, we’re calling it because it’s the primary source that is fueling this genocide. We need action and not commitment. Words are empty. We need this action to be in front of us. People in the region have been speaking out, but governments are not matching that action at all. So we need to see these commitments happening. We need that energy embargo.”

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 19, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/19/headlines

Israeli Strike on Northern Gaza Kills 17 Family Members of Doctor’s Family
Nov 19, 2024

In northern Gaza, at least 17 Palestinians were killed when Israel’s military bombed a home near the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia. The dead were members of the family of Dr. Hani Badran, one of the few remaining medical workers at Kamal Adwan. Video shows hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who lost his own son to an Israeli airstrike last month, comforting Dr. Badran after delivering the news. The hospital has since come under fresh attacks by Israeli forces who shelled and fired on the building, including right outside Dr. Abu Safiya’s office. Dr. Abu Safiya reports wounded patients are dying daily due to a severe lack of doctors and medical supplies.

Elsewhere, an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City on Monday killed seven Palestinians and wounded 10 others. Survivors said the strike came without warning.

Mohamed Abu Ryaleh: “We were at home having breakfast. I went out and suddenly heard the sound of a bombing. I returned back, thinking it was another house that was hit. I saw the whole house was damaged. I started searching and discovered all of the martyrs were kids. All of those who were at home were elderly, children and infants. They were all women. Who else would be there? All of the men were at work. We were recovering them in pieces.”

U.N. Committee on Palestinian Rights Warns Israel’s Assault on Gaza Has “Characteristics of Genocide”
Nov 19, 2024

On Monday, the United Nations’ special coordinator for the Middle East peace process warned the Security Council that conditions in Gaza are “among the worst we’ve seen during the entire war and are not set to improve.” The warning came as Sri Lanka’s U.N. ambassador delivered an annual report by the U.N.’s special committee on Palestinian human rights.

Peter Mohan Maithri Pieris: “This year’s report examines the mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians in Gaza. Our findings conclude that Israel’s methods of war align with the characteristics of genocide.”

UNICEF Warns Israeli Attacks Have Killed Over 200 Children in Lebanon
Nov 19, 2024

In Lebanon, at least five people were killed and 31 others wounded Monday in an Israeli attack on a densely populated neighborhood in central Beirut. The airstrike tore through an apartment building near Lebanon’s Parliament and close to a United Nations building and several embassies. This is survivor Hussein Zahwa, whose family had fled earlier Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon.

Hussein Zahwa: “At the time of the explosion, there was a lot of screaming, I mean, to the point that I could hear my little daughter, who is 7 years old, calling me, 'Dad! Dad! Dad!' Because of the smoke, they could not breathe. I don’t know how I went up. The gate that I was opening was on fire. It was burning. I don’t know how I opened it. I went up and pulled them from the rubble. Thank God it went well.”

UNICEF warns two months of Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 200 children and injured over 1,100. Spokesperson James Elder warned nations not to remain silent in the face of what he called the “normalization of horror” in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, a rocket fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon injured at least six Israelis and sparked a fire in Tel Aviv Monday night. In diplomatic news, U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein said a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon is “now within our grasp” after meeting with Lebanon’s Parliament and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Beirut today.

Senate to Vote on Resolutions to Block U.S. Arms Sales to Israel
Nov 19, 2024

United States senators will vote Wednesday on whether the U.S. should halt $20 billion of arms sales to Israel. Bernie Sanders introduced the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval as the Biden administration has continued to violate U.S. laws that prohibit the transfer of weapons to governments committing human rights violations. Six senators have publicly backed the resolutions thus far: Jeff Merkley, Brian Schatz, Elizabeth Warren, Peter Welch, Chris Van Hollen, and Bernie Sanders.

Meanwhile, the rights groups Al-Haq and Global Legal Action Network have taken the U.K. government to court for continuing to supply F-35 fighter jet parts and other weapons to Israel, despite saying it would suspend Israeli export licenses over international humanitarian law violations. The U.K. said it exempted F-35 parts from its arms suspension to avoid “[undermining] U.S. confidence in the U.K.” In related news, activists in Canada have blockaded the entrances to Collins Aerospace in Oakville and Honeywell Aerospace in North Vancouver, both of which supply parts for F-35 jets used by Israel to kill Palestinians.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 20, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/20/headlines

Crowds of Hungry Palestinians Queue for Food Amid Shortage of Flour Due to Israeli Siege
Nov 20, 2024

In Gaza, the Palestinian Health Ministry reports Israeli attacks on Tuesday killed at least 50 Palestinians and wounded 110 others. Overnight, the director of the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza warned 85 injured Palestinians are at imminent risk of death after an Israeli attack damaged the hospital’s upper floors. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya said the hospital had received a large influx of children with signs of malnutrition and is facing an “extreme catastrophe.”

In the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security forces have shot and killed 20 people accused of an organized effort to loot convoys delivering desperately needed aid into Gaza. Monday’s killings came two days after armed gangs violently looted nearly 100 trucks carrying food provided by the United Nations. A spokesperson for the U.N.’s agency for Palestinian refugees said Israeli authorities had instructed the convoy to use an unfamiliar route, on short notice, ahead of the ambush. Drop Site News reports the Israeli military has systematically targeted Palestinian security forces charged with protecting aid shipments, while allowing armed gunmen to attack aid convoys in areas under Israeli control.

On Tuesday, desperate Palestinians queued at a soup kitchen in Khan Younis, hoping for a meal, after a shortage of flour forced a main bakery in central Gaza to halt operations.

Tamam Abu Raddeh: “We’re all hungry. We’re all hungry. There’s no flour. It’s been a month that we don’t have flour, frying oil or sugar. We want some tea to drink. We want to make bread. We are hungry and need food and beverage. It is shameful what they are doing to the people.”

