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

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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?

***

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.

***

“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.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 26, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/26/headlines

Israel Continues Deadly Assault on Lebanon as Cabinet Votes on Ceasefire Deal
Nov 26, 2024

Israel’s military is continuing to bomb southern Lebanon and the capital Beirut, even as Israel’s security cabinet meets to discuss a ceasefire proposal with Hezbollah. On Monday, a massive explosion rocked residential buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs, following an Israeli warning on the social media site X for people to evacuate or face death. Similar Israeli attacks killed at least 31 people across Lebanon in just 24 hours. The continuing assault came as Lebanon’s foreign minister said he hoped Israeli leaders would agree to a ceasefire proposal later today. Under the deal, the Israeli military would withdraw from southern Lebanon within 60 days, while Lebanon’s army would deploy to border areas from which Hezbollah has launched rocket attacks on Israel.

In Italy, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called for more pressure on extremist members of the Israeli government who are unwilling to forge a ceasefire.

Josep Borrell: “On Lebanon, there is no excuses for a ceasefire. On the proposal agreement brokered by the U.S. and France, Israel has all security concerns. There is not an excuse for not implementing a ceasefire. Otherwise, Lebanon will fall apart.”

Josep Borrell also called on EU member states to honor the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Gaza. Borrell cited widespread support for an ICC arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin over war crimes committed in Ukraine.

Josep Borrell: “You cannot applaud when the court goes against Putin and remain silent when the court goes against Netanyahu.”

Syria’s government says Israeli airstrikes on Monday injured at least two people and damaged several bridges in Homs province near the Lebanese border. The Israeli military said it had targeted Iranian weapons smuggling routes through Syria to Hezbollah.

Israeli Attacks Kill 14 in Gaza; Bezalel Smotrich Calls for Palestinian Population to Be Halved
Nov 26, 2024

In Gaza, health officials report Israeli strikes killed at least 14 Palestinians and wounded 108 others over the latest 24-hour period. One strike hit a family home in northern Gaza’s Jabaliya. Another tore through a crowd of people gathered near a bakery in Gaza City.

The latest killings came as Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a conference of Israeli settlers that Gaza’s population of more than 2.1 million should be drastically reduced. In remarks translated by Haaretz, Smotrich said, “It is possible to create a situation where Gaza’s population in two years will be less than half its current size.” Smotrich has called for Israel to effectively annex the West Bank and Gaza Strip and has called for the establishment of large new Israeli settlements.

***

War Crimes in Lebanon: Human Rights Watch Says Israel Used U.S. Arms to Kill 3 Journalists
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 25, 2024

Since October 2023, Israel has killed over 3,700 people in Lebanon, with most of the deaths occurring over the past 10 weeks. The attacks have forced more than 1 million people to flee their homes in Lebanon, where Israel has also repeatedly targeted journalists. In a new report, Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of committing an apparent war crime by killing three journalists and injuring four others last month, when it bombed the Hasbaya Village Resort in southern Lebanon, where more than a dozen journalists had been staying. The attack killed Ghassan Najjar and Mohammad Reda, both from Al Mayadeen TV, and Wissam Kassem, a cameraman from Al-Manar TV. Human Rights Watch has revealed Israel used an airdropped bomb equipped with a U.S.-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kit. “Journalists are civilians, and deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime,” says Human Rights Watch researcher Ramzi Kaiss.

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Lebanon, where Israel has killed at least 31 people over the past 24 hours, ahead of a possible ceasefire. Israel’s security cabinet is expected to vote today on a ceasefire proposal. One Saudi news outlet has reported President Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron will announce a 60-day ceasefire in Lebanon later today. Under the deal, the Israeli military would withdraw from southern Lebanon within 60 days, while Lebanon’s army would deploy to border areas from which Hezbollah has launched rocket attacks on Israel. According to Israeli officials, the proposed deal would allow Israel to continue to operate inside Lebanon to remove what it views as threats by Hezbollah. Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib spoke earlier today in Rome.

ABDALLAH BOU HABIB: The country as a whole is paralyzed. And we wanted to finish this and to have a ceasefire. Hopefully tonight, by tonight, we will have this ceasefire.

AMY GOODMAN: Since October last year, Israel has killed over 3,750 people in Lebanon, with most of the deaths occurring over the past 10 weeks. The Israeli attacks have forced more than a million people to flee their homes in Lebanon. About 60,000 people in northern Israel have also been displaced.

Israel has also targeted journalists in Lebanon. In a new report, Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of committing an “apparent war crime” by killing three journalists and injuring four others last month. On October 25th, Israel bombed the Hasbaya Village Resort in southern Lebanon, where more than a dozen journalists had been staying. The attack killed Ghassan Najjar, a journalist and cameraman; Mohammad Reda, a satellite broadcast engineer — both from Al Mayadeen TV; and Wissam Kassem, a cameraman from Al-Manar TV. Human Rights Watch has revealed Israel used an airdropped bomb equipped with a U.S.-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kit.

To talk more about this new report and the latest in Lebanon, we’re joined in Beirut by Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Ramzi, thank you so much for being with us. Go back to that day of the killing of the three journalists and tell us what you have reconstructed, what you understand took place.

RAMZI KAISS: Hi, Amy. I couldn’t hear the question very clearly, just parts of it.

But I’m currently in Beirut. I came back yesterday evening. And just landing into Beirut, you could see plumes of smoke rising from Beirut’s southern suburbs. And just a few minutes ago, before showing up into this studio, there had been strikes on central Beirut about a kilometer to two kilometers away. And just a few minutes ago, as well, there had been 20 evacuation warnings that had been given to various buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs or Dahiyeh.

You might know that we’re — currently ceasefire negotiations are ongoing, the results of which are still not clear. There’s a sense of cautious optimism from U.S. officials and Lebanese officials. But as things stand now, and especially in the past few days, there has been dozens of strikes across Beirut, across the south, across the entire country. And so we’ll have to wait and see what happens or unfolds.

