Israeli Journalist Amira Hass, Daughter of Holocaust Survivors, Calls for Gaza Ceasefire Now
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 20, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/20 ... transcript
In Part 2 of our interview with legendary Israeli journalist Amira Hass, who has reported from the occupied West Bank and Gaza for over 30 years, she discusses attending Wednesday’s historic protest in Washington, D.C., led by American Jewish groups, calling for an immediate ceasefire, as well as the events leading up to the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, the ongoing hostage situation, and what could come next. “How can they say Israel is not responsible?” asks Hass, who says the government has continued its policy of apartheid, occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians despite decades of international pressure to end the conflict. “Israel did everything possible to foil the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
We spend the rest of the hour with the legendary Israeli journalist Amira Hass, who’s reported from the occupied West Bank and Gaza for over 30 years. She’s the Haaretz correspondent for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, usually based in Ramallah. Her latest piece is headlined “With No Water or Electricity from Israel, Gazans Risk Dehydration and Disease.”
Today we bring you Part 2 of our conversation. On Thursday, Democracy Now!'s Nermeen Shaikh and I spoke to her after she attended Wednesday's historic protest in Washington, D.C., led by American Jewish groups, calling for an immediate ceasefire. We asked her to describe the scene.
AMIRA HASS: Look, it was people. It was an expression of common grief and shock of people, of Jews, whose main two slogans were “Not in our name” and “Ceasefire immediately.” And for me, it was very important to be there. So I was there as a person, as an individual, as a Jew, not as a journalist. There were quite a few Israelis that I know that live or study these days in the States.
And it was also, you know, like, we all need some kind of — this kind of support, which, by the way, Palestinians are not allowed to hold. Jews are allowed to hold demonstrations. I understand that all over Europe there are places where Palestinians are not allowed to hold demonstrations in solidarity with their slain people in Palestine. So, here, again, we are privileged, the Jews, that we can do things that Palestinians are not allowed to, though I know that here there were some. In the States, there were some demonstrations of Palestinians. But Palestinians are being silenced, as here their sensitivity — that their sense of grief is not being respected. They are called as supporters of terror, whatever. And I was in Boston just before, and I could tell that even the word “Palestinian” is not allowed to be used in all kind of official statements.
I can very much identify with a feeling of being ostracized by the whole world as a Jew, of being not listened to or this feeling — this indifference that the world shows to Palestinians, Palestinians’ plight, Palestinians’ ordeal is so shocking. And I, as a Jew, I say, and the child of survivors and the grandchild of Jews who were murdered by Nazi Germany, I can — my identification and sense of identification and anger and despair, I must say — despair — grow larger by the day, by the minute.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Amira, you wrote in one of your recent Haaretz pieces precisely from the position of someone who is the daughter, the child of Holocaust survivors, in a piece headlined “Germany, You Have Long Since Betrayed Your Responsibility.” In the piece, you write about your father, who would tell you as far —
AMIRA HASS: Yeah.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: — back as 1992, he himself a Holocaust survivor, when you return from Gaza, he would say, quote, “True, this isn’t a genocide like what we went through, but for us, it ended after five or six years. For the Palestinians, the suffering has gone on and on for decades.” So, if you could, you know, say a little bit more about your father’s position and the fact that this isn’t also, in a sense, understandably, the position of most people who are survivors, were the children of survivors of the Holocaust?
AMIRA HASS: Yeah. Yeah.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: If you could explain a little?
AMIRA HASS: Look, I mean, in 92 years, it was — we could say that it is not genocide. I want to say, I mean, I don’t — as I explain over and over again, I prefer not to talk now, not to dwell into definitions, but to describe the situation. Of course, in '92, in comparison to today, it was like a benign occupation in comparison to today, to what's going on now.
Look, I know I come from a leftist family, so it has been clear that if there is a lesson to the Nazi German industry of murder, which I think is more accurate to say than Holocaust — if there is a lesson, it’s that it shouldn’t be the fate of any people in the world, not just the Jews. And another lesson that my father taught me, he warned about wars. He warned about that during wars things can — things always get worse and worse and without control. And that’s why, exactly why, the Israeli right wing and the messianic religious settler right wing has been always pushing for wars and regional wars, because in order to achieve the grand plan of repeating and completing 1948, the Nakba. I mean, I say again, I say these things, and I don’t believe that we are in this stage, and we are. And we are, and we are, and the world is silent and/or idle. And it was idle during — in so many phases in human history, it was idle.
I want to say something else. At the beginning of 2000, during the Second Intifada, I was contacted by Howard Zinn, the great historian Howard Zinn, who, very much in the vein of my father’s warning about wars, he told me that he thinks of an initiative of people to start talking about war, to outlaw wars at all, you know, not just to say that these are certain crimes in a war. The war is a crime. That’s why I also don’t use the term “war crime,” because the war is a crime. But because wars unleash such barbarism out of human beings, all human beings, that then our ability to return to decent normalcy is so limited. This is the background. This is my background, my parents’ background. And we’ve tried — they tried and I tried, both as an activist and as a journalist, to appeal to people and to the, you know, humanity of people and rationality of people, because this will harm — what’s happening today, the Palestinians are the targets, for sure. But eventually this can harm — this will harm anybody in the region, and it will harm Israeli Jews, and as it does Palestinians in Israel. I’m still talking, and I’m still hoping that it will stop immediately.
AMY GOODMAN: You came on Democracy Now! in February. And at that time, you wrote to us afterwards, saying, “The danger of mass expulsion of Palestinians is nearer than ever since the Nakba. One cannot repeat enough times this message in order for it to remain a warning and not a prophecy.” Can you explain exactly —
AMIRA HASS: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — what you mean? Of course, it’s now October. At this point, something like 3,800 Palestinians are dead, but the hundreds of thousands that have been displaced, and then the Israeli army telling the Palestinian population in Gaza that half of them must leave the northern part, the most populated part of the most densely populated place on Earth, and move south.
AMIRA HASS: Look, I must say that I — at that time, when I wrote in February, I thought more about the West Bank. But we see that they are working now in these two fronts that are inseparable, because it’s the Palestinian people in both under Israeli occupation, even though the West Bank — the Gaza Strip is in a different constellation. But just as Dr. Mustafa said, they want to pressure Egypt to open and to allow and to let Palestinians go, because, otherwise, people will say, “Oh, it’s also the fault of Egypt. Why don’t they let all the people flee to Egypt?” They are called in Israel to build — to let Palestinians build there in Sinai, to build a new town and things like that. But in the West Bank also, the danger of mass expulsion, and that’s why, again, I repeat what Dr. Mustafa said, that that’s why the King Abdullah is so alarmed, because he senses that if Palestinians are being pushed, pushed, pushed, they will be pushed towards Jordan. There is a longer, longer-standing Israeli claim that the real Palestine is Jordan, because the majority of people in Jordan are Palestinians. So the danger now exists. And again, I repeat that wars — the right wing wants wars in order exactly to accomplish these plans, that are kind of subdued during normal times. And our normalcy is never normal.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Amira, I want to, in fact, quote to you again from another piece that you wrote, just days after the Hamas assault in Israel. You wrote a piece headlined “Arriving Again at the Cycle of Vengeance.” In this, you write, “As in every Israeli war against the Gaza Strip that Hamas had an interest in, especially given the murder of civilians, one should ask: Does this organization have a realistic plan of action and a realistic political goal, or did it mainly want to rehabilitate its own position in the eyes of Gaza residents? Was its military operation accompanied this time by a logistical plan to assist and rescue Gazan civilians under attack?” So, if you could respond to some of those rhetorical questions that you asked?
AMIRA HASS: Yeah.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what is going on with the hostages? I mean, now Israel has said — they’ve increased the number — there are 203 hostages, Israeli hostages, who are being held in Gaza. What is their position? And what do we know of what the Israeli state is doing to negotiate or force their release? Presumably, they’re also being affected by this constant bombardment.
AMIRA HASS: Exactly. I have no idea how many people, how many of the hostages. Some of them, I know their relatives. I know one of them who is 85 years old and a very brave journalist, who in — Oded Lifshitz is his name. I just realized it. He’s 85. In the ’70s, he exposed the Israeli — the expulsion of Bedouins in the northern of Sinai. He exposed it in a series of articles. I know some people that are relatives, as I said, of friends of mine.
And we don’t know what’s happening. You know, like, we don’t — I mean, if they are under — they are in the same conditions like every Palestinian now in Gaza. If they are alive, they are without water and electricity. If they are wounded, there is no way to really treat them. They are separated — if they’re separated, how they are held by — some are held by Islamic Jihad. Some are held by Hamas. Where do they hold them? Did they flee from the south to the — from the north to the south? We don’t have answers to all these questions. And I don’t know how many answers the Israeli army has.
You know, at this time, while we are talking, Israel is also arresting, and has arrested and arresting more, Palestinian workers from Gaza, who were in Israel during just when everything started. At first they were allowed to go into Palestinian cities in the West Bank, but now they are arresting them. And I allow myself to suspect that they also want to play with this card when they are negotiating about the release of the Israeli prisoners or, yeah, the people who were abducted.
Look, Hamas proved to be very resourceful when it comes to the military operation. They knew how to neutralize Israeli surveillance facilities, how to neutralize the shooting, automatic shooting. They knew where the military bases were, etc. So they were very resourceful, in a way that I could have said impressive, if not for the atrocities that were committed later. And the atrocities were committed. And I know that it’s not the time to tell Palestinians to pay attention to this, because Israel’s revenge is a hundred times more bloodier, but still there were atrocities.
So I feel there is a tremendous contradiction between the planning of the immediate military operation and what comes aftermath — what is the aftermath, because, for example, the civilian now — the civilian face in the West — in Gaza. If they knew they have such an operation, and they knew that Israel will retaliate ferociously, then why, for example, they did not even — I didn’t know — take care that people have water? I don’t know. I mean, if they can arrange to have so many weapons, they must have also prepared for assisting the civilian population, their civilian population. But I see that this, from what I can tell, from far, I don’t think — I don’t see that this has happened.
I don’t think that Hamas can be erased. It can flourish outside of Gaza. But I don’t understand its political plan right now. Do they want to liberate all of Palestine, so it doesn’t matter if it will take 50 years, 80 years, and at the cost of lives of Palestinians and Israelis, that I don’t know who will return to the country? Who will live in this destroyed country, if this is the plan? If the plan is political, immediate political, is it worse to ask, demand the release of present Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, and the cost is so much? I think I know some prisoners in jail now. I don’t think they’ll be happy to be released, thanks to the death of thousands or tens of thousands of Palestinians.
So, right now I see very — militarily, a very apt organization, that indeed gave Israel a very distinctive blow. But I don’t see that there is a political viable position that comes with it. That’s me now. I don’t know. I mean, we are waiting, because just war, just war, just bloodshed, where will it lead us to? Where will it lead the Palestinians to? Now it’s very difficult for people to criticize Hamas. There is a lot of support. But is it a political — does it have a political, logical, human perspective? I don’t see it.
AMY GOODMAN: And the response to the repeated assertions on television, I want to ask you also, because it’s how Americans understand what’s happening, is through the corporate media. I mean, their younger population doesn’t watch television, older population does. If you watch CNN, starting, for example, yesterday, but this was a repetition before, it’s one Israeli Defense Force representative after another. You even have Naftali Bennett — right? — who’s the former prime minister, who is now one of the army, saying, “Are you” — to Sky News — “seriously asking me about Palestinian civilians?” But starting yesterday, after the bombing of the hospital, however that turns out, whoever’s responsible for that, throughout the day through today, the lower third of CNN was “U.S. sources, U.S. officials say Israel is not responsible.” That goes larger than the hospital.
AMIRA HASS: Of course.
AMY GOODMAN: Throughout the day, the discussion that it seems Netanyahu was quite victorious in this, whether it’s a lie or whether it’s true, a bigger point, Israel is not responsible. And so I wanted to ask you about that. This is at a time when over 3,500 Palestinians, of course, have been killed. Dozens of other health facilities, actually including that one attacked just a few days before, that IDF did not say they didn’t do. What this kind of coverage means? Because, you know, Noam Chomsky says the media is manufacturing consent for war, in general. But it matters because the U.S. is the most powerful country on Earth and the main weapons supplier to Israel.
AMIRA HASS: Yeah. Look, what does it mean, Israel is not responsible? Israel has engineered this since — you know, since the early '90s, when the world pushed Israel and the Palestinians — and the Palestinians wanted this — to have a kind of a compromise. And this is following the Palestinian First Intifada, that had a very clear political message: We want to — we don't want our children — I heard so many activists say that — we don’t want our children to live in the way we lived under occupation, so let’s compromise and have a state, a Palestinian state, alongside Israel. And this was an accepted, an accepted way out from the bloodshed and the crisis and the conflict. And the world supported it, or seemed.
And Israel did everything possible to foil the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. So it only increased and enhanced its colonialist drive during — since the beginning of Oslo. And Israel disconnected Gaza and put it — treated it as a separate enclave with no connections to the people of the West Bank and the rest of Palestine and Israel — not since Hamas came to power, long before, in the early '90s. So, what is not responsibility, not Israel's responsibility? It is Israeli policy that has created such a chain of reactions, that we could tell it. We could say — we said it over and over again, to Israelis, to diplomats, to foreign diplomats, to foreign countries. We warned over and over again. We knew, and we wanted to prevent it from happening. So how can they say Israel is not responsible?
And you know what? Every Palestinian who is killed today in Gaza is registered in the Israeli-controlled population registry. Palestinians are not registered in a separate one. It’s Israel which controls. If a person is not registered, he is there — if a newborn is not registered in the Israeli registry of population, then the newborn does not exist. Israel controls still today. Palestinian Authority is obliged to give every name of a newborn and every change of address to Israel for validation of this change. So what is not responsible? It’s part of Israel. I mean, Israel controls the whole country, controls the people, decides how much water they have, what is the economy they are allowed to have. If they don’t go to universities in the West Bank, Israel decides. Israel decides about every detail of these people. So, what’s happening now is not Israel’s responsibility?
This is — exactly, this is how the majority of mainstream media don’t want to deal with it. They start to deal with the conflict and the cruelty only when it reaches this unbearable top. But there is incremental cruelty and violence and evil and bureaucratic evil, bureaucratic violence, that has been there for years accumulating, one layer, one layer after another. And it shocks everybody, every Palestinian.
You know, Palestinians in Gaza, people who are under 30 years old, have never seen a mountain in their lives. A mountain. They don’t understand the concept of a spring of water coming out of a rock over a mountain. I know it because a friend of — a young friend of mine, she had the chance to come to the West Bank because she has cancer. So her friends tell her, “You are so lucky, because you have cancer, so you could leave the Gaza Strip.” Her brothers are surprised when she tells them about the mountains that she she saw in the West Bank. So, you take from the people for so many years. You take — you take every hope and every horizon, every joy, you take out of them.
And still I want to say, and again I want to say, that the more I hear about this Saturday — and I think that many details are — I mean, I verified about many details, and the atrocities were there. But it taught me that people came — not all, not the majority, a few, but it only tells me how the pressure that has built up, how monstrous it was, to create these monstrous attacks in one day.
AMY GOODMAN: Amira Hass, longtime Israeli correspondent for Haaretz in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, usually based in Ramallah. She’s author of Drinking the Sea at Gaza, Reporting from Ramallah, and wrote the foreword and afterword to her mother Hanna Lévy-Hass’s Holocaust memoir, Diary of Bergen-Belsen. To see Part 1 of our interview with Amira and also our interview yesterday with Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, visit democracynow.org.
I’m speaking tonight in Charleston, West Virginia, at the Grassroots Radio Conference, 7:30 p.m. at the Capitol Theater. Visit democracynow.org for details.
Oh, and happy birthday to Robby Karran! I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.
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“Nowhere in Gaza Is Safe”: Palestinian Death Toll Tops 5,000 as Israel Rejects Calls for Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 23, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/23 ... transcript
The death toll from Israel’s 17-day bombardment of Gaza has topped 5,000 as Israel intensifies its assault on the besieged territory ahead of an expected ground invasion. Israel continues to reject calls from the United Nations for a humanitarian ceasefire, and relief groups say the aid convoys that have been allowed to enter Gaza are a mere drop in the bucket compared to the needs of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents. We get an update from Palestinian scholar Jehad Abusalim, executive director of humanitarian and educational organization The Jerusalem Fund, who describes life in Gaza for those who have stayed and reiterates international calls for a ceasefire. “Israel is just bombing Gaza nonstop, killing as many civilians as it could, simply because it’s being enabled by the international community,” says Abusalim.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
The death toll from Israel’s 17-day bombardment of Gaza has topped 5,000 as Israel intensifies its assault on the besieged territory. Palestinian officials say more than 2,000 children have now died in the Israeli attack.
Israel is continuing to reject calls from the United Nations for a humanitarian ceasefire. While Israel has intensified its bombing campaign, it has not yet launched a full-scale ground invasion. The New York Times reports the Biden administration has advised Israel to delay a ground invasion in part to give the U.S. more time to prepare if the war spreads across the region.