Al Jazeera Reporter Injured After Israel Struck Gaza Home Following Earlier Attack
Nov 20, 2024

In more news from Gaza, Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Hossam Shabat was injured Tuesday in an Israeli attack on a home in Gaza City. Shabat had been covering the aftermath of an Israeli bombing when a second strike hit. He wrote on social media that the attack was deliberate adding, “The moment I stepped inside, the house was bombed again, and dismembered body parts of the wounded flew around me.” A first responder and civilians were killed in the strike.

Protests Rock Senate Office Building Ahead of Vote on U.S. Military Aid to Israel
Nov 20, 2024

On Capitol Hill, more than four dozen peace activists were arrested Tuesday as they held a protest inside the Hart Senate Office Building demanding an end to U.S. arms transfers to Israel. A coalition of protesters, including Jewish Voice for Peace wore red T-shirts demanding education, housing, healthcare and jobs, “not genocide.”

Separately, in Chicago, more than a dozen Jewish peace activists were arrested as they nonviolently blocked escalators and elevators to shut down business operations at Caterpillar’s Business and Analytics Hub. Caterpillar supplies Israel’s military with armored bulldozers used to demolish homes and businesses in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

The protests came ahead of an expected vote in the Senate today on resolutions authored by Vermont independent Bernie Sanders that would block the sale of U.S. tank rounds, bomb kits and other lethal weapons to Israel.

Sen. Bernie Sanders: “The truth of the matter is that from a legal perspective, these resolutions are not complicated. They’re cut and dry. The United States government is currently in violation of the law, and every member of the U.S. Senate who believes in the rule of law should vote for these resolutions.”

On Monday, one of the largest U.S. labor unions, the 2 million-strong Service Employees International Union, called on senators to approve Bernie Sanders’s resolution. Union President April Verrett said, ”SEIU members have made clear that they want an end to taxpayer dollars being used to fund military aid that enables attacks against innocent civilians in Gaza.”

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 21, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/21/headlines

ICC Issues Arrest Warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Ex-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant
Nov 21, 2024

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during Israel’s assault on Gaza. In a statement, the ICC said the Israeli leaders had “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.” The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, though Israel’s military claims it killed Deif in a July airstrike.

Sanders’s Senate Resolutions Blocking Arms Transfers to Israel Fail But Gain Unprecedented Support
Nov 21, 2024

Here in the U.S., 19 senators on Wednesday voted against sending Israel more offensive weapons, over Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and its gross human rights violations. Though the joint resolutions of disapproval, introduced by Bernie Sanders, failed to pass, it was the largest such rebuke of the United States’ policy of unconditional military support for Israel. We’ll have more on the Senate vote after headlines.

The vote came as Israel continues its slaughter in Gaza, killing at least 88 Palestinians over the past day in attacks on Beit Lahia and the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City.

Israeli Soldiers and Settlers Continue Assault on West Bank Palestinians
Nov 21, 2024

Israeli forces are continuing to attack the occupied West Bank, with deadly raids in Jenin, as well as assaults in Hebron, Ramallah and elsewhere. Illegal Jewish settlers on Wednesday attacked the Palestinian town of al-Mazra’a al-Qibliya, near Ramallah, setting cars ablaze. This is Hilda Sandouka, a Palestinian mother who survived the attack.

Hilda Sandouka: “We were afraid and terrified. My daughters started to scream and cry. Thank God that they only burned the vehicles. They could have set fire inside the house while we were sleeping. We are far away from the downtown. If something happens here, they may not help us. Thank God, neighbors helped out.”

Israeli Strikes Kill 36 in Syria, 9 in Lebanon as Hezbollah Responds to U.S.-Led Ceasefire Proposal
Nov 21, 2024

Syria state media reports Israeli attacks killed 36 people in Palmyra. At least nine people were killed by Israel in the Lebanese city of Tyre.

Hezbollah’s leader Naim Qassem says he has reviewed a U.S.-led ceasefire proposal and told negotiators the group rejects language allowing Israel to breach Lebanese sovereignty by attacking within its borders.

U.S. Stands Alone in Vetoing Gaza Ceasefire Resolution at U.N. Security Council for Fourth Time
Nov 21, 2024

At the U.N. Security Council in New York, the U.S. on Wednesday vetoed its fourth ceasefire resolution since Israel began its war on Gaza over 13 months ago. The 14 other members of the Security Council voted in favor. China’s U.N. Ambassador Fu Cong slammed the U.S. veto.

Fu Cong: “The U.S.'s long use of the veto has dashed the hopes of the people of Gaza for survival, pushing them further into darkness and desperation. I said during the council's debate on Monday that every moment will be recorded in history and will be judged by history.”

Palestine’s deputy U.N. envoy Majed Bamya also addressed the Security Council, condemning the U.S. veto, for which he said there is “no justification.”

Majed Bamya: “There is no right to mass killing of civilians. There is no right to starve an entire civilian population. There is no right to forcibly displace a people. And there is no right to annexation. This is what Israel is doing in Gaza. These are its war objectives. This is what the absence of a ceasefire is allowing it to continue doing.”

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Wanted for War Crimes: ICC Issues Arrest Warrants for Netanyahu & Gallant over Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 21, 2024

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during Israel’s assault on Gaza. The court also issued a warrant for Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif, whom Israel said they killed in August. This is a major development on the international stage, says HuffPost correspondent Akbar Shahid Ahmed, particularly in its implications for U.S. culpability in Israeli war crimes. The Biden administration, as Netanyahu’s “ultimate enabler,” is visibly “totally alone” in its refusal to recognize Israel’s crossing of “red lines,” as even its ally nations who are party to the ICC are now legally required to cooperate with the court’s decision.