But the situation is very much one of war still, and we’re currently looking at, you know, over 3,700 people killed in Lebanon. This includes over 240 children. It includes over 222 health workers, over 700 women, and more than 40 hospitals damaged. And what the World Health Organization says is over 10% of Lebanese hospitals have been either ceased to operate or are partially functioning, and where more than 47% of attacks on healthcare workers have been fatal.

AMY GOODMAN: Ramzi, and if you could go back in time and tell us — reconstruct for us the day that the three journalists were killed?

RAMZI KAISS: Yeah, so, our investigation looked into the attack that took place on October 25, 2024. And what we found, that there was an Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese town of Hasbaya on a resort where at least — or, more than a dozen journalists had been staying, in the early hours of the day. It killed at least three journalists and injured at least four others. We found that this attack was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime.

We also found that the attack was conducted using an airdropped bomb with a U.S.-produced guidance kit, a Joint Direct Attack Munition, or a JDAM. Human Rights Watch researchers had visited the site of the attack. They had identified the remnants that were used as part of the attack. This included a remnant that was made by the U.S. company Boeing, in addition to another remnant that bore a numerical code that identified it as being produced by the U.S. company Woodard.

As part of our investigation, we spoke to at least eight people, including three journalists who were injured in the attack, including the owner of the resort where the journalists had stayed. We found that there was no military activity that was happening in the immediate area of the attack. There were no military forces or fighting. The journalists had been staying at the site since at least October 1, so at least 25 days before the strike happened. And they had made routine and repeated trips daily in the town of Hasbaya to a nearby hilltop where they were doing live reports. The hotel owner had told Human Rights Watch that the journalists had left and come back approximately the same time every day. Most of the cars that were present at the site were marked by “press” or “TV.”

All of this together leads us to the conclusion that the Israeli military knew or should have known that the site, the targeted building that was being struck, was one that contained journalists. Journalists are civilians, and deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime. The Israeli military initially, after the strike, said that they struck a building where terrorists were operating. But a few hours later, they said that the incident is under review.

And this is not the first time that we have documented the unlawful killing of journalists. We had previously documented an apparently deliberate attack on October 13th that killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah. It is also not the first time that we are documenting the use of U.S. weapons unlawfully in Lebanon. We had previously documented the unlawful use of U.S. weapons to kill aid workers — that killed aid workers earlier this year. And once again, we’re seeing them being used unlawfully, and this time journalists were the ones that paid the price.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ramzi, about the use of U.S. weapons, what are you calling for specifically of the U.S. government?

RAMZI KAISS: Yes. We’re calling on the U.S. government to suspend arms sales and military assistance to Israel, given that these weapons are being used unlawfully. We’re also calling on U.S. companies to end arms sales, recall already-sold weapons wherever possible, and stop all support services for already-sold weapons. In this case, the U.S. weapons were — in this case, U.S. weapons were used unlawfully in a deliberate attack on civilians, for which U.S. officials may be complicit — may be complicit in. And so, there’s a responsibility that the U.S. has under its own laws, but also under international law, to suspend arms sales where there’s a real threat, a real risk that these weapons will be used unlawfully.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We’ve also seen in recent days the International Criminal Court issue arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes in Gaza. Does the court have jurisdiction over crimes committed in Lebanon?

RAMZI KAISS: The court does not. And, in fact, one of the main calls that Human Rights Watch has been making is on the Lebanese government to provide the International Criminal Court with the jurisdiction to investigate crimes within its jurisdiction on Lebanese territory, regardless of who the perpetrator of these violations are. Lebanon is not a signatory to the Rome Statute but may provide the court with jurisdiction to investigate such crimes within its jurisdiction. We have previously made this call in relation to other investigations that Human Rights Watch has conducted. In April of this year, the government took this decision, instructing the Foreign Ministry to provide the court with jurisdiction under Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute, but the Foreign Ministry never acted on the decision, and the government eventually reversed that decision, unfortunately.

So, currently, there needs to be a pathway for accountability in Lebanon. This is where the Lebanese government has a really significant role to play, that it has not yet. We’re also calling on the Lebanese government to convene or call for the convening of a special session at the U.N. Human Rights Council in order to establish an international fact-finding mechanism that can investigate, document, collect evidence and report on its findings in relation to violations of the laws of war in connection to the hostilities between — in Lebanon and northern Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: Ramzi Kaiss, if you can talk about this possibility of a ceasefire and what exactly it would mean — you yourself live in Beirut — and how people would be affected? Does it mean there will be a mass flow of people back to their homes? What does all of this present? And how hopeful are the people of Lebanon right now?

RAMZI KAISS: Yeah, as I mentioned, there is some cautious optimism by U.S. officials, by Lebanese officials about the possibility of a ceasefire. But as we speak, strikes are currently ongoing in Lebanon. They are ongoing in the southern suburbs of Beirut, but, as well, in central Beirut, where about, you know, a few minutes ago, there had been a strike between one to two kilometers away. There have been ongoing, repeated evacuation warnings for buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut, and strikes are continuing to be reported in south Lebanon and across the country.

Whether a ceasefire or not takes place, the fact remains that in Lebanon more than 3,700 people have been killed, more than 240 children, more than 220 health and rescue workers, more than 700 women. Entire border villages have been detonated, have been destroyed and reduced to rubble. And there has been significant damages to the country’s health sector, with the large number of medical workers killed, the hospitals that have been damaged.

It’s not clear that many people in the south can return to their homes, given the vast damage that has happened, particularly in the border villages, where we have seen controlled demolitions, in some cases, of entire villages, in some cases, of large areas of those villages. We were speaking today with the mayor of one of the border villages, and he was expressing to us the anxiety that is had with returning to those villages because of what is not known, what is not known in terms of what is left of the villages, whether they’re going to be able to recognize it, but also in terms of what weapon remnants remain. These are villages that have also been struck by white phosphorus. They’ve been struck by high-explosive weapons.

And so, we have yet to see what will unfold with the ongoing ceasefire negotiations. But as things stand and given the high toll of people killed, of civilians killed, there also needs to be accountability for violations of the laws of war that have taken, that we have documented and that others have documented. This includes a deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate attacks on civilians, widespread use of white phosphorus, the unlawful attacks on civilian institutions, the use of booby-trapped devices. We’ll have to wait and see what comes about with regards to the ceasefire negotiations, but as things stand, strikes are ongoing on the country.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ramzi, what do you make of this decision of the Israeli government, even as they are entertaining the possibility of a ceasefire, ramping up these attacks in the past few days? What’s your sense of what their goal is here?