On Friday, Hamas released its first two hostages, Judith and Natalie Raanan, a mother and daughter who are dual U.S.-Israeli citizens. They were kidnapped on October 7th during the Hamas attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,400 people. The Israeli army now says it believes 222 hostages are being held in Gaza.
So far, two aid convoys have entered Gaza, and a third is on its way, but the U.N. and relief groups say far more aid is needed — not dozens of trucks, but hundreds of trucks of aid, they say. In Gaza City, doctors in the neonatal section of Al-Shifa Hospital say dozens of babies could soon die if the hospital runs out of fuel.
DR. NASSER BULBUL: [translated] As you can see, all the babies in here are underweight and need intensive care around the clock. But we lack basic medicines, like caffeine citrate and antibiotics, like ampicillin and gentamicin, and surfactant. We have ventilators, but now seven ventilators are not working because we don’t have the right cables to operate them. We are only operating with 10 ventilators, which is a strong sign that the failure of this department is looming. We call on everyone to send the necessary medical supplies for this critical department, or else we will face a huge catastrophe, especially if the electricity is out in these departments, where there are 55 babies. We will lose all those who need electricity within five minutes.
AMY GOODMAN: More than half of Gaza’s population has been displaced by the Israeli assault. This is an 18-year-old Palestinian named Dima Allamdani. She had fled to southern Gaza after Israel ordered Palestinians to leave their homes in the north. Much of her family died in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, where the family had sought temporary shelter as it made its way south.
DIMA ALLAMDANI: [translated] I went to look for my mother, my father and my siblings at the morgue. At first they told me, “Come, see your mother.” They didn’t show me her face, but I recognized her from what she has on her feet. God bless her soul. I felt heartbroken. It was like a nightmare. They opened my father’s coffin, and he had no signs of injuries, but he died. God bless his soul. I had a 16-year-old sister among the dead, and they wrote my name on her coffin since they thought it was me. Her body didn’t have any signs of injuries, but maybe she died from internal injuries. … They also showed me my little sister. She’s in first grade. And they asked me, “Who is she?” At first I didn’t recognize her due to all the cuts and burns on her face. Then they wrote her name on her coffin. I would have never thought that my family would end up like this. I felt heartbroken. It’s a nightmare. I can’t believe it, until now, that they’re all dead, no one left.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel has also bombed the home of Raji Sourani, the best-known human rights lawyer in Gaza City. He and his family survived the attack, his home destroyed. In a message to friends, he wrote, quote, “Israel, Biden and the west who support Israel it in doing these crimes against civilians are criminals. We will have our dignity and freedom and end this criminal occupation. One day we will have those criminals accountable,” he said.
We begin today’s show with Jehad Abusalim, a Palestinian scholar and policy analyst from Gaza. He’s the executive director of The Jerusalem Fund in Washington, D.C.
Jehad, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you lay out for us what you understand has taken place so far in Gaza and the latest word about whether Israel is going to engage in a ground invasion, or when they will? This does not preclude what they’ve done until now, which is the intensification of airstrikes on Gaza, the death toll at 5,000 people in Gaza.
JEHAD ABUSALIM: It appears that Israel has one plan and one plan only, and that is revenge. But revenge is not a plan. Israel is destroying Gaza. Israel has destroyed most of the city of Gaza and many towns and villages across the Gaza Strip, home to more than — homes to more than 1 million Palestinians who are now displaced.
I think the important question now, the challenge ahead of us in the United States, in Europe, around the world, is to push for ceasefire. Ceasefire now is what is needed, because as we witness the continuation of killing, of the destruction of the Gaza Strip, as we witness the failure of world governments to hold Israel accountable and to put a stop to this carnage, to this bloodshed, we are devastated, Amy. Entire families are being erased, wiped out off the map and of the civil registry. So I think for us Palestinians, in Gaza and beyond, and for every person of conscience around the world, the priority now should be ceasefire, to protect civilian lives, to protect the dignity of people and to prevent the situation from spinning out of control. It already did.
AMY GOODMAN: And your response to the Israeli government and military saying they’re going to de-Hamasify Gaza, that this was the worst killing of Jews — 1,400 Israelis killed, including other nationalities and religions, on October 7th — and that if — once they get rid of Hamas in Gaza, Gazans can live there?
JEHAD ABUSALIM: Well, they’re not leaving a Gaza behind for Gazans, for Palestinians in Gaza to live there. They’re practically destroying, carpet bombing the entire city and other towns and villages around, across the Gaza Strip. No one wants to see civilians hurt, regardless of who they are or where they come from or what their ethnicities or faiths or nationalities are. There is an important question that I think we need to grapple with as members of this world who care about people’s lives and dignity: Is there going to be a military solution on the ground? And the answer is, no, there isn’t going to be a military solution. Whatever Israel is engaged in right now is pure revenge. It doesn’t have any strategic value. And it doesn’t have any direction. Israel is just bombing Gaza nonstop, killing as many civilians as it could, simply because it’s being enabled by the international community. No one in the international community is asking the tough questions. Is there going to be a military solution? What will this look like? What will this mean for the region?
The region is about to be engulfed in far more violence, so I think this is a moment where we need courage, we need boldness, and we need the ability to confront the realities that got us to this point, that got us to this terrible situation. As I’m talking to you, you know, I’m thinking about my family, too. My friends receive the news — my friends who are from Gaza and abroad, they receive the news of their entire extended families killed in an instant. There will not be a military solution for this. And the only solution — and I’m happy to talk about this on your show today — the only path forward is to face the situation with courage and ask ourselves, “How did we get here?”
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about that solution, that you can see at this point.
JEHAD ABUSALIM: I think there has to be a reassessment of the entire approach towards the Palestine question and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as many in the West like to describe it. I think we have witnessed decades of failure, especially by successive U.S. administrations that promised that they would mediate and negotiate and lead Palestinians and Israelis towards a just and lasting peace, but none of these promises have been fulfilled. We’ve witnessed nothing but cynicism, and we have witnessed nothing but continuous enabling of successive Israeli governments to continue with their policies of uprooting Palestinians, ethnically cleansing them, destroying their lives and destroying any possibility for Palestinian statehood and independence.
And I think one of the biggest U.S. failures in foreign policy we have just witnessed over especially this year, as we saw the U.S. administration enabling the most right-wing government in Israeli history, a government that included people like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who casually talked about wanting to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. We heard statements by Israeli officials about the need for a second Nakba. And as Israel and the Israeli settlers, who were backed by the full force of the Israeli state, were attacking Palestinian communities across the West Bank, burning homes, killing people, taking over land, the United States government has given this right-wing government in Israel a visa waiver program that excluded Palestinian Americans, especially those from Gaza, and was pushing for an Israeli-Saudi normalization in a way that empowered Netanyahu’s vision that peace with the rest of the Arab world can be achieved through bypassing Palestinians and ignoring their just demands. So I think there has to be a complete reconfiguration of this approach. And there has to be — and tough questions need to be asked.
AMY GOODMAN: Jehad, I wanted to get your comment on the Israeli military informing Palestinians in Gaza that they would be identified as a partner in a terrorist organization if they didn’t follow forced displacement orders and move south. This message came in leaflets that were dropped from the sky by drones on Saturday, after Israel ordered 1.1 million residents in the northern part of Gaza to move south — of course, not clear if they could ever return. Can you talk about this?
JEHAD ABUSALIM: Let me tell you about my 88-year-old grandmother who lives in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. She is frail, she is old, and she’s ill. She was sleeping in her bed when an Israeli bomb hit the neighborhood where she lives, and she was injured by shrapnel and glass. My cousin, who was taking care of her, had to carry her on his shoulders and run down the stairs, run across the neighborhood as the bombs were falling, carrying a frail 88-year-old grandmother who witnessed more than eight or nine wars so far since she was born. Her entire life has been defined by war, by bloodshed, by aggression, by losing loved ones.
So, I think this entire narrative about north versus south, safe versus unsafe, is nothing but a false narrative that I think we should resist and we should not accept. Nowhere in Gaza is safe. Hundreds of people have been killed and lost their lives regardless of where they reside. That’s why we need a ceasefire now. And this is the demand by Palestinians from Gaza, whether they live in northern Gaza or southern Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Jehad Abusalim of The Jerusalem Fund is in Washington as he talks to us.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 23, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/23 ... transcript
The death toll from Israel’s 17-day bombardment of Gaza has topped 5,000 as Israel intensifies its assault on the besieged territory ahead of an expected ground invasion. Israel continues to reject calls from the United Nations for a humanitarian ceasefire, and relief groups say the aid convoys that have been allowed to enter Gaza are a mere drop in the bucket compared to the needs of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents. We get an update from Palestinian scholar Jehad Abusalim, executive director of humanitarian and educational organization The Jerusalem Fund, who describes life in Gaza for those who have stayed and reiterates international calls for a ceasefire. “Israel is just bombing Gaza nonstop, killing as many civilians as it could, simply because it’s being enabled by the international community,” says Abusalim.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
The death toll from Israel’s 17-day bombardment of Gaza has topped 5,000 as Israel intensifies its assault on the besieged territory. Palestinian officials say more than 2,000 children have now died in the Israeli attack.
Israel is continuing to reject calls from the United Nations for a humanitarian ceasefire. While Israel has intensified its bombing campaign, it has not yet launched a full-scale ground invasion. The New York Times reports the Biden administration has advised Israel to delay a ground invasion in part to give the U.S. more time to prepare if the war spreads across the region.
On Friday, Hamas released its first two hostages, Judith and Natalie Raanan, a mother and daughter who are dual U.S.-Israeli citizens. They were kidnapped on October 7th during the Hamas attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,400 people. The Israeli army now says it believes 222 hostages are being held in Gaza.
So far, two aid convoys have entered Gaza, and a third is on its way, but the U.N. and relief groups say far more aid is needed — not dozens of trucks, but hundreds of trucks of aid, they say. In Gaza City, doctors in the neonatal section of Al-Shifa Hospital say dozens of babies could soon die if the hospital runs out of fuel.
DR. NASSER BULBUL: [translated] As you can see, all the babies in here are underweight and need intensive care around the clock. But we lack basic medicines, like caffeine citrate and antibiotics, like ampicillin and gentamicin, and surfactant. We have ventilators, but now seven ventilators are not working because we don’t have the right cables to operate them. We are only operating with 10 ventilators, which is a strong sign that the failure of this department is looming. We call on everyone to send the necessary medical supplies for this critical department, or else we will face a huge catastrophe, especially if the electricity is out in these departments, where there are 55 babies. We will lose all those who need electricity within five minutes.
AMY GOODMAN: More than half of Gaza’s population has been displaced by the Israeli assault. This is an 18-year-old Palestinian named Dima Allamdani. She had fled to southern Gaza after Israel ordered Palestinians to leave their homes in the north. Much of her family died in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, where the family had sought temporary shelter as it made its way south.
DIMA ALLAMDANI: [translated] I went to look for my mother, my father and my siblings at the morgue. At first they told me, “Come, see your mother.” They didn’t show me her face, but I recognized her from what she has on her feet. God bless her soul. I felt heartbroken. It was like a nightmare. They opened my father’s coffin, and he had no signs of injuries, but he died. God bless his soul. I had a 16-year-old sister among the dead, and they wrote my name on her coffin since they thought it was me. Her body didn’t have any signs of injuries, but maybe she died from internal injuries. … They also showed me my little sister. She’s in first grade. And they asked me, “Who is she?” At first I didn’t recognize her due to all the cuts and burns on her face. Then they wrote her name on her coffin. I would have never thought that my family would end up like this. I felt heartbroken. It’s a nightmare. I can’t believe it, until now, that they’re all dead, no one left.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel has also bombed the home of Raji Sourani, the best-known human rights lawyer in Gaza City. He and his family survived the attack, his home destroyed. In a message to friends, he wrote, quote, “Israel, Biden and the west who support Israel it in doing these crimes against civilians are criminals. We will have our dignity and freedom and end this criminal occupation. One day we will have those criminals accountable,” he said.
We begin today’s show with Jehad Abusalim, a Palestinian scholar and policy analyst from Gaza. He’s the executive director of The Jerusalem Fund in Washington, D.C.
Jehad, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you lay out for us what you understand has taken place so far in Gaza and the latest word about whether Israel is going to engage in a ground invasion, or when they will? This does not preclude what they’ve done until now, which is the intensification of airstrikes on Gaza, the death toll at 5,000 people in Gaza.
JEHAD ABUSALIM: It appears that Israel has one plan and one plan only, and that is revenge. But revenge is not a plan. Israel is destroying Gaza. Israel has destroyed most of the city of Gaza and many towns and villages across the Gaza Strip, home to more than — homes to more than 1 million Palestinians who are now displaced.
I think the important question now, the challenge ahead of us in the United States, in Europe, around the world, is to push for ceasefire. Ceasefire now is what is needed, because as we witness the continuation of killing, of the destruction of the Gaza Strip, as we witness the failure of world governments to hold Israel accountable and to put a stop to this carnage, to this bloodshed, we are devastated, Amy. Entire families are being erased, wiped out off the map and of the civil registry. So I think for us Palestinians, in Gaza and beyond, and for every person of conscience around the world, the priority now should be ceasefire, to protect civilian lives, to protect the dignity of people and to prevent the situation from spinning out of control. It already did.
AMY GOODMAN: And your response to the Israeli government and military saying they’re going to de-Hamasify Gaza, that this was the worst killing of Jews — 1,400 Israelis killed, including other nationalities and religions, on October 7th — and that if — once they get rid of Hamas in Gaza, Gazans can live there?
JEHAD ABUSALIM: Well, they’re not leaving a Gaza behind for Gazans, for Palestinians in Gaza to live there. They’re practically destroying, carpet bombing the entire city and other towns and villages around, across the Gaza Strip. No one wants to see civilians hurt, regardless of who they are or where they come from or what their ethnicities or faiths or nationalities are. There is an important question that I think we need to grapple with as members of this world who care about people’s lives and dignity: Is there going to be a military solution on the ground? And the answer is, no, there isn’t going to be a military solution. Whatever Israel is engaged in right now is pure revenge. It doesn’t have any strategic value. And it doesn’t have any direction. Israel is just bombing Gaza nonstop, killing as many civilians as it could, simply because it’s being enabled by the international community. No one in the international community is asking the tough questions. Is there going to be a military solution? What will this look like? What will this mean for the region?
The region is about to be engulfed in far more violence, so I think this is a moment where we need courage, we need boldness, and we need the ability to confront the realities that got us to this point, that got us to this terrible situation. As I’m talking to you, you know, I’m thinking about my family, too. My friends receive the news — my friends who are from Gaza and abroad, they receive the news of their entire extended families killed in an instant. There will not be a military solution for this. And the only solution — and I’m happy to talk about this on your show today — the only path forward is to face the situation with courage and ask ourselves, “How did we get here?”
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about that solution, that you can see at this point.
JEHAD ABUSALIM: I think there has to be a reassessment of the entire approach towards the Palestine question and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as many in the West like to describe it. I think we have witnessed decades of failure, especially by successive U.S. administrations that promised that they would mediate and negotiate and lead Palestinians and Israelis towards a just and lasting peace, but none of these promises have been fulfilled. We’ve witnessed nothing but cynicism, and we have witnessed nothing but continuous enabling of successive Israeli governments to continue with their policies of uprooting Palestinians, ethnically cleansing them, destroying their lives and destroying any possibility for Palestinian statehood and independence.
And I think one of the biggest U.S. failures in foreign policy we have just witnessed over especially this year, as we saw the U.S. administration enabling the most right-wing government in Israeli history, a government that included people like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who casually talked about wanting to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. We heard statements by Israeli officials about the need for a second Nakba. And as Israel and the Israeli settlers, who were backed by the full force of the Israeli state, were attacking Palestinian communities across the West Bank, burning homes, killing people, taking over land, the United States government has given this right-wing government in Israel a visa waiver program that excluded Palestinian Americans, especially those from Gaza, and was pushing for an Israeli-Saudi normalization in a way that empowered Netanyahu’s vision that peace with the rest of the Arab world can be achieved through bypassing Palestinians and ignoring their just demands. So I think there has to be a complete reconfiguration of this approach. And there has to be — and tough questions need to be asked.
AMY GOODMAN: Jehad, I wanted to get your comment on the Israeli military informing Palestinians in Gaza that they would be identified as a partner in a terrorist organization if they didn’t follow forced displacement orders and move south. This message came in leaflets that were dropped from the sky by drones on Saturday, after Israel ordered 1.1 million residents in the northern part of Gaza to move south — of course, not clear if they could ever return. Can you talk about this?
JEHAD ABUSALIM: Let me tell you about my 88-year-old grandmother who lives in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. She is frail, she is old, and she’s ill. She was sleeping in her bed when an Israeli bomb hit the neighborhood where she lives, and she was injured by shrapnel and glass. My cousin, who was taking care of her, had to carry her on his shoulders and run down the stairs, run across the neighborhood as the bombs were falling, carrying a frail 88-year-old grandmother who witnessed more than eight or nine wars so far since she was born. Her entire life has been defined by war, by bloodshed, by aggression, by losing loved ones.