Transcript

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

NERMEEN SHAIKH: In The Hague, the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during Israel’s assault on Gaza. In a statement, the ICC said the Israeli leaders had, quote, “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.”

The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, though Israel’s military claims it killed Deif in a July airstrike.

The ICC arrest warrants come a week after a U.N. special committee found Israel’s actions in Gaza since October 2023 are, quote, “consistent with genocide,” including using starvation as a weapon of war and recklessly inflicting civilian casualties.

AMY GOODMAN: In related news, on Wednesday, the United States vetoed a Gaza ceasefire resolution at the U.N. Security Council for the fourth time, and the U.S. Senate rejected a resolution brought by Senator Bernie Sanders that sought to block the sale of U.S. tank rounds, bomb kits and other lethal weapons to Israel. Nineteen senators supported blocking the arms.

For more on all of this, we’re joined by Akbar Shahid Ahmed, senior diplomatic correspondent for HuffPost. His latest piece is “Exclusive: White House Says Democrats Who Oppose Weapons to Israel Are Aiding Hamas.”

Ahmed, thank you so much for being with us. As you write your book on the Biden administration in Gaza called Crossing the Red Line, clearly the ICC has ruled that today by issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Can you talk about the significance of this move?

AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: Yeah, Amy. This is just an absolutely huge development, and it’s significant for a number of reasons. It’s significant because the ICC has come out and amplified and affirmed the allegations of crimes against humanity, of war crimes. This is one more international body. These are [inaudible] international charges with a great deal of respect. This is a court that most of the world is a member of. And they’re coming out and saying, “Look, we think there are reasonable grounds to believe that these major international red lines have been crossed by the Israelis.”

What’s really important to remember is that this isn’t just a decision about Israel. By extension, it fundamentally is a decision about the United States, which has been the ultimate enabler of Israel’s offensives in Gaza and Lebanon, which are under consideration by the ICC. And even in this ICC statement today, they point out that in the situations where Israel has addressed concerns over what it describes as starvation as a method of warfare — right? — depriving civilians, Palestinians, of food, water and medical equipment, Israel has really only done so in an extremely arbitrary and, what the ICC judges call, conditional way in response to the U.S. So, fundamentally, Amy, what we’re seeing is the ICC is saying yet again that Israel and the U.S., as its major enabler and backer, are in the dark and will continue to be in the dark for years to come.

This kind of adds to a broader picture in which there are now ICC warrants for the sitting Israeli prime minister and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who remains a significant politician in Israel. Simultaneously, there’s the genocide case at the ICJ, the International Court of Justice, which is ongoing and will be ongoing for years to come. And there’s the Geneva Conventions conference underway next year regarding kind of similar issues — right? — violations of international law, laws of war and the Israeli grave abuses that are alleged. So, the U.S. and Israel will be kind of on trial on the international stage for years to come.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Akbar, would you say that this move is mostly a symbolic one? Because, as you pointed out, of course, most countries are members of the International Criminal Court, but in this instance, perhaps most importantly, neither Israel nor the U.S. are.

AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: Right, Nermeen. And that’s something that the ICC judges did get into today — right? — because Israel said, “Look, the International Criminal Court doesn’t have jurisdiction over us.” That said, the state of Palestine is a member of the court, and that’s why this becomes a relevant and interesting thing, because you’ve seen European nations recognize Palestine as a state. You’ve seen Palestine join the United Nations General Assembly over just last year. So, yes, while the U.S. and Israel continue to reject international scrutiny by the ICC, by the ICJ of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the occupied West Bank and Lebanon, there’s a growing international push to kind of challenge that, right?

And I think you will see the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration assertively push back against the ICC. The Trump administration did actually target the ICC directly when President Trump was last in office, threatening to put sanctions on ICC officials. And we also know from reporting that the Israelis have spied on and threatened the ICC themselves, according to reporting by The Guardian. So, yes, there will be increased pressure.

But I think we’re really in a place that no one thought we would be even a few months ago, right? I think even the prospect of the ICC prosecutor successfully getting these warrants issued, it was initially thought that would be quite quick. It’s taken a long time. The fact that judges were able to issue those warrants suggests that even though it’s an uphill battle to get this international scrutiny, there’s a real determination and clear will. And we’ve seen a lot of states turn around and say over 13 months, right? Since the October 7 attack by Hamas within Israel that did spark this current round of fighting, there have been calls to say, “We don’t want this to escalate,” right? The U.S.'s allies, Western countries have said, “We want to resolve this. We don't want you on trial. Can the U.S. and Israel please change course?” And what you’ve seen is a defiance from Tel Aviv and from Washington to say, “Actually, no, we’re continuing these wars.” So, that does take it to a different forum to kind of change the policy.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Akbar, could you also — while we’re looking at the way in which international organizations, multilateral ones, are responding to this, what about the latest vote at the Security Council and the fact that the U.S. blocked it for the fourth time, a ceasefire vote?

AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: It’s really striking at this point — right? — to see the Biden administration totally alone. And you see how this develops over the course of the war. Initially, the U.S. was able to get Britain, even France, kind of abstaining, standing with them. And now, 13 months in, where conduct hasn’t changed, and you still have daily strikes that are killing dozens, sometimes over a hundred civilians, you have a mounting death toll of mostly women and children, the U.S. is totally alone, where it’s shielding Israel on the world stage diplomatically.

And this is really important to see in the context of the Biden administration as an outlier even among American presidents and administrations. When President Barack Obama was in office, after he was in the lame-duck period that Biden is in now, he actually did abstain at the United Nations Security Council and said, “You know what? Go ahead and pass a resolution that Israel doesn’t like,” because tacitly the U.S. acknowledged there was a basis, there were credible grounds for that resolution, which in that instance was about Israeli settlement activity.