RAMZI KAISS: Yeah, it’s not clear, right? I mean, there has been a serious escalation in the scale of attacks, particularly with regards to strikes on the southern suburbs. We’ve seen dozens of strikes on the southern suburbs. There’s also been — you know, especially today with the evacuation warnings being issued to various buildings in the country — in some cases, strikes happening without evacuation warnings. To me, it’s not clear what all this message is. Hezbollah has also increased the number of rockets it’s fired into Israel, with yesterday firing over 300 rockets into various areas of north and central Israel. It’s not clear what this all means and whether the ceasefire will in fact take place. We’ll have to wait and see. But, you know, regardless, civilians are, unfortunately, paying the price, as more homes are being destroyed, as more buildings are being leveled, as more strikes are ongoing across the country.

AMY GOODMAN: Ramzi Kaiss, we want to thank you for being with us, Lebanon researcher for Human Rights Watch, speaking to us from Beirut, the latest report from Beirut headlined “US Arms Used in Israeli Strike on Journalists: Three Killed, Four Injured in an Apparent War Crime.”We’ll link to it.

***

Amnesty: Before Trump’s Term, Biden Must Change Policies on Asylum, Gitmo, Death Penalty, Gaza & More
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 26, 2024

We continue our conversation with Amnesty International USA executive director Paul O’Brien, who has written to President Joe Biden urging him for a number of policy changes before he leaves office in January. O’Brien’s letter calls for Biden to stop arms transfers to Israel and use U.S. leverage to end the war in Gaza; transfer detainees out of the Guantánamo Bay military prison and close the facility; commute the death sentences of people on federal and military death row; and restore asylum rights, which the administration severely curtailed this year. “He could do so much more,” O’Brien says of Biden’s last weeks in office.

Transcript

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

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Paul, I wanted to ask you about other things you mentioned in your letter, the issue of those folks on death row for federal crimes. Under President Trump’s first term, he oversaw the execution of 13 death row inmates, executing the most federal death row inmates of any president in more than a century. Talk about who is awaiting a death sentence now.

PAUL O’BRIEN: Thanks, yes, and those 13 executions happened in President Trump’s last six months. That’s what may be coming if we don’t see President Biden taking action now.

So, right now there are 44 men still on federal and military death row. One of those cases, Billie Allen, he was 19 when he [was sentenced for] a crime in 1998. There were deep flaws in his case, no DNA evidence, clear racism in his case. And yet, at the age of 47, more than half his life, he’s still there.

So, what we are asking President Biden to do is something he said he was going to work on in 2020. He said he was going to abolish the death penalty. All he’s done is put a moratorium during his administration. But that won’t mean anything once his administration ends. President Trump can simply end that moratorium and return to what he was doing at the end of his administration. So we need President Biden to commute those 44 sentences now.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Also, President-elect Trump has vowed to reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy. In what ways could President Biden help restore asylum at the border before his term ends?

PAUL O’BRIEN: Well, this is probably the greatest human rights crisis that is coming at us now, because President Trump has made clear he is going to immediately start engaging in mass deportations. President Biden, again, promised a human rights approach to immigration, and he has singularly failed to do so. In June, he passed an executive order which effectively shut down the U.S.-Mexico border and created this numerical cap on the number of people who can seek asylum.

There are many very specific things that he can do. During his administration, he set up the CBP One app. This is an app that people on the border can use to apply. I went down there and met with women, often mothers of young children, living in tents, waiting for this app to tell them when they could legally apply to enter the United States. And they were waiting month after month with no news. What he could do immediately is speed up the CBP One app process to get more people to legally apply for asylum, particularly for vulnerable populations.

But he could do so much more, as well, in these last couple of months. He could immediately stop expanding detention centers. He could shut down problematic detention centers and end the contracts of the companies that are running them. He could order the release of vulnerable populations who are in detention. He still has time to surge resources to address some of the backlogs that are now being experienced. And everything that he doesn’t do is going to make it easier for President Trump to fulfill his promises to initiate the biggest deportation in history.

AMY GOODMAN: Paul O’Brien, you’ve also called for the closing of Guantánamo. Explain.

PAUL O’BRIEN: It’s time, Amy. There are still 30 men there. President Biden has a window of opportunity right now. He can transfer all the detainees that are still there, already cleared for release, not charged with crimes, to countries where their human rights will be respected. He can halt unfair military commissions and help to resolve the pending cases that are there. All this can be done if he commits to closing Guantánamo once and for all during his last days in office. It can be done.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Gaza. Paul O’Brien, you’re executive director of Amnesty International USA. You’ve said, “Change course on Gaza: Stop arms transfers to the government of Israel in order to protect civilians and ensure U.S. weapons are not being used in violation of international law.” Senator Bernie Sanders, in the largest collection of U.S. senators, several dozen U.S. senators, they voted to stop arming Israel, but that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t the majority of the Senate, Paul.

PAUL O’BRIEN: That’s right. And this is what the United States must do now, and President Biden must show more leadership on this. It’s been weak rhetoric and weaker action since October 7 of 2023. He needs to send a clear message that the United States is no longer going to arm the killing of civilians in indiscriminate attacks, that we have documented time and again over the last more than a year now. He needs to use his remaining leverage to get a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. He needs to open up humanitarian access. And these will be the basis, we believe, and he needs to call for, the safe return of those remaining hostages. What is happening now to the Palestinian people has happened on President Biden’s watch, and he needs to take action to protect innocent lives in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Paul O’Brien, executive director of Amnesty International USA. We’ll link to your letter urging President Biden to “change course on critical human rights before end of term.” We’ll link to it at democracynow.org.

When we come back, we look at a new short documentary about the execution of a Texas death row prisoner. It’s called I Am Ready, Warden. Stay with us.