So, I think this entire narrative about north versus south, safe versus unsafe, is nothing but a false narrative that I think we should resist and we should not accept. Nowhere in Gaza is safe. Hundreds of people have been killed and lost their lives regardless of where they reside. That’s why we need a ceasefire now. And this is the demand by Palestinians from Gaza, whether they live in northern Gaza or southern Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Jehad Abusalim of The Jerusalem Fund is in Washington as he talks to us.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Tue Oct 24, 2023 1:42 am
Palestinian Human Rights Lawyer Raji Sourani Describes Surviving Israel Bombing His Home in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 23, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/23 ... transcript
Raji Sourani, a leading human rights lawyer in Gaza, joins us by phone after his home was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. Sourani and his family survived the bombing and are now staying with relatives, but he says they refuse to leave Gaza despite Israel’s continuous bombardment. “They want to evict Gaza and create a new Nakba. They don’t want anybody in Gaza. They want us to leave,” Sourani says, “No power on Earth will take me from here. We are the stones of the valley.” Sourani is the director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza. He is a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We have just been joined on the phone by Raji Sourani, who put this message out after Israel bombed his home in Gaza City. He said, “By a miracle, I survived with my family. My house destroyed tonight by [an] Israeli bombing, at 8:25 p.m. The area I’m living in Gaza city Tal Al Hawa was subject to bombing for almost two hours by F16 rockets. I lived with my beloved wife and son the [longest two] hours and the most horrific time in my life, where the three of us sure we are not going to survive and we will surely die in any coming bomb. We hear the F16. We hear the rocket launched roaring and the explosion whom for 25 consecutive times thinking will take our life.”
Raji Sourani, we have just reached in Gaza. Can you hear us? Raji Sourani is the award-winning —
RAJI SOURANI: Yes, yes, yes, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: — human rights lawyer —
RAJI SOURANI: I can hear you.
AMY GOODMAN: — and director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza.
RAJI SOURANI: I do hear you very well.
AMY GOODMAN: Hi, Raji. We can hear you, as well. Can you tell us what happened? People all over the world expressing concern, as you are a renowned human rights attorney, with your family, not knowing what had happened. What happened?
RAJI SOURANI: I think the world should be worried about the crimes going on against Palestinian civilians, who are for the 18th consecutive day in the eye of the storm. They are the target. They are the target of the F-16s, of the cannons, of the gunships, day or night, 25 hours a day. They almost destroyed — they destroyed Gaza. I mean, it’s unbelievable, this army targeting only civilians and civilian targets — towers, houses, hospitals, churches, mosques, schools, shelter places, ambulances, nurses, doctors, journalists. This is the most political army — this is the most political army in the world. This is the mighty Israel, its might and power targeting civilians. They are doing war crimes, crimes against humanity, persecution for 2.4 million people for the last 18 days.
Unfortunately, this colonial, racist West supporting them by all ways and means. They are supporting them with money, with guns, with airplanes, with all what they need to do this crime. They are complicit by supporting them politically and militarily and politically. It’s shame this is happening in the 21st century, while these war crimes not secret enough. It’s projected live on air, and the entire world see it. And the ICC prosecutor, who issued warrants against Putin because he committed war crimes against civilians, because he invaded and made occupation to Ukraine, and here we have this prolonged military occupation, we have prolonged blockade, which is criminal, suffocated people here, we have five consecutive wars, and this is the sixth, and he is doing nothing. He is doing nothing except, you know, freezing the investigation of the war crimes committed by Israel and the Israeli army.
AMY GOODMAN: Raji, you’re talking about the —
RAJI SOURANI: Gaza in unprecedented crisis —
AMY GOODMAN: Raji, you’re talking about the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan?
RAJI SOURANI: Yes, yes. He is complicit. He is selectively dealing with the Rome Statute, with the investigations, and he’s politically charging the International Criminal Court. Shame on him. He didn’t say one statement, since day one 'til this moment. He should be the backbone of the victims who are suffering in this part of the world. And he sees that, and he knows that, and he receives reports about that. And he's doing nothing.
So, U.S. and Mr. Biden — I’m saying to him — you are complicit. You are part of these crimes, because you are allowing, with your arms, civilians to be targeted and killed. We have almost 1,200 people for almost two weeks under the wreckage and under the destroyed houses, unable to be recovered. We have 57 families deleted, don’t exist anymore, because 20, 25, 30 of them have been killed in one second. We have churches targeted, and people died in it. We have mosques, people sheltered in it, and they were killed. Why you are allowing this to happen? Why you are seeing, watching, supporting Israel? Israel right of defense? Or it should be protecting civilians at the time of war. IHL, international humanitarian law, and human rights, Rome Statute, it’s there —
AMY GOODMAN: Raji —
RAJI SOURANI: — simply, Amy, to protect —
AMY GOODMAN: Raji —
RAJI SOURANI: — civilians at a time of war. And nobody is protecting us. We are the target of the Israeli army. They want to evict Gaza, and they create a new Nakba. They don’t want anybody in Gaza. They want us to leave. We are not leaving. We are the stones of the valley. We have been here since ever, and we will continue forever. We will not be part of the Israeli plan to evacuate Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Raji, if you can tell us what happened to your own family? When was your house bombed? And were you dug out from the rubble?
RAJI SOURANI: I’m living in Rimal area, Tal Al Hawa, the nicest place in Gaza. I have my own villa, and it’s nice, with very nice garden. It’s a two-story building. It’s me and my wife Amal and my son Basel. And we were, like everybody, I mean, you know, at our home, watching what’s going on. And out of the blue, the bombing began, began in our area — nothing special, nothing unique, nothing consist danger; otherwise, my sense will tell me, I mean, you know, I have to leave, or I will ask my wife and son, I mean, at least, to leave. But there is nothing, I mean, in that part. It’s entirely civilian, and I can tell — and I have always the reason, I mean, to say that.
And I have — the bombing began, and we thought, yes, I mean, this might be one bomb here or there. But it was very close. And the second, and then we began to realize and feel, you know, there is something big wrong happening, because sound getting closer, closer and closer. We were holding — I mean, we were not thinking or realizing that we are going to survive. That’s not easy. And I was thinking of a lot of things, I mean, my life, how I didn’t really, you know, leave like everybody leave. Should I leave, or should I stay? Why we move just in that place two minutes before the rocket of F-16, GBU-38, hit? And I felt the heat of the flame, and I saw the ball of fire. And every time, especially this one, I thought it’s our end. And this was last one, I mean, with the hit directly to my house, and the house was literally destroyed. Lucky enough, I just moved from the place where we are staying, upon the request of my son, to one tiny corridor inside the house. And if we were where we were, we are gone. We are gone.
So, we waited almost half an hour, unable to speak any words, unable to do anything. And we were really, I mean, a state of human shock. And I waited 'til, you know, there was some siren of ambulances remotely, and that means usually the bombing stopped, and they get the green light to come in. Then we began to climb our way out. But it was rather a mission impossible. And we were lucky, I mean, you know, to get out. And when we get out of the place, we just moved to my brother's house, which is like 800 meters away from the place we are staying. This happened on the 18th. But since then 'til today, I can assure you one thing, that the entire area is of Tal Al Hawa completely abolished almost. Two-thirds of it doesn't exist. This really beautiful area of Gaza doesn’t exist anymore.
So, we survived. We were lucky. But our neighbors, I mean, they lost 29 members, Habboush family, and others and others and others and others and others. We are collecting data. We are collecting information. This is unprecedented. I never, ever thought in my life civilians can be the target of war. They are not with Hamas.
Hamas insulted them, insulted their intelligence, insulted their military. We can understand that. In two hours, they were able to destroy the security wall, which America — which U.S. took it as the standard, and many other countries. And they destroyed it in 15 minutes, and they were able to enter. And they took over 11 military strongholds of Israel, and they killed and captured many of them. And they get back to them in Gaza, and we can understand why they are angry with them. And they took the headquarters of Gaza commandment of the Israeli military army, and they arrested generals, colonel and others, and they brought them, I mean, to Gaza. Israel has the right to be angry, absolutely angry, because Hamas showed their intelligence and their military capability means nothing, and they destroyed this illusion in two hours.
But why they are revenging from us? They should rebel from Hamas. Hamas still, I can assure you, functions like a Swiss watch in Gaza, and they are not affected. I can tell that. I can see that. We feel that. They are unable to minimize their power. They are unable to silence them. They are unable to locate where their soldiers are who were taken as prisoners of war. They are unable to do anything for them. That’s why they are revenging from us. This is the shame on the army. I mean, there is rules of engagement between the army, between the resistance movement and any army. But why civilians are the target? This is the big question. This is shame this is happening, I mean, to us. And I’m telling you —
AMY GOODMAN: Raji —
RAJI SOURANI: — the reason they wanted — yes.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you — the leaflets that were dropped this weekend on Gaza, addressed to residents of Gaza, reading, “Urgent warning to the residents of Gaza: Your presence north of Wadi Gaza is putting your lives at risk. Anyone who chooses not to evacuate from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south of the Gaza Strip may be identified as a partner in a terrorist organization.” These on leaflets. I don’t know if you saw these leaflets, but you have made a decision with your family not to move south. Can you respond to what they’re saying, that anyone who chooses not to evacuate may be identified as a partner in a terrorist organization?
RAJI SOURANI: We have been here since ever, and we will stay forever. And no power on Earth will take me from here. We are the stones of the valley. They have to understand that. And even if they destroy once and again houses on our heads, even if they took our life, we are not moving anymore. Simply, we suffered from the Nakba 75 years. They committed massacres. They killed thousands of Palestinians. They pushed us out. And now it’s time for us not to do that again, at least willingly. We cannot be part of Mr. Bibi’s plan to evacuate Gaza. He said it, from a written statement, in a press conference day one: Gazans should leave Gaza. Where to? Where to? If anybody should leave, people like Mr. Bibi, not us. Enough for the occupation. We want dignity, freedom, end of this belligerent, criminal occupation. Now people from south of Gaza began to come back to north in thousands, because there is no safe haven in Gaza, no safe place in Gaza. And we are not going to be a tool in the hands of racist, criminal, rightist Israeli prime minister. No way. We are not going to do that. We are going to stay in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Raji Sourani, I want to thank you so much for taking this call, human rights attorney, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, as well as the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. Please be safe. I know that it’s extremely difficult, with now the death toll at 5,000. Raji has chosen to stay in Gaza City near his home. People should go to our interviews with Raji over these last two weeks, of course, and beyond, before that. I also want to thank Jehad Abusalim, scholar and analyst from Gaza, executive director of The Jerusalem Fund. Thank you so much both for being with us.
Next up, “Do not use our death and our pain to bring death and pain of other people and other families.” The message of Noy Katsman about their brother Hayim, an Israeli peace activist killed in the Hamas attack. We’ll speak with Noy, as he says, “Not in my name. Not in my brother’s name.” Stay with us.
The original content of this program is licensed under
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 23, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/23 ... transcript
Raji Sourani, a leading human rights lawyer in Gaza, joins us by phone after his home was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. Sourani and his family survived the bombing and are now staying with relatives, but he says they refuse to leave Gaza despite Israel’s continuous bombardment. “They want to evict Gaza and create a new Nakba. They don’t want anybody in Gaza. They want us to leave,” Sourani says, “No power on Earth will take me from here. We are the stones of the valley.” Sourani is the director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza. He is a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We have just been joined on the phone by Raji Sourani, who put this message out after Israel bombed his home in Gaza City. He said, “By a miracle, I survived with my family. My house destroyed tonight by [an] Israeli bombing, at 8:25 p.m. The area I’m living in Gaza city Tal Al Hawa was subject to bombing for almost two hours by F16 rockets. I lived with my beloved wife and son the [longest two] hours and the most horrific time in my life, where the three of us sure we are not going to survive and we will surely die in any coming bomb. We hear the F16. We hear the rocket launched roaring and the explosion whom for 25 consecutive times thinking will take our life.”
Raji Sourani, we have just reached in Gaza. Can you hear us? Raji Sourani is the award-winning —
RAJI SOURANI: Yes, yes, yes, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: — human rights lawyer —
RAJI SOURANI: I can hear you.
AMY GOODMAN: — and director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza.
RAJI SOURANI: I do hear you very well.
AMY GOODMAN: Hi, Raji. We can hear you, as well. Can you tell us what happened? People all over the world expressing concern, as you are a renowned human rights attorney, with your family, not knowing what had happened. What happened?
RAJI SOURANI: I think the world should be worried about the crimes going on against Palestinian civilians, who are for the 18th consecutive day in the eye of the storm. They are the target. They are the target of the F-16s, of the cannons, of the gunships, day or night, 25 hours a day. They almost destroyed — they destroyed Gaza. I mean, it’s unbelievable, this army targeting only civilians and civilian targets — towers, houses, hospitals, churches, mosques, schools, shelter places, ambulances, nurses, doctors, journalists. This is the most political army — this is the most political army in the world. This is the mighty Israel, its might and power targeting civilians. They are doing war crimes, crimes against humanity, persecution for 2.4 million people for the last 18 days.
Unfortunately, this colonial, racist West supporting them by all ways and means. They are supporting them with money, with guns, with airplanes, with all what they need to do this crime. They are complicit by supporting them politically and militarily and politically. It’s shame this is happening in the 21st century, while these war crimes not secret enough. It’s projected live on air, and the entire world see it. And the ICC prosecutor, who issued warrants against Putin because he committed war crimes against civilians, because he invaded and made occupation to Ukraine, and here we have this prolonged military occupation, we have prolonged blockade, which is criminal, suffocated people here, we have five consecutive wars, and this is the sixth, and he is doing nothing. He is doing nothing except, you know, freezing the investigation of the war crimes committed by Israel and the Israeli army.
AMY GOODMAN: Raji, you’re talking about the —
RAJI SOURANI: Gaza in unprecedented crisis —
AMY GOODMAN: Raji, you’re talking about the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan?
RAJI SOURANI: Yes, yes. He is complicit. He is selectively dealing with the Rome Statute, with the investigations, and he’s politically charging the International Criminal Court. Shame on him. He didn’t say one statement, since day one 'til this moment. He should be the backbone of the victims who are suffering in this part of the world. And he sees that, and he knows that, and he receives reports about that. And he's doing nothing.
So, U.S. and Mr. Biden — I’m saying to him — you are complicit. You are part of these crimes, because you are allowing, with your arms, civilians to be targeted and killed. We have almost 1,200 people for almost two weeks under the wreckage and under the destroyed houses, unable to be recovered. We have 57 families deleted, don’t exist anymore, because 20, 25, 30 of them have been killed in one second. We have churches targeted, and people died in it. We have mosques, people sheltered in it, and they were killed. Why you are allowing this to happen? Why you are seeing, watching, supporting Israel? Israel right of defense? Or it should be protecting civilians at the time of war. IHL, international humanitarian law, and human rights, Rome Statute, it’s there —
AMY GOODMAN: Raji —
RAJI SOURANI: — simply, Amy, to protect —
AMY GOODMAN: Raji —
RAJI SOURANI: — civilians at a time of war. And nobody is protecting us. We are the target of the Israeli army. They want to evict Gaza, and they create a new Nakba. They don’t want anybody in Gaza. They want us to leave. We are not leaving. We are the stones of the valley. We have been here since ever, and we will continue forever. We will not be part of the Israeli plan to evacuate Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Raji, if you can tell us what happened to your own family? When was your house bombed? And were you dug out from the rubble?
RAJI SOURANI: I’m living in Rimal area, Tal Al Hawa, the nicest place in Gaza. I have my own villa, and it’s nice, with very nice garden. It’s a two-story building. It’s me and my wife Amal and my son Basel. And we were, like everybody, I mean, you know, at our home, watching what’s going on. And out of the blue, the bombing began, began in our area — nothing special, nothing unique, nothing consist danger; otherwise, my sense will tell me, I mean, you know, I have to leave, or I will ask my wife and son, I mean, at least, to leave. But there is nothing, I mean, in that part. It’s entirely civilian, and I can tell — and I have always the reason, I mean, to say that.
And I have — the bombing began, and we thought, yes, I mean, this might be one bomb here or there. But it was very close. And the second, and then we began to realize and feel, you know, there is something big wrong happening, because sound getting closer, closer and closer. We were holding — I mean, we were not thinking or realizing that we are going to survive. That’s not easy. And I was thinking of a lot of things, I mean, my life, how I didn’t really, you know, leave like everybody leave. Should I leave, or should I stay? Why we move just in that place two minutes before the rocket of F-16, GBU-38, hit? And I felt the heat of the flame, and I saw the ball of fire. And every time, especially this one, I thought it’s our end. And this was last one, I mean, with the hit directly to my house, and the house was literally destroyed. Lucky enough, I just moved from the place where we are staying, upon the request of my son, to one tiny corridor inside the house. And if we were where we were, we are gone. We are gone.