Here, what you’re seeing from the Biden administration, even in their dying days — right? — two months to go, there’s an obstinacy, a defiance, and a real commitment to shielding Israel, even if they are totally alone against now their closest allies — Britain, France and everyone else on the Security Council. So, I think the context of that veto kind of presages whatever may come in the next two months in terms of the Biden administration allowing any U.N. scrutiny of the wars.

AMY GOODMAN: Akbar, I wanted to play Palestine’s envoy to the United Nations, Majed Bamya, speaking yesterday.

MAJED BAMYA: There is no right to mass killing of civilians. There is no right to starve an entire civilian population. There is no right to forcibly displace a people. And there is no right to annexation. This is what Israel is doing in Gaza. …

Maybe for some, we have the wrong nationality, the wrong faith, the wrong skin color. But we are humans! And we should be treated as such. Is there a U.N. Charter for Israel that is different from the charter we all have? Tell us. Is there an international law for them, an international law for us? Do they have the right to kill, and the only right we have is to die?

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Despite White House Pressure, 19 U.S. Senators Back Bernie Sanders’s Bills to Block Arms Sales to Israel
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 21, 2024

Just hours after the United States vetoed yet another U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday rejected three resolutions supported by less than two dozen Democratic senators that sought to block the sale of U.S. tank rounds, bomb kits and other lethal weapons to Israel. HuffPost correspondent Akbar Shahid Ahmed reveals that the White House lobbied against the Senate resolutions and suggested that lawmakers who support blocking arms sales to Israel were aiding Hamas. In the face of such stringent opposition from Democratic leadership, even partial support from party members is “historic and symbolic.” As the Biden administration continues “working hand in glove” to provide weapons and rhetorical cover for Israel’s genocidal war, says Ahmed, such willingness to buck the status quo proves dissatisfaction with the U.S.’s role is “not going away.”

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: And I want to go right over to what happened on the Senate floor, independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders speaking ahead of Wednesday’s Senate vote to block the sale of U.S. tank rounds, bomb kits and other lethal weapons to Israel. The measure did fail, but 18 other senators joined Sanders to stop arming Israel.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I have heard members of the U.S. Senate come to this floor to denounce human rights violations taking place around the world. I have heard well-founded concerns about China’s brutal reception of the Uyghur ethnic minority. I’ve heard rightful outrage about Putin’s brutal attacks against Ukraine and bombing of civilian installations. I’ve heard genuine concern about Iran’s outrageous crackdown on peaceful protesters. I’ve heard repeated condemnations of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia’s terrible treatment of women and political dissidents. And on and on it goes. A lot of folks come to the floor to talk about human rights and what’s going on around the world.

But what I want to say to all those folks: Nobody is going to take anything you say with a grain of seriousness. You cannot condemn human rights around the world and then turn a blind eye to what the United States government is now funding in Israel. People will laugh in your face. They will say to you, “You’re concerned about China? You’re concerned about Russia? You’re concerned about Iran? Well, why are you funding the starvation of children in Gaza right now?”

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Senator Bernie Sanders. While this move did fail, it was the largest grouping of senators to vote against arming Israel. Akbar Shahid Ahmed, if you can talk about the significance of this and the latest piece you did on what happened in the White House and how they were threatening these senators, your “Exclusive: White House Says Democrats Who Oppose Weapons to Israel Are Aiding Hamas”?

AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: Absolutely, Amy. And I’ll just start by noting that what Ambassador Bamya and Senator Sanders said, that really speaks to the salience of this issue — right? — and why it’s not going away, is something that the Biden administration has failed to grapple with. In their thinking, they think, “Well, people will get over this like they’ve gotten over foreign policies slights and missteps by the U.S. before.” I think this is a fundamentally different issue. And what the Biden administration tried to do to kind of not just tackle and continue support for Israel, but to reject scrutiny and kind of threaten senators, was really striking yesterday.

So, the exclusive I got that you’re talking about was a document from the White House that they prepared and sent to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, 24 hours before the vote, where essentially they said, “If you vote against weapons for Israel, you, as United States senators, are supporting Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.” Now, that’s the kind of accusation and rhetoric that observers say is reminiscent of the Bush administration, right? You’re with us, or you’re against us. And that’s the kind of thinking with which the Biden administration continues to approach critics of their policy, despite the really clear consequences of their policy and the fact that they’re on their way out, right? They are not the future of the Democratic Party. It is now not just on Senator Sanders, but really on those who remain in the Senate, on Democrats kind of up and down the country, to craft a different legacy given that there is popular dissatisfaction.

And what I heard in terms of the White House document and talking points that they were pushing privately to senators was that this fueled just deep kind of resentment among senators who heard it. And folks were saying, “Look, the White House won’t even put their name on these arguments while they’re calling us kind of terrorist sympathizers,” which is a huge claim about U.S. lawmakers.

Simultaneously, Amy, the context of this is that hard-line pro-Israel forces, chief among them AIPAC, which is the biggest pro-Israel lobby in the country, were also pushing against this vote, were also telling senators, “If you vote with Sanders, we’re going to come after you. We see this as a betrayal of Israel, a close United States partner.” So, you saw the Biden administration working hand in glove with forces that are not just ardently pro-Israel, but have been against Democrats, often against Biden, against President Barack Obama. But that’s the way they’ve aligned themselves politically.