[break]

[admin]

Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 27, 2024

Israel Halts Assault on Lebanon as Ceasefire Takes Effect
Nov 27, 2024

A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has begun. Under the deal, Israel will withdraw troops from south Lebanon over a 60-day period, while Hezbollah will move its fighters and weapons to north of the Litani River. Lebanese troops plan to deploy to the south, which has been largely destroyed by 14 months of Israeli attacks.

In a joint statement, the U.S. and France said, “This announcement will create the conditions to restore lasting calm and allow residents in both countries to return safely to their homes.” Thousands of displaced residents of south Lebanon are returning home to find scenes of destruction. On Tuesday, Israel kept bombing the region, as well as Beirut, until just before the ceasefire took effect. Over the past 14 months, Israel has killed over 3,800 people in Lebanon and displaced more than a million. Israel has not yet urged residents displaced in northern Israel to return to their homes. Many question how long the cessation of hostilities will last. On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to keep attacking Lebanon if Hezbollah violates the deal.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “The length of the ceasefire depends on what happens in Lebanon. In full cooperation with the United States, we retain complete military freedom of action. Should Hezbollah violate the agreement or attempt to rearm, we will strike.”

2024 Becomes Deadliest Year for Humanitarian Aid Workers Due to Israel’s Assault on Gaza
Nov 27, 2024

In Gaza, Israel struck a school in Gaza City, killing at least 13 displaced Palestinians who had sought shelter in the Zeitoun neighborhood. Dozens were wounded in the attack. An Israeli airstrike on a home in the same neighborhood killed another seven people. Meanwhile, the United Nations reports this year is already the deadliest on record for aid workers, largely due to Israel’s war on Gaza. This is Lisa Doughten of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Lisa Doughten: “Since 7 October, more than 330 humanitarian workers have lost their lives. Most of them were UNRWA staff. Some were with their families in their homes. Others were at work in UNRWA offices and shelters. These numbers signal a disturbing lack of regard for the lives of civilians and humanitarian and U.N. workers. There’s no situation in recent history that compares.”

***

“Fragile” Ceasefire Begins in Lebanon After Israel Launched More Devastating Attacks
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 27, 2024

Nearly two months after Israel invaded Lebanon, a “fragile” ceasefire has been reached between Israel and Lebanon. Under the deal, Israel says it will withdraw troops from Lebanon’s south over a 60-day period, though Lebanese writer Lina Mounzer says “this is already being contradicted by the behavior and the directives of the Israeli army,” which continued to bomb Lebanese civilian areas through the waning hours of official hostilities. Thousands of displaced Lebanese are now returning to southern Lebanon, hoping that their homes are still standing. Many are mourning the nearly 3,800 Lebanese killed by U.S. weapons and Israeli warfare. While there is “relief” in the country, “people are finding it very difficult to celebrate,” says Mounzer. “The grieving process begins now.”

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: Thousands of displaced residents of southern Lebanon are returning home to find scenes of devastation after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect earlier today. In the hours before the cessation of hostilities, Israel repeatedly struck areas of Beirut and southern Lebanon. Under the deal, Israel will withdraw troops from Lebanon’s south over a 60-day period, while Hezbollah will move its fighters and weapons to north of the Litani River. Lebanese troops will redeploy to the south.

In a joint statement, the U.S. and France said, quote, “This announcement will create the conditions to restore lasting calm and allow residents in both countries to return safely to their homes,” unquote.

Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati spoke earlier today.

PRIME MINISTER NAJIB MIKATI: [translated] Truly, it is a new day, concluding one of the most difficult stages of suffering that the Lebanese have experienced in their modern history. It actually was the most harsh, as well as hopeful. …

On this day, the 1,000-mile journey begins to rebuild what was destroyed and to complete strengthening the role of legitimate institutions, at the forefront of which is the army, on which we place great hopes to extend the state’s authority over the whole nation and strengthen its presence in the wounded south.

AMY GOODMAN: Over the past 14 months, Israel has killed over 3,800 people in Lebanon and displaced more than a million. Israel also killed the entire leadership of Hezbollah, including Hassan Nasrallah and two of his successors. Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel forced tens of thousands of Israelis to flee their homes.

We’re joined now by two guests. In Tel Aviv, in Israel, we’re joined by Gideon Levy, award-winning Israeli journalist, columnist for the newspaper Haaretz, where he’s a member of its editorial board. His latest book, The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe. And in Montreal, Canada, Lina Mounzer is with us, Lebanese writer, senior editor of the arts and literature magazine The Markaz Review.

You know, I remember just after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Lina, you were in our studio here, and you wrote about what it was like to see an attack on your country from afar, what it meant. Talk about the significance of the ceasefire now.

LINA MOUNZER: I mean, of course, you know, it’s a welcome relief for the entire country to have this ceasefire. At the same time, it leaves so much devastation behind, you know. And you spoke about in the last hours the Israelis’ continued bombing up until. I’m not sure that that conveys the level of barbarism. I mean, they were essentially carpet-bombing the south and Beirut and hitting all kinds of targets, and, you know, absolutely indiscriminately.

You know, Israelis always talk about targeted attacks, and people buy this. And it’s reported even that, you know, when innocent civilians die, it’s usually as a collateral damage to these targeted attacks. And, of course, there have been targeted assassinations. We’ve seen them. Already the idea that civilians are acceptable collateral damage to this kind of targeted assassination is already just a completely outrageous idea.

But, you know, yesterday, in the final hours of the ceasefire, I had a dear friend who lost his elderly parents. There was absolutely no warning. And they were targeted directly in their apartment, and based on, essentially, I suppose, erroneous AI information. And this is something that has happened to countless families over the course of these last 14 months. It was especially difficult. You know, I am in Montreal, but I was speaking to friends throughout the day. I was hearing the airstrikes. People were terrified. People were running on foot. There was absolutely no safe place to hide. It was truly like, you know, 24 hours that were just condensed horror. And it is absolute terrorism. It is barbarism. I don’t have any other words to describe it.