So, we waited almost half an hour, unable to speak any words, unable to do anything. And we were really, I mean, a state of human shock. And I waited 'til, you know, there was some siren of ambulances remotely, and that means usually the bombing stopped, and they get the green light to come in. Then we began to climb our way out. But it was rather a mission impossible. And we were lucky, I mean, you know, to get out. And when we get out of the place, we just moved to my brother's house, which is like 800 meters away from the place we are staying. This happened on the 18th. But since then 'til today, I can assure you one thing, that the entire area is of Tal Al Hawa completely abolished almost. Two-thirds of it doesn't exist. This really beautiful area of Gaza doesn’t exist anymore.
So, we survived. We were lucky. But our neighbors, I mean, they lost 29 members, Habboush family, and others and others and others and others and others. We are collecting data. We are collecting information. This is unprecedented. I never, ever thought in my life civilians can be the target of war. They are not with Hamas.
Hamas insulted them, insulted their intelligence, insulted their military. We can understand that. In two hours, they were able to destroy the security wall, which America — which U.S. took it as the standard, and many other countries. And they destroyed it in 15 minutes, and they were able to enter. And they took over 11 military strongholds of Israel, and they killed and captured many of them. And they get back to them in Gaza, and we can understand why they are angry with them. And they took the headquarters of Gaza commandment of the Israeli military army, and they arrested generals, colonel and others, and they brought them, I mean, to Gaza. Israel has the right to be angry, absolutely angry, because Hamas showed their intelligence and their military capability means nothing, and they destroyed this illusion in two hours.
But why they are revenging from us? They should rebel from Hamas. Hamas still, I can assure you, functions like a Swiss watch in Gaza, and they are not affected. I can tell that. I can see that. We feel that. They are unable to minimize their power. They are unable to silence them. They are unable to locate where their soldiers are who were taken as prisoners of war. They are unable to do anything for them. That’s why they are revenging from us. This is the shame on the army. I mean, there is rules of engagement between the army, between the resistance movement and any army. But why civilians are the target? This is the big question. This is shame this is happening, I mean, to us. And I’m telling you —
AMY GOODMAN: Raji —
RAJI SOURANI: — the reason they wanted — yes.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you — the leaflets that were dropped this weekend on Gaza, addressed to residents of Gaza, reading, “Urgent warning to the residents of Gaza: Your presence north of Wadi Gaza is putting your lives at risk. Anyone who chooses not to evacuate from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south of the Gaza Strip may be identified as a partner in a terrorist organization.” These on leaflets. I don’t know if you saw these leaflets, but you have made a decision with your family not to move south. Can you respond to what they’re saying, that anyone who chooses not to evacuate may be identified as a partner in a terrorist organization?
RAJI SOURANI: We have been here since ever, and we will stay forever. And no power on Earth will take me from here. We are the stones of the valley. They have to understand that. And even if they destroy once and again houses on our heads, even if they took our life, we are not moving anymore. Simply, we suffered from the Nakba 75 years. They committed massacres. They killed thousands of Palestinians. They pushed us out. And now it’s time for us not to do that again, at least willingly. We cannot be part of Mr. Bibi’s plan to evacuate Gaza. He said it, from a written statement, in a press conference day one: Gazans should leave Gaza. Where to? Where to? If anybody should leave, people like Mr. Bibi, not us. Enough for the occupation. We want dignity, freedom, end of this belligerent, criminal occupation. Now people from south of Gaza began to come back to north in thousands, because there is no safe haven in Gaza, no safe place in Gaza. And we are not going to be a tool in the hands of racist, criminal, rightist Israeli prime minister. No way. We are not going to do that. We are going to stay in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Raji Sourani, I want to thank you so much for taking this call, human rights attorney, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, as well as the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. Please be safe. I know that it’s extremely difficult, with now the death toll at 5,000. Raji has chosen to stay in Gaza City near his home. People should go to our interviews with Raji over these last two weeks, of course, and beyond, before that. I also want to thank Jehad Abusalim, scholar and analyst from Gaza, executive director of The Jerusalem Fund. Thank you so much both for being with us.
Next up, “Do not use our death and our pain to bring death and pain of other people and other families.” The message of Noy Katsman about their brother Hayim, an Israeli peace activist killed in the Hamas attack. We’ll speak with Noy, as he says, “Not in my name. Not in my brother’s name.” Stay with us.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Tue Oct 24, 2023 1:49 am
Not in My Brother’s Name: Sibling of Peace Activist Killed by Hamas Demands Israel Stop Bombing Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 23, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/23 ... transcript
We speak with Noy Katsman, whose brother Hayim Katsman was a peace activist killed by Hamas militants in the village of Holit on October 7, about how they are demanding the death of their sibling not be used as a pretext for more bloodshed. “What Israel is doing now is very clearly not for the security of anyone,” Katsman says of the bombing campaign. “The real reason is just revenge and killing and distraction [from] the failure of Israel to protect its citizens.”
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.
“My call to my government: Stop killing people.” That’s the message Noy Katsman recently gave during a eulogy for their brother Hayim Katsman, an Israeli peace activist who was killed during the Hamas attack October 7th that killed 1,400 people. Israel now says 222 hostages are still being held in Gaza, after two were released Friday.
Hayim Katsman was an academic, a peace activist, a tender of fruit trees in the Holit kibbutz, about a mile from Gaza. He was credited with saving the lives of three of his neighbors on October 7th. We spoke to his Seattle, Washington, rabbi just last week, because Hayim was a graduate student at the University of Washington.
We’re joined now by Noy, Noy Katsman, who gave the eulogy for their brother.
Noy, thank you so much for being with us from Vienna. Our deepest condolences to you and your family. If you can talk about Hayim, Hayim’s life, and now what’s being done in his name, and your thoughts on what should happen right now? I think the death toll, 1,400 Israelis from October 7th, that time, and now more than 5,000 Palestinians, and the number increases even as this show airs.
NOY KATSMAN: You hear me?
AMY GOODMAN: We hear you perfectly.
NOY KATSMAN: OK. So, first of all, my father — my brother was — so, he did many things. He was also a car mechanic. He was a DJ. He was a brilliant academic. He also was a gardener. He was in charge also of the fruit trees and also of the gardens. Lately, he became in charge of the gardens in Holit. And all of the things he did, he was for peace. He was a DJ, so he was a DJ of — he played almost entirely Arabic music from the Middle East, about Palestine and Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt. He was a gardener, and he volunteered in Rahat in the garden. And Rahat is a Bedouin city in the south of Israel, near Be’er Sheva. And he also was — he was a volunteer in Masafer Yatta, where Palestinians are suffering from displacement and terror from settlers and soldiers. So he would go there and help them, protect them and use his knowledge as a car mechanic to fix the 4-by-4 car of the volunteers. And as an academic, his research was about right wing in Israel and the dangers of right wing in Israel, extreme right wing. Like, his thesis was on Rabbi Ginsburgh, and then his doctorate, he wrote about religious Zionism, where it’s my family that we came from.
AMY GOODMAN: Noy, can you talk about what Israel is doing now, the constant bombardment of the Gaza Strip, forcing the dislocation of half the population, and what looks like an imminent ground invasion, as a response to the brutality of Hamas on October 7th? Your thoughts and what you think your brother would have felt?
NOY KATSMAN: OK. So I think the most thing that is bothering me is the lack of responsibility that government in Israel are taking for many, many years. We can start it from '67, when Israel conquered Gaza Strip, and of course didn't give the citizens any citizenship or any rights. It was just a thought that, you know, Palestinians don’t need rights. I mean, they don’t need basic rights; they’ll be happy to be under our control. And sadly — not sadly, but in 1987, so, the uprising of the First Intifada, of course, proved that to be wrong, because Palestinians are also people, just like Jews and Israelis, and they want the same things like people, human beings, want.
Sadly, I don’t think Israel is taking responsibility of anything. I mean, in 2005, we got out of Gaza and were like, “OK!” I mean, we just throw it like we were never connected to it. And like, OK, let’s just let them — like no long process agreement, sustainable agreement. And sadly, after that, the 10, 15 years, Israel is doing everything to strengthen Hamas in Gaza, just because it doesn’t want a two-state solution, so it wants to divide between the Fatah and the Hamas. So, this, of course, failed, because also the Hamas is very terrible to the people in Gaza, especially LGBTs and women, which always suffer from right-wing religious government. And at the end, it of course came to us, because we can put Gaza behind fences or whatever, but the right-wing extremists of Hamas killed Israelis indiscriminately, civilians and also my left brother, who — of course, it very makes sense, you know, that the right wing kill left-wing people, because they just don’t care. They earn from the hate. They earn from the death.
AMY GOODMAN: Noy, we just have —
NOY KATSMAN: Now, some of the — yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Noy, we just have about 30 seconds, and I wanted to ask you to tell us your message to the world today.
NOY KATSMAN: OK. So, what Israel is doing now is very clearly not in the — it’s not for the security of anyone, not to people in Israel, not to people of Gaza. Some people say, “Oh, Israel is — it’s for the good of Gaza people, because we’re going to destroy Hamas.” If that’s the case, so I think Israel should make sure all of the citizens of Israel — of Gaza should have a safe place to be and maybe kill Hamas. But I don’t think it’s the real reason. The real reason is just revenge and killing and distraction of the failure of Israel to protect its citizens, because it was such a failure of protection.
AMY GOODMAN: Noy Katsman, we’re going to have to leave it there, but I thank you so much. And again, condolences on the death of your brother Hayim, which in Hebrew means “Life.” I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 23, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/23 ... transcript
We speak with Noy Katsman, whose brother Hayim Katsman was a peace activist killed by Hamas militants in the village of Holit on October 7, about how they are demanding the death of their sibling not be used as a pretext for more bloodshed. “What Israel is doing now is very clearly not for the security of anyone,” Katsman says of the bombing campaign. “The real reason is just revenge and killing and distraction [from] the failure of Israel to protect its citizens.”
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.
“My call to my government: Stop killing people.” That’s the message Noy Katsman recently gave during a eulogy for their brother Hayim Katsman, an Israeli peace activist who was killed during the Hamas attack October 7th that killed 1,400 people. Israel now says 222 hostages are still being held in Gaza, after two were released Friday.
Hayim Katsman was an academic, a peace activist, a tender of fruit trees in the Holit kibbutz, about a mile from Gaza. He was credited with saving the lives of three of his neighbors on October 7th. We spoke to his Seattle, Washington, rabbi just last week, because Hayim was a graduate student at the University of Washington.
We’re joined now by Noy, Noy Katsman, who gave the eulogy for their brother.
Noy, thank you so much for being with us from Vienna. Our deepest condolences to you and your family. If you can talk about Hayim, Hayim’s life, and now what’s being done in his name, and your thoughts on what should happen right now? I think the death toll, 1,400 Israelis from October 7th, that time, and now more than 5,000 Palestinians, and the number increases even as this show airs.
NOY KATSMAN: You hear me?
AMY GOODMAN: We hear you perfectly.
NOY KATSMAN: OK. So, first of all, my father — my brother was — so, he did many things. He was also a car mechanic. He was a DJ. He was a brilliant academic. He also was a gardener. He was in charge also of the fruit trees and also of the gardens. Lately, he became in charge of the gardens in Holit. And all of the things he did, he was for peace. He was a DJ, so he was a DJ of — he played almost entirely Arabic music from the Middle East, about Palestine and Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt. He was a gardener, and he volunteered in Rahat in the garden. And Rahat is a Bedouin city in the south of Israel, near Be’er Sheva. And he also was — he was a volunteer in Masafer Yatta, where Palestinians are suffering from displacement and terror from settlers and soldiers. So he would go there and help them, protect them and use his knowledge as a car mechanic to fix the 4-by-4 car of the volunteers. And as an academic, his research was about right wing in Israel and the dangers of right wing in Israel, extreme right wing. Like, his thesis was on Rabbi Ginsburgh, and then his doctorate, he wrote about religious Zionism, where it’s my family that we came from.
AMY GOODMAN: Noy, can you talk about what Israel is doing now, the constant bombardment of the Gaza Strip, forcing the dislocation of half the population, and what looks like an imminent ground invasion, as a response to the brutality of Hamas on October 7th? Your thoughts and what you think your brother would have felt?
NOY KATSMAN: OK. So I think the most thing that is bothering me is the lack of responsibility that government in Israel are taking for many, many years. We can start it from '67, when Israel conquered Gaza Strip, and of course didn't give the citizens any citizenship or any rights. It was just a thought that, you know, Palestinians don’t need rights. I mean, they don’t need basic rights; they’ll be happy to be under our control. And sadly — not sadly, but in 1987, so, the uprising of the First Intifada, of course, proved that to be wrong, because Palestinians are also people, just like Jews and Israelis, and they want the same things like people, human beings, want.
Sadly, I don’t think Israel is taking responsibility of anything. I mean, in 2005, we got out of Gaza and were like, “OK!” I mean, we just throw it like we were never connected to it. And like, OK, let’s just let them — like no long process agreement, sustainable agreement. And sadly, after that, the 10, 15 years, Israel is doing everything to strengthen Hamas in Gaza, just because it doesn’t want a two-state solution, so it wants to divide between the Fatah and the Hamas. So, this, of course, failed, because also the Hamas is very terrible to the people in Gaza, especially LGBTs and women, which always suffer from right-wing religious government. And at the end, it of course came to us, because we can put Gaza behind fences or whatever, but the right-wing extremists of Hamas killed Israelis indiscriminately, civilians and also my left brother, who — of course, it very makes sense, you know, that the right wing kill left-wing people, because they just don’t care. They earn from the hate. They earn from the death.
AMY GOODMAN: Noy, we just have —
NOY KATSMAN: Now, some of the — yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Noy, we just have about 30 seconds, and I wanted to ask you to tell us your message to the world today.
NOY KATSMAN: OK. So, what Israel is doing now is very clearly not in the — it’s not for the security of anyone, not to people in Israel, not to people of Gaza. Some people say, “Oh, Israel is — it’s for the good of Gaza people, because we’re going to destroy Hamas.” If that’s the case, so I think Israel should make sure all of the citizens of Israel — of Gaza should have a safe place to be and maybe kill Hamas. But I don’t think it’s the real reason. The real reason is just revenge and killing and distraction of the failure of Israel to protect its citizens, because it was such a failure of protection.
AMY GOODMAN: Noy Katsman, we’re going to have to leave it there, but I thank you so much. And again, condolences on the death of your brother Hayim, which in Hebrew means “Life.” I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Tue Oct 24, 2023 3:01 am
A former State Dept. official explains why he resigned over U.S. arms sent to Israel
by Rachel Treisman
Heard on Morning Edition
Updated October 19, 20234:02 PM ET
A State Department official has resigned from the bureau that oversees arms transfers to foreign nations, citing his objection to continued U.S. military assistance to Israel as its retaliatory bombardment and blockade of Gaza exacerbate a humanitarian crisis there.
Josh Paul was the director of congressional and public affairs at the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. In a two-page letter posted on LinkedIn, he said he had made a promise to himself when he joined over a decade ago that he would stay "as long as I felt the harm I might do could be outweighed by the good I could do."
"I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued — indeed, expanded and expedited — provision of lethal arms to Israel — I have reached the end of that bargain," he wrote.
Paul tendered his resignation on Wednesday, the same day that President Biden visited Israel in a public show of support. The president pledged his commitment to its security and promised a congressional request for more defense funding, even as he urged Israelis not to be consumed by their rage and directed $100 million in humanitarian aid for Palestinians.
Paul wrote in his letter that he was heartened to see the administration's efforts to temper Israel's response, including its advocacy for the provision of relief, supplies and safe passage for civilians in Gaza.
But he said he could not work in support of a set of major policy decisions — including "rushing more arms to one side of the conflict" — that he believes to be "shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse."
The State Department declined to comment on personnel matters.
In an interview with Morning Edition's Michel Martin, Paul strongly denounced Hamas' attack on Israel and affirmed Israel's right to defend itself. But he said there are "ways to do that that don't involve dislocating a million Palestinians, that don't involve the death of thousands of civilians."
"We never seem to ask, well, what about the Palestinian right? Not to face incursions in their villages, not to be bombed from the air," he added. "So I think looking at this on equal terms, we have to talk about both sides."
Paul said he doesn't expect his departure to lead to an immediate change in policy — an assessment several experts also made to NPR. But he said he hoped to accomplish two things: remove himself from a debate that he found difficult, and show others in the government "that it's OK and possible to stand up."
Paul said he's received a huge outpouring of support after posting his resignation letter — which has since been reposted more than 1,000 times — and hopes his colleagues grappling with similar feelings take that to heart.
"And I hope they see that and that it speaks to them to do the right thing as well, which I know so many of them will," he said.
Paul says this is different from previous moral conundrums
Paul noted in his letter that while his work dealt with many countries, he was particularly well-versed in Middle East issues: He wrote his master's thesis on Israeli counterterrorism and civil rights, spent time working with the Palestinian Authority and Israel Defense Forces while serving for the U.S. Security in Ramallah and has "deep personal ties" to both sides of the conflict.