The fact that after all of that you still had close to a fifth of members of the U.S. Senate stand up and vote against weapons for Israel at a time of war, at a time when AIPAC and pro-Israel forces have indicated their political strength yet again, that’s huge. This is historic and symbolic. And while I think antiwar advocates were, to a degree, disappointed — they had wanted to get at least half of Senate Democrats — the amount of intense pressure that you saw from the Biden administration to try to suppress this vote, including up to sending Secretary of State Tony Blinken to Capitol Hill yesterday, that shows you they were up against a lot, and they still managed to get 19 senators, which was quite a mental strike.

AMY GOODMAN: Akbar Shahid Ahmed, we want to thank you so much for being with us, senior diplomatic correspondent for HuffPost. We’ll link to your newest piece, which is an exclusive, “White House Says Democrats Who Oppose Weapons to Israel Are Aiding Hamas.”

***

Defund Genocide: Activists at COP29 Link Climate Fight to Militarism, Gaza, Lebanon & Sudan
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 21, 2024

At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, civil society members held a People’s Plenary called “Pay Up, Stand Up: Finance Climate Action, Not Genocide” outside negotiation rooms in which U.N. member states attempted to hammer out a global climate finance deal. In the face of the conference’s restrictions on protest, civil society members unfurled the names of Palestinians who have been killed, reading out the names of those killed by Israel’s military aggression and calling for an end to ecocidal violence worldwide. We hear from three people who participated in the action, including Palestinian activist Jana Rashed and Sudanese activist Leena Eisa — both of whom call on nations to stop providing fuel for genocides being perpetrated against Palestinian, Lebanese and Sudanese people — and the plenary’s co-chair Lidy Nacpil, who calls the gathering a “celebration” of marginalized voices at the climate summit.

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined by other members of civil society from around the world. I’m going to get up right now. They have just come from across this broad room from the Caspian Plenary Hall, where they held a People’s Summit. One of the co-chairs of that summit, which is called “Pay Up, Stand Up: Finance Climate Action, Not Genocide,” where civil society unfurled the names of Palestinians who have been killed, and prayed for the dead — we’re joined right now by co-chair. The co-chair is Lidy Nacpil, who is a longtime Filipina climate activist and coordinator with the Asia Peoples’ Summit on Debt and Development and the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

Lidy, it’s so great to have you with us today. If you can talk about what the point of this plenary was? Hundreds of people packed in.

LIDY NACPIL: Well, we wanted first to feel our power of solidarity together, so it was a really great opportunity for us to come together in big numbers, such as we’ve not had in this COP because of the whole layout and the rules. So, this was a great celebration of our power together as a movement.

AMY GOODMAN: I think you should explain more. What is the issue here? Why are there so many silent protests? And explain the rules, where you cannot mention a country name. You can’t even say where you’re from.

LIDY NACPIL: Yes, that is one of the rules of the security and the UNFCCC secretariat, in order to protect, they say, the dignity and to protect respect for the different countries and governments of the countries. So we’re not allowed to mention governments. There is a policy that we can’t name and shame, but apparently that also applies to we can’t praise particular governments. So we just can’t name any government, and we can’t even say where we’re from.

But we have been doing our best to use this space to raise our voices on the critical issues that are being discussed here that affects our lives. And one of that is the genocide that’s happening in this world. It’s very much a climate issue, as it is an issue of justice, and also the issue of climate finance, which is supposed to be part of the reparations for the climate debt that is owed to our people in the Global South.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined by Jana Rashed. Jana Rashed is a climate advocate, a Palestinian based in London.

JANA RASHED: Lebanon.

AMY GOODMAN: In?

JANA RASHED: Lebanon.

AMY GOODMAN: In Lebanon.

JANA RASHED: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: You are wearing a keffiyeh.

JANA RASHED: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Inside, it was very moving at the beginning of the session, where the names of hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians and Lebanese were put on sheets, and people unfurled them. Talk about why you’re here today and what your message is.

JANA RASHED: Like, I am here today, first of all, to amplify the voices of my people in Palestine and Lebanon, to talk about the genocides that are happening, because we can’t be here talking about climate justice without mentioning the injustices around the world, because it’s also linked with the environment, it’s also linked with the ecocides that is happening. Because of the genocide that is currently happening in both Lebanon and Palestine, the soil are being contaminated because of the bombing. The sea is being contaminated also because of the bombing. So, we can’t be, like — we can’t have this hypocrisy in the world and be here talking about just transition and climate justice without mentioning these injustices.

And we are here as collective Palestinians. There are collective Palestinians that came up with a campaign called Global Energy Embargo for Palestine, where they call — where they are calling countries, such as Brazil, South Africa and Turkey — these countries that claim to support Palestinians, but, on the other hand, they are fueling the genocide, and they are making — like, the fuels come out from their countries to the occupation. So, yeah, we are here demanding to stop fueling genocide, demanding to stop the transportation of the fuel from these countries to the occupation.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined by another climate activist. We’re joined right now by Leena Eisa, who is a climate justice advocate from Sudan. If you can talk about why you’re here today, what you’re trying to accomplish and what Sudan is facing?

LEENA EISA: I’m basically here to speak about Sudan, because no one here talking about Sudan. We are so neglected. Families are separated. Women got raped. And a lot of children lose their lives, according to nothing literally. And the media is not covering us. No one is speaking about us. There’s a genocide happening in there. And my country are bloodying. And even like every region in Sudan are neglected, bloodying. And also, like, the media are blind from us, because no one really care about us. I don’t know why. Is it because we are Black people? But Black people’s lives matter.

And I’m here today to speak up about Sudan, to speak about the women, children, men, the families, all the families that are separated now. We need to stop this war. We need to defund this genocide right now. A lot of countries are supporting this genocide. But no one else — like, no one another is supporting the Sudanese themselves. Like, there is no safety, security and all of this. And we are all here calling, like, we — there’s no one here to — like, we are here not, like, to leave anyone behind. But, unfortunately Sudanese people are behind the table, and we are depending, and no one literally talking about us.