And so, there’s a lot of relief now as we go into the ceasefire. At the same time, there’s a lot of apprehension, because we’re not sure how long it’s going to last. It feels like a very fragile truce, essentially. And also, you know, people are coming back not just to devastated homes and devastated lands in the south, but they’re picking up the pieces of their lost families. There are a lot of people now who are going to be able to have funerals that they weren’t able to have, memorials that they weren’t able to have. You know, the grieving process begins now, not just for the country at large, but specifically for so many families who have lost their loved ones, including up until these final 24 hours. So, yes, there is relief, but there’s also a lot of apprehension and just an incredible amount of grief. Incredible amount of grief, you know? People are finding it very difficult to celebrate. A lot of people that I spoke to just said, “I have no energy to do anything today but just sit and cry,” you know? So, it is, again, very, very mixed feelings around this, but, of course, a lot of relief just at least that the killing is over, because it was just — it was just barbaric.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Lina, what do we know about the terms of this ceasefire or truce? And we’ve heard from Netanyahu and Biden, but Hezbollah has been silent until now. What do we know about their perspective?

LINA MOUNZER: I think Hezbollah spoke about it earlier. They did not release statements after the U.S. and Israel released their statements. They had kind of — they had spoken earlier just in agreeing, essentially, to this truce already, so I think that that was the statement that they gave, you know? That spoke on their behalf, essentially.

And what we know about — you know, I’ve heard so many different things about the terms of this truce, and I’ve read many different things. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure, because there’s so many contradictory things. But from what I read, yes, there is this idea that the Israelis are now going to withdraw, over 60 days, their troops. I mean, already they’ve been — people are going, flocking to the south to just see the destruction. And the Israelis have been threatening, you know, since yesterday that it’s not safe to return to the south: “You’re not allowed to return until we tell you to return.” So, already, you know, this idea that there’s going to be a restoration of some kind of Lebanese sovereignty over the land, this is already being contradicted by the behavior and the directives of the Israeli army.

And, you know, essentially, also what I’ve read and what I’ve seen is that Israel has the right to violate Lebanese sovereignty at any moment, should they decide that there is excuse enough. And, you know, when Israel acts with the impunity that we’ve seen it act with, and we know that it has the absolute, full backing of the United States, it’s also very difficult to feel safe as a Lebanese person or to feel that the terms of this truce are in any way safe, you know, or in any way provide some sense of security, because you know that at any point they can use any excuse that they like, and it will be accepted. You know, it will be accepted. There’s nothing that we can say on the world stage that is going to prevent violation, further violation, further carpet bombing.

So, there really is a sense of being completely exposed before the world and having no political recourse, essentially, being at the mercy of these larger powers, which, you know, they have demonstrated again and again their brutality over the last 14 months, not just in Lebanon, but much more largely in Gaza.

***

“Israel Wants Wars”: Gideon Levy on Lebanon Ceasefire, Gaza & Gov’t Sanctions Against Haaretz
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 27, 2024

We’re joined by Israeli journalist Gideon Levy as we continue our conversation on the Israeli-Lebanon ceasefire. We take a look at the mood within Israel, where Levy characterizes the Israeli public as “sour” about what is seen as a premature deal. “They would like to see more blood, more destruction in Lebanon,” says Levy. “Israel wants wars.” This retributive stance is still being felt in Lebanon, adds writer Lina Mounzer, who says Lebanese people are “very terrified of the day after” and do not feel that they have been awarded peace, despite the terms of the ceasefire. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has unanimously voted to sanction the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, claiming that its editorials “have hurt the legitimacy of the state of Israel and its right to self defense.” Haaretz has criticized the move, which comes just months after Israel banned the international media outlet Al Jazeera, as anti-democratic. Levy, a columnist for Haaretz, says the sanction makes it clear that Israelis cannot take the freedom of speech “for granted anymore.”

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Gideon Levy into this conversation in Tel Aviv. Gideon, if you could start off by responding to — there was a latest text from the Israeli negotiator Gershon Baskin, who wrote, “The ceasefire agreement which went into effect today is good news. The agreement is between Israel and the Government of Lebanon, not between Israel and Hezbollah. It seems that Hezbollah has been weakened enough,” it says — it seems that it’s been weakened enough that — let’s see if I can find this — that it’s “been weakened enough to end the war in Lebanon before the war in Gaza has ended.” Your response to this? And also, the response in Israel right now to — I think was about 4 a.m. that the ceasefire or the cessation of hostilities went into effect.

GIDEON LEVY: Yes, I wish I could tell you that Israel is happy about the ceasefire. I wish I could tell you that there is even a relief in Israel. But, unfortunately, in Israel, everyone — almost everyone is critical about this agreement. I guess many Israelis did not have enough — for sure, the right-wingers, for sure, most of the inhabitants of the north. They would like to see more blood and more destruction in Lebanon. And therefore, they are so sour today. And the other camp, as usual, is saying nothing. And even one of the opposition leaders, Benny Gantz, even criticized the ceasefire. He thought the war should go on. In other words, Israel wants wars. That’s the inevitable conclusion when you see reactions to a ceasefire which puts an end, at least partial end, to suffer in both sides, suffer which didn’t lead to anywhere. Israel didn’t achieve anything in this war. It will not achieve anything in the war in Gaza, 10 times or 1,000 times worse.

And here I must emphasize that nobody should have any illusions. Netanyahu has no intention to put an end to the war in Gaza. What happened in Lebanon will not happen soon in Gaza, because if he goes for an agreement in Gaza, he loses his government, and that’s his top priority. And Israel, at least part of Israel, has very serious intentions to resettle Gaza. Don’t underestimate those seculars. The sky is the limit for them. They just wait for Donald Trump to get into the office. And I will not be surprised if we’ll very soon, later, see settlements in Gaza.

In other words, nothing was solved yesterday except of the punishment of Lebanon, which came to its end, but also this is for a very limited time. I mean, when the prime minister speaks about the agreement, and all he has to say are threats about Lebanon and Hezbollah, that if any violation will take place, immediately Israel will attack again, so we are going from one war to the other and from one violent confrontation to the other, without even suggesting any other alternative. Nothing. Nobody speaks about diplomacy. Nobody speaks about touching the core issues, both in the north and in the south. Our friend from Lebanon, our Lebanese friend, just mentioned violations of the sovereignty of Lebanon. Anyone speaks about the fact that Israel, I’m sure, will continue to fly over Lebanon for intelligence, this will be kosher. This will be legitimate. And only the violation of Israeli sovereignty is never forgiven.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Gideon Levy, I wanted to ask you — in terms of the toll on the IDF now, over 800 soldiers have been killed in Gaza, about — the estimates are about 73 or 74 in Lebanon. And those are the only ones — the ones publicly acknowledged. What is the impact on Israel of continuing this war, on the economy of Israel, on migration, on tourism and the other aspects of economic life in Israel?