He wrote that he's "made more moral compromises than I can recall" over his last 11 years in the job. He told NPR that he used his position to fight many times for what he believed to be right, including debates over arms transfers to "a number of unsavory regimes." But this time is different, he says.
"The difference here is that in all of those cases — when those within the department and the interagency with human rights concerns had done all the shaping they could — you knew the next step was for the sale to go to Congress where it would be held, debated, even voted against," he explained. "But with Israel, it's a blank check from Congress. There's no appetite for debate. There's no real debate internal to the administration. And then there's no one to hand the debate off to."
While there is some disagreement on the far left when it comes to support for Israel, Congress as a whole is unlikely to be divided when it comes to supporting Israel, at least in the short term.
Paul said the first thing he'd like the Biden administration to do is "simply follow their own public commitments."
He explains that the administration's new conventional arms transfer policy, enacted earlier this year, explicitly states that no transfers will be authorized under which the U.S. assesses that "it is more likely than not that the arms to be transferred will be used by the recipient to commit, facilitate the recipients' commission of, or to aggravate risks that the recipient will commit: genocide; crimes against humanity; grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949."
Those include attacks directed against civilians and other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law, including acts of violence against children.
"So I think for us to look at the current situation and say the answer is as many bombs as Israel asks for, knowing that their use will lead in a direction exactly opposite to our stated policy goals ... it's disappointing, to say the least," Paul said.
Resignation is one option for government officials who disagree with U.S. policy
Experts on diplomacy told NPR that while it's too soon to see what if any ripple effects Paul resignation will have, it's unlikely to impact U.S. policy.
Ronald Neumann, the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, says there are two things a State Department employee can do when they disagree with a U.S. policy: resign or ask to be moved to another job.
"Often people have to deal with exactly what Josh Paul mentioned in his letter, which is balancing the good they might do by staying in a position or by remaining in a policy fight against having to carry out policy they don't agree with," he adds.
He says such resignations happen periodically. For example: The U.S. ambassador to Panama stepped down in 2018, citing irreconcilable differences with former President Donald Trump, and several State Department officials resigned over objections to the U.S.' Bosnia policy in the 1990s.
"I do not know that any of such resignations have ever had an effect on the department writ large or that they have a major effect on policy," Neumann says, adding that he's not surprised Paul has received support from many coworkers but doesn't expect it to lead to much.
The State Department is the rare cabinet agency with an official internal mechanism that allows employees to voice concerns about U.S. policy, Neumann points out.
It's called the Dissent Channel, and was born out of the Vietnam War. Employees can express policy disagreements in classified messages that go to the secretary of state, without fear of retaliation.
"It's important for that active policy discussion and dissent that people do respect their professional obligation to either keep dissent inside the organization or to do what Mr. Paul has done and resign and take it outside," Neumann said, adding that it's important for people to be able to draw their own line.
Dissent cables don't guarantee changes in policy, though some have happened. A 1992 memo about U.S. inaction towards genocide in Bosnia, for example, is widely credited with helping bring about the U.S.-brokered peace accords there.
The channel usually gets four to five such cables each year, but saw surges at times during the Obama and Trump administrations.
Tom Yazdgerdi, the president of the American Foreign Service Association, told NPR over email that the union hasn't seen any signs that foreign service members are contemplating resigning over the U.S. response to the Israel-Hamas war.
He says there's been more concern about the safety and security of family members of diplomatic personnel working in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Beirut — and the State Department has addressed it by providing authorized departure to eligible individuals and employees.
by Rachel Treisman
Heard on Morning Edition
Updated October 19, 20234:02 PM ET
A high-ranking State Department official has resigned in protest of the Biden administration’s policies on Israel and Palestine. For 11 years, Josh Paul oversaw arms transfers to U.S. allies while serving as the congressional and public affairs director of the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. In a letter explaining his resignation, Paul condemned what he called U.S. “blind support” for Israel as “an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia.” Paul wrote that his greatest desire was to see both Israelis and Palestinians flourish, adding, “Collective punishment is an enemy to that desire, whether it involves demolishing one home, or one thousand; as too is ethnic cleansing; as too is occupation; as too is apartheid.”
-- State Department Official Quits to Protest Biden Administration’s “Blind Support” of Israel, October 19, 2023, by Amy Goodman, DemocracyNow!
A State Department official has resigned from the bureau that oversees arms transfers to foreign nations, citing his objection to continued U.S. military assistance to Israel as its retaliatory bombardment and blockade of Gaza exacerbate a humanitarian crisis there.
Josh Paul was the director of congressional and public affairs at the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. In a two-page letter posted on LinkedIn, he said he had made a promise to himself when he joined over a decade ago that he would stay "as long as I felt the harm I might do could be outweighed by the good I could do."
"I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued — indeed, expanded and expedited — provision of lethal arms to Israel — I have reached the end of that bargain," he wrote.
Paul tendered his resignation on Wednesday, the same day that President Biden visited Israel in a public show of support. The president pledged his commitment to its security and promised a congressional request for more defense funding, even as he urged Israelis not to be consumed by their rage and directed $100 million in humanitarian aid for Palestinians.
Paul wrote in his letter that he was heartened to see the administration's efforts to temper Israel's response, including its advocacy for the provision of relief, supplies and safe passage for civilians in Gaza.
But he said he could not work in support of a set of major policy decisions — including "rushing more arms to one side of the conflict" — that he believes to be "shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse."
The State Department declined to comment on personnel matters.
In an interview with Morning Edition's Michel Martin, Paul strongly denounced Hamas' attack on Israel and affirmed Israel's right to defend itself. But he said there are "ways to do that that don't involve dislocating a million Palestinians, that don't involve the death of thousands of civilians."
"We never seem to ask, well, what about the Palestinian right? Not to face incursions in their villages, not to be bombed from the air," he added. "So I think looking at this on equal terms, we have to talk about both sides."
Paul said he doesn't expect his departure to lead to an immediate change in policy — an assessment several experts also made to NPR. But he said he hoped to accomplish two things: remove himself from a debate that he found difficult, and show others in the government "that it's OK and possible to stand up."
Paul said he's received a huge outpouring of support after posting his resignation letter — which has since been reposted more than 1,000 times — and hopes his colleagues grappling with similar feelings take that to heart.
"And I hope they see that and that it speaks to them to do the right thing as well, which I know so many of them will," he said.
Paul says this is different from previous moral conundrums
Paul noted in his letter that while his work dealt with many countries, he was particularly well-versed in Middle East issues: He wrote his master's thesis on Israeli counterterrorism and civil rights, spent time working with the Palestinian Authority and Israel Defense Forces while serving for the U.S. Security in Ramallah and has "deep personal ties" to both sides of the conflict.
He wrote that he's "made more moral compromises than I can recall" over his last 11 years in the job. He told NPR that he used his position to fight many times for what he believed to be right, including debates over arms transfers to "a number of unsavory regimes." But this time is different, he says.
"The difference here is that in all of those cases — when those within the department and the interagency with human rights concerns had done all the shaping they could — you knew the next step was for the sale to go to Congress where it would be held, debated, even voted against," he explained. "But with Israel, it's a blank check from Congress. There's no appetite for debate. There's no real debate internal to the administration. And then there's no one to hand the debate off to."
While there is some disagreement on the far left when it comes to support for Israel, Congress as a whole is unlikely to be divided when it comes to supporting Israel, at least in the short term.
Paul said the first thing he'd like the Biden administration to do is "simply follow their own public commitments."
He explains that the administration's new conventional arms transfer policy, enacted earlier this year, explicitly states that no transfers will be authorized under which the U.S. assesses that "it is more likely than not that the arms to be transferred will be used by the recipient to commit, facilitate the recipients' commission of, or to aggravate risks that the recipient will commit: genocide; crimes against humanity; grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949."
Those include attacks directed against civilians and other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law, including acts of violence against children.
"So I think for us to look at the current situation and say the answer is as many bombs as Israel asks for, knowing that their use will lead in a direction exactly opposite to our stated policy goals ... it's disappointing, to say the least," Paul said.
Resignation is one option for government officials who disagree with U.S. policy
Experts on diplomacy told NPR that while it's too soon to see what if any ripple effects Paul resignation will have, it's unlikely to impact U.S. policy.
Ronald Neumann, the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, says there are two things a State Department employee can do when they disagree with a U.S. policy: resign or ask to be moved to another job.
"Often people have to deal with exactly what Josh Paul mentioned in his letter, which is balancing the good they might do by staying in a position or by remaining in a policy fight against having to carry out policy they don't agree with," he adds.
He says such resignations happen periodically. For example: The U.S. ambassador to Panama stepped down in 2018, citing irreconcilable differences with former President Donald Trump, and several State Department officials resigned over objections to the U.S.' Bosnia policy in the 1990s.
"I do not know that any of such resignations have ever had an effect on the department writ large or that they have a major effect on policy," Neumann says, adding that he's not surprised Paul has received support from many coworkers but doesn't expect it to lead to much.
The State Department is the rare cabinet agency with an official internal mechanism that allows employees to voice concerns about U.S. policy, Neumann points out.
It's called the Dissent Channel, and was born out of the Vietnam War. Employees can express policy disagreements in classified messages that go to the secretary of state, without fear of retaliation.
"It's important for that active policy discussion and dissent that people do respect their professional obligation to either keep dissent inside the organization or to do what Mr. Paul has done and resign and take it outside," Neumann said, adding that it's important for people to be able to draw their own line.
Dissent cables don't guarantee changes in policy, though some have happened. A 1992 memo about U.S. inaction towards genocide in Bosnia, for example, is widely credited with helping bring about the U.S.-brokered peace accords there.
The channel usually gets four to five such cables each year, but saw surges at times during the Obama and Trump administrations.
Tom Yazdgerdi, the president of the American Foreign Service Association, told NPR over email that the union hasn't seen any signs that foreign service members are contemplating resigning over the U.S. response to the Israel-Hamas war.
He says there's been more concern about the safety and security of family members of diplomatic personnel working in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Beirut — and the State Department has addressed it by providing authorized departure to eligible individuals and employees.
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- Site Admin
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Mon Oct 30, 2023 11:59 pm
“Not in Our Name”: 400 Arrested at Jewish-Led Sit-in at NYC’s Grand Central Demanding Gaza Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30 ... transcript
SEE VIDEO HERE:
Transcript
We bring you the voices of Jewish Voice for Peace and their allies who shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour Friday in one of New York’s largest acts of civil disobedience in 20 years to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. The multiracial, intergenerational movement says about 400 people were arrested, including rabbis, famous actors and elected officials from the New York State Assembly and Senate and the City Council.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel is intensifying its aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza. Palestinian officials say the death toll has topped 8,300, including over 3,400 children. On Friday, Israeli ground troops, backed by tanks and armored bulldozers, entered Gaza amidst a communication blackout that cut off contact between Gaza and the rest of the world. Communications have now been partially restored.
On Friday, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted in support of a humanitarian truce, but Israel and the United States voted against the resolution.
Massive demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza continued this weekend, including right here in New York City. On Friday night, thousands of members of Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City and their allies shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour. It’s the largest sit-in protest the city has seen in over two decades. Many wore shirts that said “Not in Our Name” and “Ceasefire Now.” Banners were unfurled, reading, “Palestinians should be free. Israelis demand ceasefire now.” One sign read, “Never again for anyone.” The multiracial, intergenerational movement says about 400 people were arrested, including rabbis, famous actors and elected officials from New York State Assembly and Senate and the City Council.
Democracy Now! was there. Today we bring you their voices, including Rosalind Petchesky, professor of political science at Hunter College.
PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
ROSALIND PETCHESKY: My name is Rosalind Petchesky. I’m here with maybe a thousand others, a lot of us Jews. But we are here to protest the genocide that is happening in our name. It has to stop. We are crying every minute. When we listen to your show, we are crying. I have a dear friend, Mohamed, with his little family in Gaza. He almost got blown up today. We can’t let this go on. We believe in justice and the right to live for everyone. But Palestinians have been the victims of oppression for 75 years, and it has to stop. That’s why we’re here, to say 'Not in our name.' I am older than the state of Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: There’s Jewish prayers in the background. The sun is going down, and it’s the Jewish Sabbath.
ROSALIND PETCHESKY: It is. And on Shabbat, we have to pray. We have to recommit ourselves to justice. I believe that Judaism and Jewish ethics — this is how I grew up thinking — are about justice and about Rabbi Hillel’s statement: If I am not for myself, who am I? And if I am only for me, what am I doing here? I glossed over it a little bit. And if not now, when? Now! Peace now. Ceasefire now. President Biden and Blinken, listen to what people are telling you, especially the young people and lots of Jews.
PROTESTERS: Not in our name! Not in our name! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live!
INDYA MOORE: My name is Indya Moore. I am standing here, I’m resisting and protesting in solidarity with Jews, trans people, queer people, Black and Brown victims of colonization, and Americans, just like you and I, to stand against our tax dollars being used to decimate Palestinians. And we’re standing for peace. We’re standing for compassion. And we’re standing for self-determinating justice and liberated Palestine.
PROTESTERS: Stop the genocide! Free, free Palestine! Stop the genocide! Free, free Palestine!
SUMAYA AWAD: My name is Sumaya Awad.
AMY GOODMAN: And why Grand Central?
SUMAYA AWAD: Because this is a symbol of New York. This is a symbol of the United States in many ways. And so, we’re here. We’re saying this is ours. This is where we go to work. This is how we get to our children. This is how we go to school. And we want the same thing for Palestinians in Gaza. We want them to be able to live their lives in dignity and freedom.
DR. STEVE AUERBACH: My name’s Dr. Steve Auerbach. I am a pediatrician, licensed physician in the state of New York. I’m here to say that many Jewish pediatricians are calling for stopping the killing of children and their families, calling for a ceasefire now, and not in our name.
I’ve never been prouder to be a pediatrician than when, back on Friday, October 13th, thoroughly mainstream organization, the New York state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics said that “We stand with the children of Israel and the children of Gaza. We love all children, all families equally,” and calling for an immediate ceasefire. So, that was back on October 13th. Unfortunately, children and their families continue to be killed. These sorts of collective actions, collective responsibility is illegal. These sorts of mass killings of civilian areas, mass bombings of civilian areas are illegal and immoral.
The United States should be leading to call for a ceasefire now. I’ve never been prouder of the 18 congresspersons who have called for a ceasefire now. And I’m calling on President Biden and Senator Schumer and my assemblyperson, Nadler: Please, please, these are not Jewish values. It is not a Jewish value to be dropping bombs on children, killing children and their families.
SEN. JABARI BRISPORT: I am state Senator Jabari Brisport, the 25th State Senate District in Brooklyn. And I’m here calling for a ceasefire in order to allow for the release of hostages and humanitarian aid. I carry the Not on Our Dime legislation with Assemblymember Mamdani, which will stop New York from allowing for fake charities that claim to be charities to help Israeli citizens but actually fund displacement and destruction and settler violence in Palestinian territory.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you planning to get arrested today?
SEN. JABARI BRISPORT: I got arrested a week ago, and I am going to let others step up today. I got arrested a week ago at a sit-in outside Senator Gillibrand’s office asking her to start calling for a ceasefire.
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: My name is Zohran Mamdani. I’m an assemblymember for parts of Astoria and Long Island City. And I’m here today to joining thousands of Jewish New Yorkers, rabbis and allies to say that the time is now for an immediate ceasefire.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you willing to get arrested?
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: I’m not going to be getting arrested today, because I was arrested two weeks ago, and I was advised to not get arrested immediately after.
AMY GOODMAN: What were you arrested for?
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: I was arrested for civil disobedience, for disorderly conduct. I was arrested alongside Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes in front of Senator Chuck Schumer’s home, calling on him to support the demand for an immediate ceasefire.
AMY GOODMAN: What does it mean to you that on this Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, thousands of Jews are here at Grand Central saying “Ceasefire now”?
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: It shows that what we have been told about the consent for this genocide is not true. So many of the Jewish New Yorkers here are struggling through heartbreak and mourning of October 7th, and they have made it very clear that do not use their heartbreak, their tragedy as the justification for the genocide of Palestinians. In over two-and-a-half weeks, we’ve already seen more than 7,000 Palestinians be killed, close to 3,000 Palestinian children, one Palestinian child killed every 15 minutes. These New Yorkers, and so many across the state, are saying the time is now for a ceasefire, and if you’re not calling for it, you’re supporting a genocide.
COUNCILMEMBER SANDY NURSE: Sandy Nurse. I’m a councilmember to the 37th District.
AMY GOODMAN: And you represent what area of the city?
COUNCILMEMBER SANDY NURSE: Bushwick, Cypress Hills, Brownsville, East New York, City Line.
AMY GOODMAN: And why are you here today?
COUNCILMEMBER SANDY NURSE: I’m here today to stand in solidarity with Jews, Muslims, allies, because we believe in a free Palestine. We believe in a Palestine without military occupation. We believe that we need to end this genocidal war. And we do not believe that our dollars, our tax dollars, should be used to bomb other children. We don’t believe that unjustified murder of one set of children brings about murder for another set of children. We need to end this war, and we need to move towards a peaceful solution.