AMY GOODMAN: Leena, I want to thank you so much for standing here and speaking up for your country, for your people. Leena Eisa is a climate justice advocate from Sudan. And I want to thank Lidy Nacpil, longtime climate activist and co-chair of the People’s Plenary that just took place. She is a Filipina climate activist. And I want to thank Jana Rashed, a climate advocate, Palestinian based in Lebanon. We thank you all for being with us.

As we wrap up our show today, we only have a few seconds. We want to also thank Harjeet Singh, who came to this summit from New Delhi, India. Thousands of people have gathered. I think it’s something like 77,000 people are registered for this U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. Next year, it will take place in Brazil, in the rainforest, right on the edge.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 22, 2024

Israel’s Genocide in Gaza Continues After ICC Arrest Warrants, with Attacks on Hospital, Shelters
Nov 22, 2024

In Gaza, Israel’s deadly attacks are continuing a day after the ICC issued historic arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. In north Gaza, the beleaguered Kamal Adwan Hospital warns it will turn into a mass grave if no medical supplies are allowed in as it remains besieged and under attack from Israeli forces. One attack shut down the main power generator Thursday, while ongoing bombing punctured the hospital’s water tanks. The hospital is still caring for 85 patients, including babies, children and patients in critical condition.

In Gaza City, rescuers searched the rubble today after at least 20 Palestinians, including children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a building housing displaced families. This is a relative of a young boy killed in the attack.

Ibrahim al-Dayeh: “This building has been hit three times. Three times. And every time, people were massacred. Most of it was gone. Nobody was left. All of them are martyred today. A whole family lays here. A whole family has been wiped away. I swear to God, the whole family is wiped from the civil registry, because of you, Israel. You kill civilians.”

Israeli Airstrikes in Lebanon Level Beirut Building, Kill 2 More Paramedics
Nov 22, 2024

In southern Lebanon, an Israeli air attack has killed another two paramedics, adding to the more than 220 health workers who have been killed by Israel in Lebanon. Separately, an airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs leveled at least one massive building earlier today.

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, a coalition of rights groups are suing the Dutch government for providing arms to Israel and failing to prevent genocide in Gaza.

U.S. House Passes Bill Allowing Trump to Silence Critics, Label Nonprofits as Terror Groups
Nov 22, 2024

The House of Representatives on Thursday approved H.R. 9495, dubbed the “nonprofit killer” by civil society groups. The measure would give the incoming Trump administration broad authority to go after its critics by revoking the tax-exempt status of any group it labels a “terrorist supporting organization,” with no evidence needed. The bill passed on a 219-184 vote, with 15 Democrats joining Republicans. H.R. 9495 has the support of the Anti-Defamation League and other Israel lobby groups. Critics warn the law would immediately target organizations fighting for Palestinian rights. The bill’s fate in the Senate remains uncertain. We’ll have more later in the broadcast.

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“A Great Day for Justice”: Palestinian Lawyer Raji Sourani on ICC Arrest Warrants for Netanyahu & Gallant
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 22, 2024

We speak with the celebrated Palestinian human rights lawyer Raji Sourani after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over the war in Gaza. Israel called it “an antisemitic decision,” and the Biden administration said it rejects the charges on the grounds that the ICC does not have jurisdiction. But many other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy and the Netherlands, have vowed to comply with the court’s decision, which obligates states party to the Rome Statute that established the court to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they enter their territory. Sourani, now in Cairo after fleeing Gaza when his house was bombed by Israel, applauds the ICC for withstanding intense pressure from Israel and the United States to carry out its mandate. “They feel they are fully immune, they are free to do whatever they can, they will never be held accountable, and why their appetite for crimes [is] growing like a snowball every day,” Sourani says of the Israeli government.

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, we’re in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the U.N. climate summit, COP29. I’m Amy Goodman.

But we’re turning now to the International Criminal Court’s historic decision to indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas commander Mohammed Deif. In a statement, the ICC said the Israeli leaders had “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity,” unquote.

On Thursday, Netanyahu slammed the International Criminal Court for making what he called an “antisemitic decision,” unquote. The Biden administration also criticized the ICC. This is White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre.

PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: We fundamentally reject the court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Israel officials. We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutors’ rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision. The United States has been clear that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this matter.

AMY GOODMAN: But other nations, including Italy, the Netherlands and Canada, have vowed to comply with the ICC arrest warrants.

On Thursday, Nermeen Shaikh and I spoke to Raji Sourani, the founder and director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza. The award-winning human rights lawyer fled Gaza after Israel bombed his home. He is the winner of the Right Livelihood Award, as well as the Robert F. Kennedy International Human Rights Prize. He spoke to us from Cairo, Egypt. I asked him to respond to the International Criminal Court ruling.

RAJI SOURANI: This is a great day, great day for justice and dignity of man. It’s a great day for the rule of law. And this day makes us remember all these souls of children, women, civilians, all the destruction, all the starvation and displacements Gazans suffered for the last 13 months in this ongoing genocide, which broadcasted live on air at the real time to the whole world and costed us so far 44,000, has been killed. More than 70% of them are civilians. And not only that, but 140,000 has been injured. One-third of them will die because there is no access for medical equipment or medicine or even food. So, it’s a great day to have these genociders, finally, with arrest warrants and wanted for justice at the most important court on Earth.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Raji Sourani, could you respond to the way that the Israeli prime minister has responded to this news? The prime minister’s office declared in a statement on Thursday that the ICC’s “antisemitic decision” to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant is, quote, “equivalent to a modern Dreyfus trial.” Your response, Raji Sourani?