GIDEON LEVY: The price is enormous, but somehow Israelis accept it. This is this unbelievable phenomena in which people are ready to sacrifice their dearest ones — I mean, who is more than your son? — without seeing a real purpose. I mean, they all tell themselves that they were killed, sacrificed for the defense of Israel. But what kind of defense is it if you bomb a refugee camp in Gaza? What does Israel benefit out of it?

The economical crisis is one thing. I mean, you mentioned tourism. There is no tourism whatsoever. There are hardly any international airlines who fly in here. But there is a much heavier price: namely, turning Israel into a pariah state. [inaudible] very well from the United States, but everywhere else. It’s not only that Netanyahu and Gallant are now wanted all over the world. Every Israeli will feel it when he will go abroad now. Every Israelis everywhere will feel at least discomfort in the presenting himself, identifying himself as an Israeli. And still Israelis are ready to take this, only because they were told that we have to live from war to war, to live on our sword, and there is no other option, which is a total lie, because Israel never tried an alternative. But brainwash like brainwash.

AMY GOODMAN: Gideon, I don’t know if you can respond to this, but the Israeli Cabinet has unanimously voted to sanction your paper, Haaretz, saying its editorials, quote, “have hurt the legitimacy of the state of Israel and its right to self defense,” unquote. Under the move, the Israeli government will stop advertising in the paper, cut off all communications with Haaretz. Haaretz has slammed the decision, saying it, quote, “[is] another step in Netanyahu’s journey to dismantle Israeli democracy. Like his friends Putin, Erdoğan, and Orbán, Netanyahu is trying to silence a critical, independent newspaper. Haaretz will not balk and will not morph into a government pamphlet that publishes messages approved by the government and its leader,” unquote. This all comes six months after Israel banned Al Jazeera from operating in Israel and as the president-elect here in the United States, Donald Trump, threatens to go after major U.S. broadcasters and publications, calling the media the enemy of the people. Gideon, you serve on the editorial board of Haaretz. I know you can’t speak specifically about the sanctions against your paper, but can you talk broader about these threats to the press?

GIDEON LEVY: Sure. It’s not that I can’t, but we decided that this message that you just read now is our reaction as a newspaper. But I think that those sanctions tell much more about Israel and Israel’s government than about Haaretz.

And here, I think especially in the United States, who always speaks about the shared values, about the only democracy in the Middle East — so, first of all, it’s questionable if a state which rules in such a brutal way, in 5 million people, can it all be defined as a democracy? But let’s put the occupation and the apartheid aside. Even for us Jews in Israel, who used to live in a quite liberal democracy, things are changing right now, from day to day, from week to week. Legislations against freedom of speech, against the legal system, against any kind of human rights, against any minority are being ruled, and nobody says a word, and nobody can stop it, at least as long as this government is there.

So, what I would like to stress here, Amy, is that you have to also look at what’s going on within the Jewish Israel. It is changing while we are speaking. And the war in Gaza and Lebanon has a lot to do with it, because those two wars, with all the lack of legitimacy and brutality, also influence the domestic structure and the domestic system of Israel. And you see the outcome. I don’t take my freedom of speech — and I have freedom of speech, total freedom of speech, but I can’t take it for granted anymore.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us. And I want to give Lina Mounzer — just we have 30 seconds — but the last word on what you expect to happen from here, as you watch what has happened to your country, at least for this moment, from afar.

LINA MOUNZER: Look, we’re very terrified of the day after. Mr. Levy talked about the effect on internal Israeli politics. We’re also very afraid. Lebanon is a very fragile, you know, pluralist state. But at the same time, the Israelis also have known very much how to work on that, so they’ve been specifically bombing where the refugees have gathered. We’ve seen over the last few months that people have been turning away refugees. These refugees are largely Shia from south Lebanon and from the southern suburbs of Beirut. So, there’s been a lot of hostility that has incurred. So we’re really, really afraid of the day after in terms of, you know, the internal stability of the country and what’s going to happen to it.

And I just want to say, you know, to go back to this idea of collateral damage, this is something that the United States normalized in our region, in Iraq, the way to punish an entire country in order to change some sort of internal mechanism, which then devastates the country, because, of course, they have no idea what they’re doing, and this is not how you bring about change. So, we’re all also very afraid of now what’s going to happen to Lebanon internally as we go on and as the pieces are picked up, and a lot of anger and recrimination is going to start coming to the surface among the population. So, you know, as we say in Arabic, Allah yostor. Like, we have no idea what’s going to happen.

AMY GOODMAN: Lina Mounzer, we want to thank you for being with us, Lebanese writer and senior editor of the arts and literature magazine The Markaz, and Gideon Levy, award-winning Israeli journalist at Haaretz, author of the new book The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe. We thank you so much both for joining us, from Montreal and from Tel Aviv.

[admin]

“The Message”: Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Power of Writing & Visiting Senegal, South Carolina, Palestine
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 28, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/28 ... transcript

We spend the hour with the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose book The Message features three essays tackling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, book bans and academic freedom, and the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. The Message is written as a letter to Coates’s students at Howard University, where he is the Sterling Brown Endowed Chair in the English department. As part of the research for the book, Coates traveled to Senegal and visited the island of Gorée, often the last stop for captured Africans before they were shipped to the Americas as enslaved people. Coates also visited a schoolteacher in South Carolina who faced censorship for teaching Coates’s previous book, Between the World and Me, an experience he says showed him the power of organizing. “That, too, is about the power of stories. That, too, is about the power of narratives, the questions we ask and the questions we don’t,” Coates says of the community’s response.