SECURITY: Are you a credentialed member of the media? I’m going to ask you, as a courtesy, please to leave the steps. They’re planning an announcement that people are disrupting the steps, and they’re in violation. They’re going to — they’re going to start possibly making arrests. So, if you’re a credentialed member of the media, I’m going to ask you for the same courtesy: if you’d please leave the area. Thank you.
POLICE OFFICER 1: If you refuse to leave this premises, you will be arrested on the charge of criminal trespass. If you do not accompany the arresting officer voluntarily to the prisoner transport vehicle, or if you must be carried, you may be charged with additional crimes.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell me your name and why you’re getting arrested?
JOCELYN: My name’s Jocelyn [phon.]. If someone asks for my solidarity and I can give it, that’s what I’m going to give right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Why is this important to you?
JOCELYN: I mean, the blood is on my hands, too. My tax dollars are funding this. And, you know, this is the least I can do.
AMY GOODMAN: And what’s your name?
PHI LE: I’m Phi, Phi Le [phon.].
AMY GOODMAN: And why are you getting arrested?
PHI LE: I was born in a refugee camp in the Philippines. I am Vietnamese. I am a child of imperialism. So, I can’t let — I can’t see it go on. I can’t see it continue.
PROTESTERS: [singing] Which side are you on? Which side are you on? Which side are you on?
JANE HIRSCHMAN: My name is Jane Hirschmann. I’m here because my family survived the Holocaust, but many did not. My parents were Holocaust survivors. And there’s one thing I learned: Never again means never again for anyone. We don’t condone this, and Netanyahu better stop the bombing of Gaza. You know, this didn’t start with Hamas. This started in 1948, when 750,000 Palestinians were removed from where they lived in order to set up a Jewish state. And these people that they’re killing in Gaza, they were moved to Gaza because of the 1948 Nakba, which means “catastrophe.” And now they’re going to eliminate them, kill them or move them somewhere else. And it’s got to stop. And Jews, American Jews, have to step and say, “Not in our name. Not with our tax money. You cannot do this kind of genocide in front of our eyes or ever again.”
AMY GOODMAN: Are you getting arrested today?
JANE HIRSCHMAN: Oh yeah, I am. My whole family is here. I’m here with my daughters, my grandchildren — they’re not getting arrested, they moved out — my husband. We’re all here together. There are 13 of us.
PROTESTERS: Never again for anyone! Never again for anyone! Never again, Israel! Never again, Israel!
PROTESTER: I’m here to support the people of Gaza, the people who are currently experiencing a genocide. It’s disgusting that our government has enabled this. And so we’re here shutting down Grand Central to show that we, the people here, will not tolerate that.
JOYCE ROBERTS: They won’t arrest me because I have a cane. They won’t arrest me.
AMY GOODMAN: What’s your name?
JOYCE ROBERTS: I want to get arrested, and they’re refusing.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Are you ready? Are you going to get arrested?
JOYCE ROBERTS: Yes, I want to get arrested.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Let’s do it.
POLICE OFFICER 3: All right, we’ll help you stand up.
JOYCE ROBERTS: OK.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Are you ready? You need help?
JOYCE ROBERTS: I need help standing up.
POLICE OFFICER 2: We’ll put your hands behind your back.
JOYCE ROBERTS: I need my cane.
POLICE OFFICER 4: We’ll get it.
JOYCE ROBERTS: My name is Joyce Roberts. I think that it’s really important that there’s a ceasefire.
POLICE OFFICER 3: Ma’am, let go of your cane one second, please.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Ma’am, can you let go of your cane for a second?
JOYCE ROBERTS: I let go of my cane.
POLICE OFFICER 3: All right. I’ll give it right back to you. I’m going to give it right back to you.
JOYCE ROBERTS: That there’s a ceasefire, that people stop killing each other. We have to stop killing each other. We can’t, we won’t get rid of Hamas. We won’t get rid of an idea. We might get rid of the organization. We might get rid of all of the people in Gaza. All of the Palestinians might be killed. But the idea won’t die. Freedom won’t die.
PROTESTERS: Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!
AMY GOODMAN: Voices from the historic Jewish Voice for Peace protest on Friday that shut down Grand Central Station in New York City. Protesters were calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. About 400 people were arrested in what’s believed to be the largest sit-in protest New York has seen in over two decades.
Coming up, Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Chicago. She’s one of 18 members of the House who have signed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. Stay with us.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30 ... transcript
SEE VIDEO HERE:
Transcript
We bring you the voices of Jewish Voice for Peace and their allies who shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour Friday in one of New York’s largest acts of civil disobedience in 20 years to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. The multiracial, intergenerational movement says about 400 people were arrested, including rabbis, famous actors and elected officials from the New York State Assembly and Senate and the City Council.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel is intensifying its aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza. Palestinian officials say the death toll has topped 8,300, including over 3,400 children. On Friday, Israeli ground troops, backed by tanks and armored bulldozers, entered Gaza amidst a communication blackout that cut off contact between Gaza and the rest of the world. Communications have now been partially restored.
On Friday, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted in support of a humanitarian truce, but Israel and the United States voted against the resolution.
Massive demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza continued this weekend, including right here in New York City. On Friday night, thousands of members of Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City and their allies shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour. It’s the largest sit-in protest the city has seen in over two decades. Many wore shirts that said “Not in Our Name” and “Ceasefire Now.” Banners were unfurled, reading, “Palestinians should be free. Israelis demand ceasefire now.” One sign read, “Never again for anyone.” The multiracial, intergenerational movement says about 400 people were arrested, including rabbis, famous actors and elected officials from New York State Assembly and Senate and the City Council.
Democracy Now! was there. Today we bring you their voices, including Rosalind Petchesky, professor of political science at Hunter College.
PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
ROSALIND PETCHESKY: My name is Rosalind Petchesky. I’m here with maybe a thousand others, a lot of us Jews. But we are here to protest the genocide that is happening in our name. It has to stop. We are crying every minute. When we listen to your show, we are crying. I have a dear friend, Mohamed, with his little family in Gaza. He almost got blown up today. We can’t let this go on. We believe in justice and the right to live for everyone. But Palestinians have been the victims of oppression for 75 years, and it has to stop. That’s why we’re here, to say 'Not in our name.' I am older than the state of Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: There’s Jewish prayers in the background. The sun is going down, and it’s the Jewish Sabbath.
ROSALIND PETCHESKY: It is. And on Shabbat, we have to pray. We have to recommit ourselves to justice. I believe that Judaism and Jewish ethics — this is how I grew up thinking — are about justice and about Rabbi Hillel’s statement: If I am not for myself, who am I? And if I am only for me, what am I doing here? I glossed over it a little bit. And if not now, when? Now! Peace now. Ceasefire now. President Biden and Blinken, listen to what people are telling you, especially the young people and lots of Jews.
PROTESTERS: Not in our name! Not in our name! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live!
INDYA MOORE: My name is Indya Moore. I am standing here, I’m resisting and protesting in solidarity with Jews, trans people, queer people, Black and Brown victims of colonization, and Americans, just like you and I, to stand against our tax dollars being used to decimate Palestinians. And we’re standing for peace. We’re standing for compassion. And we’re standing for self-determinating justice and liberated Palestine.
PROTESTERS: Stop the genocide! Free, free Palestine! Stop the genocide! Free, free Palestine!
SUMAYA AWAD: My name is Sumaya Awad.
AMY GOODMAN: And why Grand Central?
SUMAYA AWAD: Because this is a symbol of New York. This is a symbol of the United States in many ways. And so, we’re here. We’re saying this is ours. This is where we go to work. This is how we get to our children. This is how we go to school. And we want the same thing for Palestinians in Gaza. We want them to be able to live their lives in dignity and freedom.
DR. STEVE AUERBACH: My name’s Dr. Steve Auerbach. I am a pediatrician, licensed physician in the state of New York. I’m here to say that many Jewish pediatricians are calling for stopping the killing of children and their families, calling for a ceasefire now, and not in our name.
I’ve never been prouder to be a pediatrician than when, back on Friday, October 13th, thoroughly mainstream organization, the New York state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics said that “We stand with the children of Israel and the children of Gaza. We love all children, all families equally,” and calling for an immediate ceasefire. So, that was back on October 13th. Unfortunately, children and their families continue to be killed. These sorts of collective actions, collective responsibility is illegal. These sorts of mass killings of civilian areas, mass bombings of civilian areas are illegal and immoral.
The United States should be leading to call for a ceasefire now. I’ve never been prouder of the 18 congresspersons who have called for a ceasefire now. And I’m calling on President Biden and Senator Schumer and my assemblyperson, Nadler: Please, please, these are not Jewish values. It is not a Jewish value to be dropping bombs on children, killing children and their families.
SEN. JABARI BRISPORT: I am state Senator Jabari Brisport, the 25th State Senate District in Brooklyn. And I’m here calling for a ceasefire in order to allow for the release of hostages and humanitarian aid. I carry the Not on Our Dime legislation with Assemblymember Mamdani, which will stop New York from allowing for fake charities that claim to be charities to help Israeli citizens but actually fund displacement and destruction and settler violence in Palestinian territory.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you planning to get arrested today?
SEN. JABARI BRISPORT: I got arrested a week ago, and I am going to let others step up today. I got arrested a week ago at a sit-in outside Senator Gillibrand’s office asking her to start calling for a ceasefire.
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: My name is Zohran Mamdani. I’m an assemblymember for parts of Astoria and Long Island City. And I’m here today to joining thousands of Jewish New Yorkers, rabbis and allies to say that the time is now for an immediate ceasefire.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you willing to get arrested?
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: I’m not going to be getting arrested today, because I was arrested two weeks ago, and I was advised to not get arrested immediately after.
AMY GOODMAN: What were you arrested for?
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: I was arrested for civil disobedience, for disorderly conduct. I was arrested alongside Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes in front of Senator Chuck Schumer’s home, calling on him to support the demand for an immediate ceasefire.
AMY GOODMAN: What does it mean to you that on this Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, thousands of Jews are here at Grand Central saying “Ceasefire now”?
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: It shows that what we have been told about the consent for this genocide is not true. So many of the Jewish New Yorkers here are struggling through heartbreak and mourning of October 7th, and they have made it very clear that do not use their heartbreak, their tragedy as the justification for the genocide of Palestinians. In over two-and-a-half weeks, we’ve already seen more than 7,000 Palestinians be killed, close to 3,000 Palestinian children, one Palestinian child killed every 15 minutes. These New Yorkers, and so many across the state, are saying the time is now for a ceasefire, and if you’re not calling for it, you’re supporting a genocide.
COUNCILMEMBER SANDY NURSE: Sandy Nurse. I’m a councilmember to the 37th District.
AMY GOODMAN: And you represent what area of the city?
COUNCILMEMBER SANDY NURSE: Bushwick, Cypress Hills, Brownsville, East New York, City Line.
AMY GOODMAN: And why are you here today?
COUNCILMEMBER SANDY NURSE: I’m here today to stand in solidarity with Jews, Muslims, allies, because we believe in a free Palestine. We believe in a Palestine without military occupation. We believe that we need to end this genocidal war. And we do not believe that our dollars, our tax dollars, should be used to bomb other children. We don’t believe that unjustified murder of one set of children brings about murder for another set of children. We need to end this war, and we need to move towards a peaceful solution.
SECURITY: Are you a credentialed member of the media? I’m going to ask you, as a courtesy, please to leave the steps. They’re planning an announcement that people are disrupting the steps, and they’re in violation. They’re going to — they’re going to start possibly making arrests. So, if you’re a credentialed member of the media, I’m going to ask you for the same courtesy: if you’d please leave the area. Thank you.
POLICE OFFICER 1: If you refuse to leave this premises, you will be arrested on the charge of criminal trespass. If you do not accompany the arresting officer voluntarily to the prisoner transport vehicle, or if you must be carried, you may be charged with additional crimes.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell me your name and why you’re getting arrested?
JOCELYN: My name’s Jocelyn [phon.]. If someone asks for my solidarity and I can give it, that’s what I’m going to give right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Why is this important to you?
JOCELYN: I mean, the blood is on my hands, too. My tax dollars are funding this. And, you know, this is the least I can do.
AMY GOODMAN: And what’s your name?
PHI LE: I’m Phi, Phi Le [phon.].
AMY GOODMAN: And why are you getting arrested?
PHI LE: I was born in a refugee camp in the Philippines. I am Vietnamese. I am a child of imperialism. So, I can’t let — I can’t see it go on. I can’t see it continue.
PROTESTERS: [singing] Which side are you on? Which side are you on? Which side are you on?
JANE HIRSCHMAN: My name is Jane Hirschmann. I’m here because my family survived the Holocaust, but many did not. My parents were Holocaust survivors. And there’s one thing I learned: Never again means never again for anyone. We don’t condone this, and Netanyahu better stop the bombing of Gaza. You know, this didn’t start with Hamas. This started in 1948, when 750,000 Palestinians were removed from where they lived in order to set up a Jewish state. And these people that they’re killing in Gaza, they were moved to Gaza because of the 1948 Nakba, which means “catastrophe.” And now they’re going to eliminate them, kill them or move them somewhere else. And it’s got to stop. And Jews, American Jews, have to step and say, “Not in our name. Not with our tax money. You cannot do this kind of genocide in front of our eyes or ever again.”
AMY GOODMAN: Are you getting arrested today?
JANE HIRSCHMAN: Oh yeah, I am. My whole family is here. I’m here with my daughters, my grandchildren — they’re not getting arrested, they moved out — my husband. We’re all here together. There are 13 of us.
PROTESTERS: Never again for anyone! Never again for anyone! Never again, Israel! Never again, Israel!
PROTESTER: I’m here to support the people of Gaza, the people who are currently experiencing a genocide. It’s disgusting that our government has enabled this. And so we’re here shutting down Grand Central to show that we, the people here, will not tolerate that.
JOYCE ROBERTS: They won’t arrest me because I have a cane. They won’t arrest me.
AMY GOODMAN: What’s your name?
JOYCE ROBERTS: I want to get arrested, and they’re refusing.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Are you ready? Are you going to get arrested?
JOYCE ROBERTS: Yes, I want to get arrested.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Let’s do it.
POLICE OFFICER 3: All right, we’ll help you stand up.
JOYCE ROBERTS: OK.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Are you ready? You need help?
JOYCE ROBERTS: I need help standing up.
POLICE OFFICER 2: We’ll put your hands behind your back.
JOYCE ROBERTS: I need my cane.
POLICE OFFICER 4: We’ll get it.
JOYCE ROBERTS: My name is Joyce Roberts. I think that it’s really important that there’s a ceasefire.
POLICE OFFICER 3: Ma’am, let go of your cane one second, please.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Ma’am, can you let go of your cane for a second?
JOYCE ROBERTS: I let go of my cane.
POLICE OFFICER 3: All right. I’ll give it right back to you. I’m going to give it right back to you.
JOYCE ROBERTS: That there’s a ceasefire, that people stop killing each other. We have to stop killing each other. We can’t, we won’t get rid of Hamas. We won’t get rid of an idea. We might get rid of the organization. We might get rid of all of the people in Gaza. All of the Palestinians might be killed. But the idea won’t die. Freedom won’t die.
PROTESTERS: Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!
AMY GOODMAN: Voices from the historic Jewish Voice for Peace protest on Friday that shut down Grand Central Station in New York City. Protesters were calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. About 400 people were arrested in what’s believed to be the largest sit-in protest New York has seen in over two decades.
Coming up, Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Chicago. She’s one of 18 members of the House who have signed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. Stay with us.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
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Rep. Delia Ramirez Backs Gaza Ceasefire Resolution in Congress: We Need Diplomacy, Not More Bombings
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30/gaza_ceasefire
We speak with Illinois Congressmember Delia Ramirez, one of the 18 members of the U.S. House of Representatives who have signed a resolution calling for an immediate deescalation and ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. “The only way we move forward is deescalating,” says Ramirez. “The aid that we send cannot be used to kill innocent lives. It’s unacceptable, it’s not moral, and I can’t stand behind that.”
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.
Israeli tanks have reached the outskirts of Gaza City after Israel carried out its most intense bombardment of the besieged Palestinian territory since October 7th. Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israeli attacks have killed more than 8,300 Palestinians, including nearly 3,500 children. According to Save the Children, that’s more children than have been killed in armed conflicts globally over the course of a whole year. The U.N. agency for Palestine refugees, known as UNRWA, says desperate families broke into U.N. warehouses Sunday, removing wheat and other humanitarian aid. UNRWA says the incident showed people in Gaza have reached a breaking point. The U.N. agency serving Palestinians says Gazans have reached their breaking point after more than three weeks of bombardments and total siege. Israeli strikes have killed at least 59 UNRWA employees, with many more believed to be trapped under the rubble.