RAJI SOURANI: I mean, no new news in this. They are very arrogant. They are very jealous. The West, especially U.S. and Europe, made Israel feel they will never, ever they will be held accountable. They feel they are immune. They are doing all what they are doing and that they lied, and they don’t hide it. They attack children cancer hospitals at the daylight. They attack hospitals and doctors. They rape prisoners, by the army in the army detention centers. They kill women, children at the daylight. They starve people. They criminalized UNRWA, the body which should serve the Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, the only body which is doing and delivering that. And nobody holds them accountable.

Look, last night, this ugly veto of the U.S. to the Security Council against ceasefire, just to stop genocide. By whom we are killed? By which bombs and missiles and airplanes? It’s American. It’s European. They feel they are fully immune, they are free to do whatever they can, they will never be held accountable, and why their appetite for crimes growing like a snowball every day. Like, now they are talking publicly, “We’ll clean Gaza from this 2-and-a-half million people, and we will settle in it, and the settlers will be there.” And they began to sell the land of Gaza to the settlers and to sell the apartments. And they declared their intention about West Bank and the cleaning of it. This is unprecedented that such state, Israel, having all these crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and just be dealt normally. This criminal, while he’s doing genocide, he came to the Congress, and he was received by everybody, and everybody was applauding him and his acts, more than the president of the United States. So, he’s a criminal. He deserves accountability.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Raji Sourani, founder and director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, where he was born. The award-winning human rights lawyer fled Gaza after Israel bombed his home last year. To see the full interview, go to democracynow.org. Raji was speaking to us from Cairo, Egypt.

***

House Approves “Nonprofit Killer” Bill, Most Dangerous Domestic Anti-Terrorism Bill Since PATRIOT Act
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 22, 2024

The House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that would empower the Treasury Department to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit it deems has provided material support to a terrorist organization. A broad coalition of civil society groups have opposed the bill, warning that it would give the Trump administration sweeping powers to crack down on political opponents. H.R. 9495, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, passed the House 219 to 184 largely along party lines, with 15 Democrats supporting the Republican majority. “This bill is essentially a civil rights disaster,” says Darryl Li, an anthropologist, lawyer and legal scholar teaching at the University of Chicago. Li, who recently wrote a briefing paper on the anti-Palestinian origins of U.S. terrorism law, says “anti-Palestinian racism is one of the great bipartisan unifiers in Congress.”

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. We’re broadcasting from the U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, but we’re looking at a bill that was passed in the House of Representatives Thursday. It was approved. It would empower the Treasury Department to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit it deems to have provided material support to a terrorist organization, without any evidence needed. If the bill becomes law, it could apply to a range of nonprofits, including unions, membership organizations, foundations and media organizations. A broad coalition of civil society groups have opposed the so-called nonprofit killer. H.R. 9495 passed the House 219 to 184, with 15 Democrats supporting the Republican majority. Earlier versions of the bill received broad bipartisan support, but following Donald Trump’s election, most Democrats withdrew their support.

For more, we go to East Lansing, Michigan, where we’re joined by Darryl Li. He’s an anthropologist, lawyer and legal scholar teaching at the University of Chicago. His analysis of the so-called nonprofit killer bill was published on Spencer Ackerman’s blog forever-wars.com. It’s headlined “The Most Dangerous Domestic Anti-Terrorism Bill Since the PATRIOT Act.”

OK, Darryl, why? Why is this so significant? Again, it was passed in the House. It now makes its way to the Senate.

DARRYL LI: Thank you for having me on, Amy.

As you mentioned, this bill is essentially a civil rights disaster, that would allow the government, under any administration — I want to be clear that this bill is terrible no matter who is president — but it would allow the government to shut down nonprofits on the smear of being terrorist-supporting organizations.

Now, obviously, the government, after decades of authoritarian “war on terror” policies, already has ample legal tools at its disposal to go after nonprofits, essentially, for any reason that it wishes. What this bill would do in addition, the thing that it would add and the thing that makes it so dangerous, and actually the most dangerous domestic terrorism law in a generation, is that it would essentially smuggle in through the back door a domestic terrorist group list for the first time. This is something that the United States, to this day, still doesn’t have. We have many, many lists of so-called foreign terrorist organizations, that are overwhelmingly Muslim and/or based in the Global South.

This law requires an accusation with no evidence, but a tie-in. It’s an accusation that nonprofits are supporting a group on one of the existing international terrorism lists. This is important to understand, because it explains why so many people on the right in Congress are comfortable signing on, because the bill is essentially discriminatory by design. Right-wingers and white supremacists in Congress can support this bill, with the assurance that their allies, right-wing extremist groups, are highly, highly unlikely to ever be targeted by this bill, because there isn’t going to — it’s much less likely that they will be smeared with an accusation of being tied to an international terrorist organization that’s already on one of the government lists. So, that’s why this particular coalition —

AMY GOODMAN: [inaudible]

DARRYL LI: — has come together. And it will — oh, go on.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk more about the origins of the bill, why Democrats supported the bill, and what it means now that it’s going to the Senate, how organizations are organizing around it.

DARRYL LI: Right. So, since October 7th, we’ve seen a whole bunch of outlandish anti-Palestinian pieces of legislation that have been designed to crush any protest or dissent around Palestine in the United States, while Congress, of course, continues to supply untold billions of dollars in weapons to Israel for its ongoing genocide in Gaza. This particular piece of legislation is the one that has gotten closest to becoming law. And initially, it did have significant bipartisan support, because, of course, anti-Palestinian racism is one of the great bipartisan unifiers in Congress.