Transcript

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

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

In this holiday special, we spend the rest of the hour with the acclaimed writer and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of the new book The Message, which is based in part on a trip he took last year to the occupied West Bank and Israel. Coates compares Israel’s apartheid system to that of Jim Crow here in the United States. He writes, “It occurred to me that there was still one place on the planet — under American patronage — that resembled the world that my parents were born into,” unquote.

In his book, Coates also writes about traveling to Senegal, where he visited the slave trade memorial at Gorée Island, and going to South Carolina, where school officials tried to ban his book Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award in 2015.

His current book, The Message, is written as a letter to his students at Howard University, where Ta-Nehisi Coates is the Sterling Brown Endowed Chair in the English department. The Message is Coates’ first collection of nonfiction since his 2017 book, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy.

Democracy Now!’s Juan González and I spoke to Ta-Nehisi Coates in October. I began by asking him about where the book begins: Senegal. I asked him to talk about a journey he took there with great trepidation.

TA-NEHISI COATES: As you said, you know, we’ll spend a lot of time talking about the Occupied Territories and Israel and the West Bank, but it’s good to start here because the two parts are kind of paired to each other.

African Americans are a group of people who have lived under the weight of an artifice or creation, a kind of mythology of what Africa is in our minds. All of the myths of racism, all the justifications for enslavement, all the justifications for Jim Crow, at the end of the day, they have their origins in these constructions of Africa as this savage place, the idea that, you know, having been brought here, we’re better off — very, very typical of, you know, colonizing and conquering a movement. And one of the things we’ve done to push back is create our own narratives, our own journeys, our own ideas of what Africa is. My very name comes out of that, which I’m very uncomfortable with, as I talk about in the book. And —

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about it.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Oh boy. Oh Lord. I wrote it. I should be very comfortable talking about it. You know, I was born in 1975, and that was a period in time coming out of Black Power, coming out of “Black is beautiful,” like really discovering this idea that our sense of beauty, our nose, our lips, our names, our heritage, we had the right to take control over that, including our history.

And so, my name is an ancient Egyptian name that refers to the ancient kingdom of Nubia. The notion was that, put very, very crudely, that if the West had its kings and queens, if it had its great monuments, if it had its great ideas, so did we. And part of growing older, part of, you know — and I actually talk about this in Between the World and Me — part of becoming a writer, actually, is, like, our job is to be skeptical of clean stories. And I learned that very, very early on. And The Message is kind of a continuation of that.

Of course, the ultimate, I would say, I guess, climax in that journey is going to see the continent itself and moving past myth, moving past the idea of constructed narratives, even when they’re liberatory, even when they’re emancipationist, to see the people themselves. And that is what took me to Dakar. And that is what I think took so long for me to go to Dakar.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in terms of what most surprised you in the trip, could you talk about that?

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah. What most surprised me is a thing that will not surprise any African American watching this interview. It was my deep sorrow. It was my deep, deep, deep sorrow. And I think, like, much of what I just said in answer to Amy’s question, I had already intellectualized before I went, and so I was already thinking about this. But thinking about something and being confronted with it is a totally, totally different thing. As the great Mike Tyson said, everybody’s got a plan until they got punched. And as soon as that plane started descending out of the clouds over Dakar and I saw the buildings rising up, I was being punched. It is one thing to think about the Middle Passage, to think about your ancestors theoretically. It is quite another to literally sit on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and look out and understand that this was, if even only symbolically, last stop.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And when you went to Gorée, you decided that you did not want to have any of the tour guides —

TA-NEHISI COATES: No.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — that you wanted to wander around on your own.

TA-NEHISI COATES: No, but it —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Talk about that experience.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Juan, by then, it was like day three. And so, I understood that as much as I thought I was going to see the continent, I was actually going to see some sort of departed version of myself, you know, from hundreds of years ago. I was walking with ghosts the whole time. And I just — I didn’t want to be talked to.

My family is from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, not too far from Ocean City, for anybody who knows that geography. It’s like right on the Atlantic Ocean. And so, to get back to Senegal, to get to Dakar, which is itself right on the tip of the continent, you know, I would look out, and I would have these moments, and I would say, “My god!” You know what I mean? “There’s part of me all the way on the other side, and then there’s part of me that’s here.”

And so, again, Gorée is a place that has a lot of story and a lot of myth around it. And I had read about that. I thought I was fully prepared. But I’m going to tell you, brother, you get on that boat, and that boat pulls off, and you think about all your ancestors. And it was 7 a.m. in the morning, and I was alone on that boat. And it is a very, very different experience.

AMY GOODMAN: And back to your name, Ta-Nehisi?

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And also, which goes to your parents, as well —

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — and their influence on you. Your dad, a former Black Panther, ran a publishing — a publishing press right in your house.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, yeah, no. And I think, like, what they were really trying to do — and this actually goes to the core of what the book is about. How do you tell your own story? How do you free yourself from a history, from novels, from film, from television, an entire architecture that is designed to tell you that you are exactly where you belong because of who you are, because of what you are, either because of your genes, because God said, you know, you belong there? How do you construct something different?

And one of the things I’m trying to confront in the book is, I think perhaps step one is almost to make a mirror image of the people that have put you in that situation: “Well, you say we’re this. We’re actually that.” But I think one of the most difficult things is to free yourself entirely of that structure and to construct your own morality, your own stories, your own ideas, that don’t necessarily depend on those who have put you in the situation to begin with.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the structure of your book is addressed to your students at Howard. The decision to choose that form for your book?

TA-NEHISI COATES: You know, I was, to be honest with you — I have not said this anywhere — I was very worried about that, because I had done that. Like, I had written this letter in Between the World and Me, and I thought people were going to say, “Oh my god, he’s going to do this again. What? Between the World and Me again?”

But the fact of the matter is, I am always trying to achieve intimacy with the reader. That’s the primary job. You know, I would tell my students all the time, “Look, you are dealing with readers who could be doing anything else. They could be on their smartphones. They could be playing video games. They could be watching movies. They could be watching TV, be somewhere making love. They could be doing anything but reading you. And so, you have a responsibility to make them feel a sense of intimacy and immediacy.” And I was lucky in the sense that, you know, these were very, very real conversations that I had had with my students, so I had something to pull from, and also the fact of just the letter form allowed me to do that and allows me to get a kind of intimacy with my reader.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about George Orwell, “Why I Write,” and —

TA-NEHISI COATES: That’s a great essay.