On Friday, the U.N. General Assembly voted 120 to 14 in favor of a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian truce and for aid access to Gaza. Israel and the U.S. voted against the resolution, which also calls for the release of captive civilians. Israel believes Hamas and other groups are holding over 220 hostages seized on October 7th during the Hamas attack that Israel says killed 1,400 people.
We’re joined now by two guests. Lara Friedman is with us. She’s president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a former Foreign Service officer who served in Jerusalem, Tunis and Beirut. She has worked on Israel-Palestine and the broader region for over 30 years. We’re also joined by Congressmember Delia Ramirez, who is a congressmember from Chicago. She’s one of 18 members of the House of Representatives who have signed a resolution calling for an immediate deescalation and ceasefire in Israel and Palestine.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Congressmember Ramirez, let’s begin with you in Chicago. Can you explain why you supported this ceasefire resolution?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, I want to see safety, and I want to see hostages released. There are 500 Americans and their families in Gaza right now, and I want to make sure that everyone is safe and that we are using our power to be able to deescalate the situation. Bombing ourselves through it is not going to bring the hostages back safely. Bombing us through it is not going to bring 500 Americans back. I really believe — you just talked about it — 8,000 Palestinians have died. The only way we are going to get to long-lasting peace is a ceasefire, is deescalating and using diplomacy.
AMY GOODMAN: How did this resolution come about, Congressmember Ramirez?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, we were already two weeks into this conflict. We have not seen any form of deescalation, quite the contrary. And we have seen people starving to death in Palestine, in Gaza at this moment. And so, for a number of us, we understand that if our outcome is peace in the region, that the only way we can get closer to that, where hostages are released, is deescalation and ceasefire. We have to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to prevent a regional war. And the only way you get there is ensuring that the safety of innocent civilians is our absolute priority. You won’t get that through bombing.
We understood, and a number of us co-led the resolution, and more members of Congress in the coming days have also joined the resolution, recognizing that what we’re currently doing now is escalating the situation, not deescalating, and the only way we move forward is deescalating and ceasing fire. That’s the way that you’re going to be able to keep people from dying, protect innocent civilians, 1.2 million children right now in Gaza. The ceasefire is our only way of diplomacy and being able to get to a place of peace.
AMY GOODMAN: What kind of response are you getting in support of this resolution? In an earlier interview, you said, “If you ask, 'What about the Palestinians?' it’s almost as if there’s an assumption that you’re saying you don’t announce Hamas.” Can you talk about this? And do you feel that that is changing?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: I think it’s slowly changing. And what I say to people is that I came to Congress to uplift shared humanity. I can denounce Hamas. I can call for the release of hostages. And I could also ask, “What about the Palestinian children?” Right now we have children under rubble. The number that we’re seeing is 8,000, but that is not the accurate, most accurate number. There are people that we have not found. There are families in Chicago and all over the world who have not been able to connect with their family in Gaza. And the reality is that if we care about Israelis, if we care about the Jewish community and their safety, we have to understand that it’s interconnected with the safety and the freedom of Palestinians.
AMY GOODMAN: What kind of aid do you think should go to Gaza? And what about funding for Israel?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, Amy, when hundreds of thousands of people have lost their home, thousands of people have died, their communities have completely been destroyed, the question is: What will we do to ensure that people are able to come back to home when they have no home? When we’re talking about substantial humanitarian aid, I don’t mean 30, 40 trucks a day. I mean substantial, billions of dollars of responsibility that we, as the U.S., who has given military aid for such a long time, is responsible to give to help restore a place that has been, in many cases, in many parts of it, burned down to rubble. So, we need to be able to do that.
And I think, secondary, for me to be able to say that I want more money for bombs, it begs the question. Bombs are going to kill people. And in this case, it is killing thousands of civilians. We’ve seen it already in the last three weeks. We have to do everything we can to ensure that we’re honoring international law, that the money we’re sending isn’t killing children, that we are uplifting the humanity of people of Israel and people in Gaza, but, Amy, people in the West Bank. Right now settlers are killing people in the West Bank, and the Israeli government is enabling it. It is letting it happen. The aid that we send cannot be used to kill innocent lives. It’s unacceptable, it’s not moral, and I can’t stand behind that.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering what you think would be a more just U.S. foreign policy. I mean, you, Congressmember Ramirez, are Guatemalan American. We know the history of Guatemala and U.S. aid for the successive military regimes that were responsible for the death of so many hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans in the 1980s and beyond. If you could comment on putting this in a larger context?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, we have to ask ourselves: What is the outcome here? Is it a two-state solution? Is it to be able to bring peace to the region, long-lasting peace? Because if that is the case, we, as the U.S., have to think about the role we have played for the last few decades. We are not at peace. We have seen occupation all over the region. And we have to ask ourselves, if what we want is long-lasting peace, every single resolution, every single bill and every single dollar that we send over, we must ask ourselves: Will this get us to peace? Will this get us closer to a two-state solution? Will this create the kind of policy that will get us to a place where Palestinians and Israelis are safe and free? And if the answer is no, then we need to reassess how we move and the kind of policy that we have had in the region for the last decades.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you spoken to President Biden or his inner circle? At the beginning, he was very clear in saying he told Netanyahu he did not say use restraint. But now the White House is putting out statements that they are, in fact, behind the scenes saying that restraint must be used.
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: I’ve not talked to the president directly. I certainly have been talking to the State Department on a regular basis. And what I have said is, words matter. What we are saying to the American people, what the American people are seeing has a direct impact even for us here. I mean, look, when you see Netanyahu and his own leadership, his own IDF leadership, calling people less than human, animals, that has consequences. We have seen the impact and the growth, increase of hate crime all over the world, antisemitism and Islamophobia. A 6-year-old boy, 30 minutes from my district, was stabbed 26 times because his landlord saw this 6-year-old little boy as a threat to our society, and nearly killed his mother. We have to understand that what we are saying to the people in this moment has real consequences. And we have a moral responsibility to lead from a place of diplomacy, seeking peace at all times and holding accountable the Israeli government for the ways that it is violating international law, for the ways that this ground incursion in this moment is killing innocent lives. We all want hostages out. We also want the 500 Americans and their families out. How we’re moving in this moment is not making anyone more safe.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Delia Ramirez.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30/gaza_ceasefire
We speak with Illinois Congressmember Delia Ramirez, one of the 18 members of the U.S. House of Representatives who have signed a resolution calling for an immediate deescalation and ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. “The only way we move forward is deescalating,” says Ramirez. “The aid that we send cannot be used to kill innocent lives. It’s unacceptable, it’s not moral, and I can’t stand behind that.”
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.
Israeli tanks have reached the outskirts of Gaza City after Israel carried out its most intense bombardment of the besieged Palestinian territory since October 7th. Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israeli attacks have killed more than 8,300 Palestinians, including nearly 3,500 children. According to Save the Children, that’s more children than have been killed in armed conflicts globally over the course of a whole year. The U.N. agency for Palestine refugees, known as UNRWA, says desperate families broke into U.N. warehouses Sunday, removing wheat and other humanitarian aid. UNRWA says the incident showed people in Gaza have reached a breaking point. The U.N. agency serving Palestinians says Gazans have reached their breaking point after more than three weeks of bombardments and total siege. Israeli strikes have killed at least 59 UNRWA employees, with many more believed to be trapped under the rubble.
On Friday, the U.N. General Assembly voted 120 to 14 in favor of a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian truce and for aid access to Gaza. Israel and the U.S. voted against the resolution, which also calls for the release of captive civilians. Israel believes Hamas and other groups are holding over 220 hostages seized on October 7th during the Hamas attack that Israel says killed 1,400 people.
We’re joined now by two guests. Lara Friedman is with us. She’s president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a former Foreign Service officer who served in Jerusalem, Tunis and Beirut. She has worked on Israel-Palestine and the broader region for over 30 years. We’re also joined by Congressmember Delia Ramirez, who is a congressmember from Chicago. She’s one of 18 members of the House of Representatives who have signed a resolution calling for an immediate deescalation and ceasefire in Israel and Palestine.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Congressmember Ramirez, let’s begin with you in Chicago. Can you explain why you supported this ceasefire resolution?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, I want to see safety, and I want to see hostages released. There are 500 Americans and their families in Gaza right now, and I want to make sure that everyone is safe and that we are using our power to be able to deescalate the situation. Bombing ourselves through it is not going to bring the hostages back safely. Bombing us through it is not going to bring 500 Americans back. I really believe — you just talked about it — 8,000 Palestinians have died. The only way we are going to get to long-lasting peace is a ceasefire, is deescalating and using diplomacy.
AMY GOODMAN: How did this resolution come about, Congressmember Ramirez?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, we were already two weeks into this conflict. We have not seen any form of deescalation, quite the contrary. And we have seen people starving to death in Palestine, in Gaza at this moment. And so, for a number of us, we understand that if our outcome is peace in the region, that the only way we can get closer to that, where hostages are released, is deescalation and ceasefire. We have to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to prevent a regional war. And the only way you get there is ensuring that the safety of innocent civilians is our absolute priority. You won’t get that through bombing.
We understood, and a number of us co-led the resolution, and more members of Congress in the coming days have also joined the resolution, recognizing that what we’re currently doing now is escalating the situation, not deescalating, and the only way we move forward is deescalating and ceasing fire. That’s the way that you’re going to be able to keep people from dying, protect innocent civilians, 1.2 million children right now in Gaza. The ceasefire is our only way of diplomacy and being able to get to a place of peace.
AMY GOODMAN: What kind of response are you getting in support of this resolution? In an earlier interview, you said, “If you ask, 'What about the Palestinians?' it’s almost as if there’s an assumption that you’re saying you don’t announce Hamas.” Can you talk about this? And do you feel that that is changing?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: I think it’s slowly changing. And what I say to people is that I came to Congress to uplift shared humanity. I can denounce Hamas. I can call for the release of hostages. And I could also ask, “What about the Palestinian children?” Right now we have children under rubble. The number that we’re seeing is 8,000, but that is not the accurate, most accurate number. There are people that we have not found. There are families in Chicago and all over the world who have not been able to connect with their family in Gaza. And the reality is that if we care about Israelis, if we care about the Jewish community and their safety, we have to understand that it’s interconnected with the safety and the freedom of Palestinians.
AMY GOODMAN: What kind of aid do you think should go to Gaza? And what about funding for Israel?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, Amy, when hundreds of thousands of people have lost their home, thousands of people have died, their communities have completely been destroyed, the question is: What will we do to ensure that people are able to come back to home when they have no home? When we’re talking about substantial humanitarian aid, I don’t mean 30, 40 trucks a day. I mean substantial, billions of dollars of responsibility that we, as the U.S., who has given military aid for such a long time, is responsible to give to help restore a place that has been, in many cases, in many parts of it, burned down to rubble. So, we need to be able to do that.
And I think, secondary, for me to be able to say that I want more money for bombs, it begs the question. Bombs are going to kill people. And in this case, it is killing thousands of civilians. We’ve seen it already in the last three weeks. We have to do everything we can to ensure that we’re honoring international law, that the money we’re sending isn’t killing children, that we are uplifting the humanity of people of Israel and people in Gaza, but, Amy, people in the West Bank. Right now settlers are killing people in the West Bank, and the Israeli government is enabling it. It is letting it happen. The aid that we send cannot be used to kill innocent lives. It’s unacceptable, it’s not moral, and I can’t stand behind that.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering what you think would be a more just U.S. foreign policy. I mean, you, Congressmember Ramirez, are Guatemalan American. We know the history of Guatemala and U.S. aid for the successive military regimes that were responsible for the death of so many hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans in the 1980s and beyond. If you could comment on putting this in a larger context?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, we have to ask ourselves: What is the outcome here? Is it a two-state solution? Is it to be able to bring peace to the region, long-lasting peace? Because if that is the case, we, as the U.S., have to think about the role we have played for the last few decades. We are not at peace. We have seen occupation all over the region. And we have to ask ourselves, if what we want is long-lasting peace, every single resolution, every single bill and every single dollar that we send over, we must ask ourselves: Will this get us to peace? Will this get us closer to a two-state solution? Will this create the kind of policy that will get us to a place where Palestinians and Israelis are safe and free? And if the answer is no, then we need to reassess how we move and the kind of policy that we have had in the region for the last decades.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you spoken to President Biden or his inner circle? At the beginning, he was very clear in saying he told Netanyahu he did not say use restraint. But now the White House is putting out statements that they are, in fact, behind the scenes saying that restraint must be used.
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: I’ve not talked to the president directly. I certainly have been talking to the State Department on a regular basis. And what I have said is, words matter. What we are saying to the American people, what the American people are seeing has a direct impact even for us here. I mean, look, when you see Netanyahu and his own leadership, his own IDF leadership, calling people less than human, animals, that has consequences. We have seen the impact and the growth, increase of hate crime all over the world, antisemitism and Islamophobia. A 6-year-old boy, 30 minutes from my district, was stabbed 26 times because his landlord saw this 6-year-old little boy as a threat to our society, and nearly killed his mother. We have to understand that what we are saying to the people in this moment has real consequences. And we have a moral responsibility to lead from a place of diplomacy, seeking peace at all times and holding accountable the Israeli government for the ways that it is violating international law, for the ways that this ground incursion in this moment is killing innocent lives. We all want hostages out. We also want the 500 Americans and their families out. How we’re moving in this moment is not making anyone more safe.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Delia Ramirez.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
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Middle East Expert Lara Friedman: If Netanyahu Cared About Hostages, Why Did He Launch Ground Invasion?
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30/gaza_hostages
We look at the reluctance in Congress to censure Israel despite growing grassroots pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza. “The narrative on both sides of the aisle is mostly about the right of Israel to defend itself,” says Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. “Congress has bought, completely, the framing which says that any Palestinian that dies in Gaza … that’s all on Hamas.” Friedman explains how the normalization of the racist Kahanist movement by Israel and the U.S. helped lead to today’s crisis, and lays out Israel’s approach to the ongoing hostage situation in Gaza.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined by Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, former Foreign Service officer who served in Jerusalem, Tunis and Beirut, has worked on Israel-Palestine and the broader region for over 30 years, former director of policy and government relations at Americans for Peace Now, Americans for Shalom Achshav.
It’s great to have you with us, Lara. Can you talk about what’s happening in the Congress now, and if you feel movement, a change in Biden’s position from the beginning of the — after October 7th?
LARA FRIEDMAN: Sure. And thanks for having me.
I do think that we’re seeing, and in the piece that you had before we came on here, we’re seeing real movement in the grassroots. There’s really a surge in energy and a surge in support for Palestinian rights that we haven’t — I think has never been seen before.
I think it still remains to be seen how that’s going to be reflected in Congress. If we just go by the statements that are being made by members of Congress, which, except for a small number — and Congresswoman Ramirez is among them — except for a small number, are, at best, very, very cautious about saying anything that would validate the humanity and the rights of the Palestinian people. The narrative on both sides of the aisle is mostly about the rights of Israel to defend itself, and that is — to defend itself is defined basically to mean Israel can do and should do whatever it wants to do, and it bears no responsibility, has no agency, with respect to the results when it comes to human casualties. Congress has bought, completely, the framing which says that any Palestinian that dies in Gaza from an Israeli bomb or who gets sick or starves or dehydrated or ill or dies in a hospital, that’s all on Hamas. That is not Israel’s fault. Everything is Hamas’s fault, which suggests a new ethos of war that really opens the door for everyone to target civilians.
There’s also the framing of human shields, which basically says, you know, it’s Hamas’s fault that we’re killing your civilians, that we’re killing your children, which, I mean, there is truth to the argument that Hamas has placed itself behind human beings. It raises the question: You know, if bad guys invaded a school, would the United States say, “Ah, for the sake of killing the bad guys, we need to bomb the school. We’re going to kill all the children in the school, because we have to, and it’s the bad guys’ fault”? The inhumanity of it is stunning.
But what we’ve seen, really, since the beginning, since October 7th — and I follow — I do a report every Friday covering every single thing that happens in Congress related to the Middle East and Israel-Palestine — is a deluge of new legislation, of resolutions and of letters, which, by and large, either ignore or diminish the humanity of Palestinians, which directly conflate criticism of what Israel is doing in Gaza or assertions that there is any context, that there is history before October 7th, conflate it with antisemitism, conflate it with support for Hamas and terror. And we’ve seen that with the attacks on the members of Congress, like Congresswoman Ramirez, who have dared to do something like call for a ceasefire, with really despicable language used by members of Congress against their own colleagues on both sides of the aisle. This is coming at them, suggesting that daring to talk about ceasefire is a betrayal of support for Israel and is a form of antisemitism and support for terror.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this month, you tweeted, quote, “Reminder: 6 mos before Israeli elex that made Kahanists arguably most powerful political force in Israel, the Biden Admin decided to do its part in normalizing Kahanism by removing Kahanist groups from US list of foreign terrorist orgs, where they’d been listed for decades.” For those who don’t understand who Kahanists are, explain the significance of this tweet.