With the efforts of civil society groups to ring the alarm and educate members of Congress about the dangers of this bill, not only for Palestine advocacy, but broadly, for any number of causes, and, of course, with the election of Donald Trump, more and more Democrats have awoken to the danger. So, right now the important thing, now that the bill has passed the House, is to ensure that it does not go anywhere in the Senate. So, it’s extremely important for people to keep up the pressure on the Democratic members of Congress, and especially those in the Senate, to block this bill in the remainder of this session and, of course, if it comes up in a future legislative session.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, next session — now, this already came up just a week or two ago, and now it has passed in the House. The Democrats control the Senate, but the Republicans will soon control the Senate.

DARRYL LI: That’s right, they will. But my understanding is that they’ll still need 60 votes to pass, so I don’t think the Republicans will have 60 senators, so there is still a chance that the bill can be blocked. But again, we can’t take it for granted. It requires all hands on deck and as much pressure as possible on the Senate Democrats to ensure that this bill doesn’t go anywhere.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, Darryl, it’s interesting that I’m talking to you here in Baku, Azerbaijan, because there have been scores of journalists, civil society, climate justice activists arrested in the lead-up to the COP. And for those who write about what’s happening in this authoritarian petrostate, they talk about the targeting of nonprofit groups. And that’s the beginning of going after these people who end up in jail. A number have said they’ve been brutalized in jail. Your final thoughts, Darryl?

DARRYL LI: Yeah, so, one thing that’s important for people to understand is that the Supreme Court has already said that material support for terrorism can include speech acts. It can include so-called coordinated advocacy. So it goes far beyond funding. And this is something that I think, for media organizations, in particular, should really be sort of raising the alarms in terms of the dangers of this bill for their work, in particular.

AMY GOODMAN: Darryl Li, we want to thank you so much for being with us, anthropologist, lawyer, legal scholar teaching at the University of Chicago. We’ll link to your article, “The Most Dangerous Domestic Anti-Terrorism Bill Since the PATRIOT Act.”

Coming up, we’ll look at Trump’s new pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi. Back in 20 seconds.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: This breaking news: Britain has just said it would comply, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant came to Britain, in arresting him.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 25, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/25/headlines

Kamal Adwan Hospital Director, Dr. Abu Safiya, Critically Injured by Israeli Drone Strike
Nov 25, 2024

In Gaza, Israel has repeatedly attacked the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia as Israel’s siege on northern Gaza continues. One drone strike injured the hospital’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who has repeatedly risked his life to keep the hospital open. Last month, his 8-year-old son Ibrahim died in an Israeli attack. On Saturday, Dr. Safiya spoke from a hospital bed in intensive care after the attack.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya: “They are targeting everyone. But, by God, this will not stop us from completing our humanitarian role, and we will continue to provide this service at any cost to us. We are still calling upon the world and will keep calling to the hope that there are those with consciences. I was injured in my place of work, and this is an honor for me to be injured in this place, since my blood is not better or more valuable than the rest of the martyrs. But this will not stop us, and we will continue to provide humanitarian service in a place known to the world. And we will provide it, God willing, no matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes, no matter what, even if it costs our lives.”

Twelve other healthcare workers were injured at Kamal Adwan Hospital in another Israeli attack on Friday. Israel also bombed a building in Khan Younis in southern Gaza where several families were staying. At least nine people died, including children.

Ayman Abu Assi: “The world is unfair. We are being killed, and they are not doing anything. There is no food, water, and there is a besiege. And they kill us, and everyone is watching. We only have God. May their souls rest in peace, Ahmed, Mousa and all his friends. They were friends together when they were killed.”

Heavy rains and flooding are leading to more misery in Gaza. A Civil Defense spokesperson said Sunday, “Rainfall has caused severe damage to tents housing thousands of displaced people with water flowing inside the tents and damaging luggage and mattresses.”

Meanwhile, Hamas has announced an Israeli airstrike killed a female Israeli hostage in northern Gaza. The Israeli military did not “confirm or refute” the claim.

Israel Continues Deadly Assault on Lebanon Even as News of Ceasefire Deal Emerges
Nov 25, 2024

Israel is continuing to bombard Lebanon. On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike in central Beirut killed at least 29 people and injured 67 others. Survivors said no warning was issued before the attack.

Jomana Makkie: “What can I tell you? We escaped from Beirut’s southern suburbs, Dahiyeh, and we said we’d take shelter in Beirut because it’s safe. What happened in Dahiyeh has happened to Beirut. At least in Dahiyeh, there’s warnings, and people leave. In Beirut, it happens without warning, crime after crime, children killed. It’s enough, what happened in Gaza and what’s happening here and what happened in Dahiyeh.”

Hezbollah responded by firing about 250 projectiles into Israel. This all comes as new reports are circulating that the Israeli government has “agreed in principle” to a ceasefire in Lebanon.

Israel Likely Committed War Crime with U.S. Weapons by Targeting and Killing Journalists in Lebanon
Nov 25, 2024

In other news from Lebanon, Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of committing an apparent war crime by killing three journalists and injuring four others last month. Human Rights Watch found Israel killed the Lebanese journalists using an air-dropped bomb equipped with a U.S.-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kit in what the group said was “most likely a deliberate attack.”

“Another Step in Netanyahu’s Dismantling of Democracy”: Haaretz Newspaper Slams Israeli Sanction
Nov 25, 2024

The Israeli Cabinet has unanimously voted to sanction the Haaretz newspaper, saying the paper’s editorials “have hurt the legitimacy of the state of Israel and its right to self defense.” Under the move, the government will stop advertising in the paper and cut off communications with it. Haaretz responded by saying the decision is “another step in Netanyahu’s journey to dismantle Israeli democracy.”

In other news related to Israel, authorities in the United Arab Emirates have arrested three individuals after the body of an Israeli rabbi, Zvi Kogan, was discovered Sunday, three days after he went missing.