AMY GOODMAN: — connecting politics and language in the promise you made to your students at Howard. Between the World and Me was written to your son Samori.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: This, to the students.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah. So, we usually start, actually, with “Politics and the English Language.” That’s the first essay that I have them read, you know, just to think about language as a political thing. You know, we live in this world where I feel that oftentimes we are taught — not that everybody subscribes to this — that art lives over here and politics lives over here, and that politics itself is actually very, very limited, that it happens every two or four years — it’s in the voting booth, it’s who you decide to vote for, it’s what issues you decide to activate on. But one of the arguments that I make in The Message is that there’s an entire architecture outside of the world of mean politics that determines how politicians actually talk, the choices they give, you know, etc. Why does Kamala Harris feel the need, for instance, to say that she has a gun? What is that actually based on? And I would say it is based on archetypes of femininity. I would say it’s based on archetypes of race, archetypes of the cowboy. And where do those archetypes come from? They come from our art. They come from our literature. They come from our film, our TVs, our commercials. And at their base, they ultimately come from writing, because somebody has to write those ultimately. And in that world, things that seem separated from politics never really are. And so, I wanted to start that book — or, this book, The Message, with that Orwell quote, because that’s like one of the things he kind of is obsessing with in that essay.

And at the same time, there’s this beautiful tension that I often feel, which is, in a different world, you know, he would just write beautiful stories. He would just play with language for the hell of playing with language. But he doesn’t live in that world. And I don’t feel that my students live in that world. They live in a world of, as we’ll talk about, genocide, apartheid, segregation, global warming, you know, Category 5 hurricanes, flood on one coast, fire on the other. These are immediate issues. And I don’t believe that they, as writers, we, as writers, have the luxury of sort of sitting back in our salons and in our living rooms simply constructing beautiful language for the hell of constructing beautiful language. It has to be engaged with something.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ta-Nehisi, from Senegal, you take us to Columbia, South Carolina. Why that choice?

TA-NEHISI COATES: Well, I was writing this in a time where this wave of book bannings was happening. And I always wanted to write about that, but I felt that — I was worried about making the writer the center of the book banning, because even though the work is directed at the writer, the writer is actually not the person that suffers under the book ban. The teachers suffer under the book ban. It’s the teachers who are under threat for losing their job. It’s the teachers who get harassed. It’s the librarians who are under threat of losing their jobs, the librarians who get harassed. It’s the students who lose the ability to have access to different worlds and different ways of thinking. And I was trying to figure out how I could write this in such a way so that I would not be the center of it.

Luckily, you know, I ended up in conversation with a teacher by the name of Mary Wood from Chapin, South Carolina, went to Chapin High School, where she teaches and where she was trying to teach Between the World and Me and got into some amount of trouble for that. And she invited me down, you know, just to go to a hearing. And that’s what I did. And it was quite eventful. It was not the world that I expected. It was not the audience I expected. It was interesting to see how much support actually was rallied behind her, even though she’s in a deep red area in a deep red state. And so, that, too, is about the power of stories. That, too, is about the power of narratives, the questions we ask and the questions we don’t.

AMY GOODMAN: You write, in The Message, about this experience in South Carolina, “I see politicians in Colorado, in Tennessee, in South Carolina moving against my own work, tossing books I’ve authored out of libraries, banning them from classes, and I feel snatched out of the present and dropped into an age of pitchforks and bookburning bonfires. My first instinct is to laugh, but then I remember that American history is filled with men and women who were as lethal as they were ridiculous.”

TA-NEHISI COATES: That’s right.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, if —

TA-NEHISI COATES: We got one running for president right now, you know? Lethal and ridiculous.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, you talk about the area you were in, 70-30 split, 70% for Trump. And yet — and this is what you were just talking about — this 30%, how surprised you were by the minority, the power of it when it’s mobilized.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah. You know, it’s like one of these things. Like, again, like, this goes back to how we construct language. It’s either a blue or red district, right? Even purple doesn’t quite, like, carry the quite — you know, like the real context. They think it’s red. OK, battle’s over. Why am I here? You know? But 30% — if 30% activated around an actual issue, it’s actually a lot of people. You know what I mean?

And it was like — like, I could not have known that without seeing it. Like, you have to — and this is, like, one of the messages I have for my students in the book. You have to walk the land. You can’t sit on your butt reading reports — you know what I mean? — and even reading books like this one, and say, “Hey, I’m going to be a writer.” You have to have actual experiences. And so, I have to walk in that room and meet this white woman in her seventies, you know, who tells me, in the wake of George Floyd, “We organized a reading group at our church for Black authors, and I love Colson Whitehead. Oh my god! Have you read him?” You know, like, I have to have that experience with somebody. You know, I have to have that shock, you know? And so, I just feel like it was, like, really, really important in The Message to actually model the work that I was articulating or model the lessons that I was actually articulating for my students.

AMY GOODMAN: When you just referred to President Trump, can you elaborate further?

TA-NEHISI COATES: He looks ridiculous, but he is in fact quite lethal. You know? And I think, certainly in 2016, there was great, great temptation to laugh. You know what I mean? You hear these things, you know, you hear him say certain things, you see him in certain places, and there’s a kind of dismissiveness. But what we actually are dismissing is a kind of darkness that I think lurks deep, deep within all of us and can actually be appealed to. It’s not comfortable to say that you can win through hate. It’s not comfortable to say that you can win through anger. It’s not comfortable to say, historically, it actually has been very effective, electorally, to pick out weak people or people who are not in the most advantaged political space and to demonize them and use them as a tool, that that actually has been quite effective for people in pursuit of power. We would rather think that good wins all the time, that people see the best in each other. It reifies our notions of what America is, our stories that we tell ourselves of what America is, but it doesn’t correspond with the actual history and the truth.

AMY GOODMAN: Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of the new book The Message. In a minute, we’ll return to our conversation and talk about Israel and Palestine.