LARA FRIEDMAN: Well, I mean, whole books have been written about the Kahanists. The Kahanists — Rabbi Meir Kahane was an American citizen rabbi from the New York area. He wrote many, many books. His basic philosophy was, you know, all of the land of Israel — and that extends far beyond Israel’s current borders — belongs to the Jews, because it was given to the Jews by God. And he made clear that — I mean, you have to give him credit for honesty — that this wasn’t — that this is not a conflict that was going to be resolved in a way that would address everybody’s rights or needs, that this was going to be a war and that the Arabs were going to have to lose, and this meant removing Arabs. And he was very, very clear. It’s a worldview that is openly racist, openly Islamophobic, almost proudly so, and, in effect, suggests that people who think that there’s some other solution are naive.
That strand of thinking was much, I would say, maligned and disrespected for a very long time. The Kahanist party was outlawed in Israel as a racist party during Rabbi Kahane’s lifetime. He was eventually assassinated. But what’s happened since then is the mainstreaming of his worldview in Israel and, I would say, in the United States amongst many supporters of Israel — a lot of the financing for his work and his thoughts comes from the United States still — and to the point where today you have very powerful people in the Israeli government, very powerful political strands in Israel, which are largely identical, whose worldview is largely identical to that of the Kahanists. The fact that the Biden administration elected to remove the Kahanist parties from the terrorist list — and they were on the terrorist list because of acts of terror committed by acolytes of this movement against American citizens, you know, not in recent years, but it was — I don’t know why they chose that moment to remove them, but it certainly speaks to the mainstreaming and normalizing of this approach to the Palestinians.
AMY GOODMAN: Lara Friedman, can you talk about the hostage negotiations? You have Qatar and Egypt involved in those negotiations, mainly Qatar right now. You have the hostage families, who are a powerful force. We hear their stories repeatedly in the U.S. media, as we should. They should be a model for also the coverage there should be of Palestinian suffering. But those families are calling for this exchange of the hostages — it’s believed there’s more than 220 or 230 of them that are being held by Hamas and other groups in Gaza — and Palestinian political prisoners, Palestinian prisoners, of which I think there are more than 6,600. I think they’re calling it “everybody for everybody.” Can you talk about this?
LARA FRIEDMAN: Yeah. I mean, look, the taking of hostages, the taking of civilian hostages by Hamas — I mean, the October 7th attack was heinous in every aspect. The aspect of taking the hostages brought this home to Israelis in a way that is just — I don’t think anyone who has not spent time in a small country where everyone is — you know, there’s one degree of separation. This is incredibly real and incredibly personal for everyone in Israel.
What is notable is, in past experiences where there have been hostages taken, Israel has sort of turned over every rock possible, done everything possible to get them back. You have negotiations. You have contacts. You have — think of Gilad Shalit. I mean, the entire country mobilizes to get the hostage back — “hostage,” singular, “hostages,” plural. In this context, after October 7th, the issue of hostages is raised constantly by the Israeli government as a reason for why it has to do what it’s doing in Gaza, notwithstanding the fact that carpet bombing Gaza, using deep, deep penetrating bombs that are trying to get at the tunnels, seems like a very likely way to kill your own hostages. There has been a clear signal given — and if you listen to the — if you look at the Israeli media, the contacts that the families of hostages have had with the Netanyahu government, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that there isn’t actually a lot of desire on the part of the Israeli government to get the hostages back.
There have been numerous — and it’s been public — from other governments, from negotiators, there have been numerous offers by Hamas to exchange hostages, to release hostages in certain circumstances. There was, you know, a 24 — for a brief ceasefire. And so far, the argument seems to be, from the Israeli side, “We won’t do that, because anything we do would be a victory for Hamas. And that is — that we can’t let that happen, so releasing the hostages is simply not a priority.”
But talking about the hostages and accusing anyone who talks about ceasefire as not caring about the hostages is a wonderful tactic. All of us who are speaking out on this in social media, on media like this, are accused constantly of, “Well, you don’t care about the hostages.” The answer is, no, I care very much about the hostages. I don’t understand why the Israeli government doesn’t care more about the hostages. I would suggest that the Israeli government’s approach to the hostages makes clear that their objectives in this war are not about freeing the hostages. And that, I think, requires further thought.
AMY GOODMAN: Lara Friedman, I want to thank you for being with us, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, and Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Chicago for being with us, as well.
Next up, as the death toll in Gaza tops more than 8,000, as Israel intensifies its ground and aerial attack, we’ll speak with a doctor in Cairo who’s been trying for two weeks to get back into Gaza. Stay with us.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30/gaza_hostages
We look at the reluctance in Congress to censure Israel despite growing grassroots pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza. “The narrative on both sides of the aisle is mostly about the right of Israel to defend itself,” says Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. “Congress has bought, completely, the framing which says that any Palestinian that dies in Gaza … that’s all on Hamas.” Friedman explains how the normalization of the racist Kahanist movement by Israel and the U.S. helped lead to today’s crisis, and lays out Israel’s approach to the ongoing hostage situation in Gaza.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined by Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, former Foreign Service officer who served in Jerusalem, Tunis and Beirut, has worked on Israel-Palestine and the broader region for over 30 years, former director of policy and government relations at Americans for Peace Now, Americans for Shalom Achshav.
It’s great to have you with us, Lara. Can you talk about what’s happening in the Congress now, and if you feel movement, a change in Biden’s position from the beginning of the — after October 7th?
LARA FRIEDMAN: Sure. And thanks for having me.
I do think that we’re seeing, and in the piece that you had before we came on here, we’re seeing real movement in the grassroots. There’s really a surge in energy and a surge in support for Palestinian rights that we haven’t — I think has never been seen before.
I think it still remains to be seen how that’s going to be reflected in Congress. If we just go by the statements that are being made by members of Congress, which, except for a small number — and Congresswoman Ramirez is among them — except for a small number, are, at best, very, very cautious about saying anything that would validate the humanity and the rights of the Palestinian people. The narrative on both sides of the aisle is mostly about the rights of Israel to defend itself, and that is — to defend itself is defined basically to mean Israel can do and should do whatever it wants to do, and it bears no responsibility, has no agency, with respect to the results when it comes to human casualties. Congress has bought, completely, the framing which says that any Palestinian that dies in Gaza from an Israeli bomb or who gets sick or starves or dehydrated or ill or dies in a hospital, that’s all on Hamas. That is not Israel’s fault. Everything is Hamas’s fault, which suggests a new ethos of war that really opens the door for everyone to target civilians.
There’s also the framing of human shields, which basically says, you know, it’s Hamas’s fault that we’re killing your civilians, that we’re killing your children, which, I mean, there is truth to the argument that Hamas has placed itself behind human beings. It raises the question: You know, if bad guys invaded a school, would the United States say, “Ah, for the sake of killing the bad guys, we need to bomb the school. We’re going to kill all the children in the school, because we have to, and it’s the bad guys’ fault”? The inhumanity of it is stunning.
But what we’ve seen, really, since the beginning, since October 7th — and I follow — I do a report every Friday covering every single thing that happens in Congress related to the Middle East and Israel-Palestine — is a deluge of new legislation, of resolutions and of letters, which, by and large, either ignore or diminish the humanity of Palestinians, which directly conflate criticism of what Israel is doing in Gaza or assertions that there is any context, that there is history before October 7th, conflate it with antisemitism, conflate it with support for Hamas and terror. And we’ve seen that with the attacks on the members of Congress, like Congresswoman Ramirez, who have dared to do something like call for a ceasefire, with really despicable language used by members of Congress against their own colleagues on both sides of the aisle. This is coming at them, suggesting that daring to talk about ceasefire is a betrayal of support for Israel and is a form of antisemitism and support for terror.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this month, you tweeted, quote, “Reminder: 6 mos before Israeli elex that made Kahanists arguably most powerful political force in Israel, the Biden Admin decided to do its part in normalizing Kahanism by removing Kahanist groups from US list of foreign terrorist orgs, where they’d been listed for decades.” For those who don’t understand who Kahanists are, explain the significance of this tweet.
LARA FRIEDMAN: Well, I mean, whole books have been written about the Kahanists. The Kahanists — Rabbi Meir Kahane was an American citizen rabbi from the New York area. He wrote many, many books. His basic philosophy was, you know, all of the land of Israel — and that extends far beyond Israel’s current borders — belongs to the Jews, because it was given to the Jews by God. And he made clear that — I mean, you have to give him credit for honesty — that this wasn’t — that this is not a conflict that was going to be resolved in a way that would address everybody’s rights or needs, that this was going to be a war and that the Arabs were going to have to lose, and this meant removing Arabs. And he was very, very clear. It’s a worldview that is openly racist, openly Islamophobic, almost proudly so, and, in effect, suggests that people who think that there’s some other solution are naive.
That strand of thinking was much, I would say, maligned and disrespected for a very long time. The Kahanist party was outlawed in Israel as a racist party during Rabbi Kahane’s lifetime. He was eventually assassinated. But what’s happened since then is the mainstreaming of his worldview in Israel and, I would say, in the United States amongst many supporters of Israel — a lot of the financing for his work and his thoughts comes from the United States still — and to the point where today you have very powerful people in the Israeli government, very powerful political strands in Israel, which are largely identical, whose worldview is largely identical to that of the Kahanists. The fact that the Biden administration elected to remove the Kahanist parties from the terrorist list — and they were on the terrorist list because of acts of terror committed by acolytes of this movement against American citizens, you know, not in recent years, but it was — I don’t know why they chose that moment to remove them, but it certainly speaks to the mainstreaming and normalizing of this approach to the Palestinians.
AMY GOODMAN: Lara Friedman, can you talk about the hostage negotiations? You have Qatar and Egypt involved in those negotiations, mainly Qatar right now. You have the hostage families, who are a powerful force. We hear their stories repeatedly in the U.S. media, as we should. They should be a model for also the coverage there should be of Palestinian suffering. But those families are calling for this exchange of the hostages — it’s believed there’s more than 220 or 230 of them that are being held by Hamas and other groups in Gaza — and Palestinian political prisoners, Palestinian prisoners, of which I think there are more than 6,600. I think they’re calling it “everybody for everybody.” Can you talk about this?
LARA FRIEDMAN: Yeah. I mean, look, the taking of hostages, the taking of civilian hostages by Hamas — I mean, the October 7th attack was heinous in every aspect. The aspect of taking the hostages brought this home to Israelis in a way that is just — I don’t think anyone who has not spent time in a small country where everyone is — you know, there’s one degree of separation. This is incredibly real and incredibly personal for everyone in Israel.
What is notable is, in past experiences where there have been hostages taken, Israel has sort of turned over every rock possible, done everything possible to get them back. You have negotiations. You have contacts. You have — think of Gilad Shalit. I mean, the entire country mobilizes to get the hostage back — “hostage,” singular, “hostages,” plural. In this context, after October 7th, the issue of hostages is raised constantly by the Israeli government as a reason for why it has to do what it’s doing in Gaza, notwithstanding the fact that carpet bombing Gaza, using deep, deep penetrating bombs that are trying to get at the tunnels, seems like a very likely way to kill your own hostages. There has been a clear signal given — and if you listen to the — if you look at the Israeli media, the contacts that the families of hostages have had with the Netanyahu government, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that there isn’t actually a lot of desire on the part of the Israeli government to get the hostages back.
There have been numerous — and it’s been public — from other governments, from negotiators, there have been numerous offers by Hamas to exchange hostages, to release hostages in certain circumstances. There was, you know, a 24 — for a brief ceasefire. And so far, the argument seems to be, from the Israeli side, “We won’t do that, because anything we do would be a victory for Hamas. And that is — that we can’t let that happen, so releasing the hostages is simply not a priority.”
But talking about the hostages and accusing anyone who talks about ceasefire as not caring about the hostages is a wonderful tactic. All of us who are speaking out on this in social media, on media like this, are accused constantly of, “Well, you don’t care about the hostages.” The answer is, no, I care very much about the hostages. I don’t understand why the Israeli government doesn’t care more about the hostages. I would suggest that the Israeli government’s approach to the hostages makes clear that their objectives in this war are not about freeing the hostages. And that, I think, requires further thought.
Sadly, I don’t think Israel is taking responsibility of anything. I mean, in 2005, we got out of Gaza and were like, “OK!” I mean, we just throw it like we were never connected to it. And like, OK, let’s just let them — like no long process agreement, sustainable agreement. And sadly, after that, the 10, 15 years, Israel is doing everything to strengthen Hamas in Gaza, just because it doesn’t want a two-state solution, so it wants to divide between the Fatah and the Hamas. So, this, of course, failed, because also the Hamas is very terrible to the people in Gaza, especially LGBTs and women, which always suffer from right-wing religious government. And at the end, it of course came to us, because we can put Gaza behind fences or whatever, but the right-wing extremists of Hamas killed Israelis indiscriminately, civilians and also my left brother, who — of course, it very makes sense, you know, that the right wing kill left-wing people, because they just don’t care. They earn from the hate. They earn from the death.
-- Not in My Brother’s Name: Sibling of Peace Activist Killed by Hamas Demands Israel Stop Bombing Gaza, by Amy Goodman
Librarian's Comment: As reportage emerges revealing that Netanyahu's right wing cabal had developed a long-friendly financially supportive and militarily tolerant relationship with the Hamas forces that committed the massacre of Israelis, it's worth taking a look at who the primary victims were. I think it's a safe bet that the young people attending Supernova were not voting for Netanyahu, and clearly were not right-wing orthodox Jews with restricted diets and of course, a ban on secular dancing. This was probably the largest group of young, pro-peace Israelis that you could find in the entire country on that day. So, just assuming for the sake of engaging in reasonable speculation that Netanyahu wanted to give Hamas an opportunity to kill a large number of Israelis who he did not like anyway, the massacre of these youthful ravers may also be laid at his door. Clearly he deployed forces to protect the New York transplants known as "settlers" to allow them to continue their killing of Palestinian people, and their destructive revels in Palestinian border towns, while backed by IDF soldiers who made sure that Palestinians could not protect their property or themselves from these rampaging bands of renegade New Yorkers. That also meant that the soldiers were not there to guard against the incursion that made it so easy to roll in and kill hundreds of ravers, and made sure that military forces were deployed so far away that they couldn't prevent the catastrophe from unfolding in its full lurid horror. Finally, we now know that Netanyahu's cabal happily canoodling with Hamas in what it believed was a partnership to undermine the PLO, turned a blind eye to Hamas's military buildup and organization, allowing the well-planned, and apparently well-informed assault to take place.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: The festival was called the Supernova Universo Parallelo Festival, the Parallel Universe Festival...
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ESTRIN: ...An outdoor trance music festival advertised as, quote, "the essence of unity and love in a breathtaking location." It was only about a couple miles from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip.
-- ‘They Wanted to Dance in Peace. And They Got Slaughtered’: Israel's Supernova festival celebrated music and unity. It turned into the deadliest concert attack in history, by David Browne, Nancy Dillon, Kory Grow
AMY GOODMAN: Lara Friedman, I want to thank you for being with us, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, and Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Chicago for being with us, as well.
Next up, as the death toll in Gaza tops more than 8,000, as Israel intensifies its ground and aerial attack, we’ll speak with a doctor in Cairo who’s been trying for two weeks to get back into Gaza. Stay with us.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Tue Oct 31, 2023 12:19 am
“This Has to Stop”: Doctors Denounce Israel’s Targeting of Gaza Hospitals
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30/gaza_hospitals
Amid growing alarm that more Israeli airstrikes will hit hospitals in Gaza, we speak with two physicians about Gaza’s medical system and Israel’s orders to evacuate key hospitals. Dr. Fadel Naim, head of orthopedic surgery at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza, says Israel has “bombed all around the hospital.” Dr. Mads Gilbert, who has helped provide emergency trauma care in Gaza for over four decades, condemns Israel for using allegations of military activity to attack civilian hospitals without proof. “This is all part of this immense intimidation of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” says Gilbert, who is trying to enter the besieged territory from Egypt “to show concrete solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
As Israel intensifies its ground invasion and aerial bombardment of Gaza, concern is growing Israel may soon bomb the al-Quds Hospital, the second-largest hospital in Gaza City. Israel has ordered the hospital to be evacuated, but doctors say they have no way to move critically ill patients. The World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, quote, “We reiterate — it’s impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without endangering their lives.” This is Nebal Farsakh of the Palestinian Red Crescent.
NEBAL FARSAKH: [We do not] have the means to evacuate al-Quds Hospital. We have over 400 patients who are inside the hospital. Many of them are in the intensive care unit. Evacuating them means killing them. That’s why we refuse the evacuation order. We call on the international community to intervene immediately to stop a humanitarian catastrophic that is unfolding.
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday night, Democracy Now! reached Dr. Fadel Naim, head of orthopedic surgery at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza.
DR. FADEL NAIM: The Israelis want all hospitals in Gaza, about 24 hospitals, to evacuate all patients and all displaced people in the hospitals, because the people look for safety and search for safety in the hospitals because they think it’s a safe place. We have here in Baptist Hospital about 3,000 people. They have about 12,000 people in al-Quds Hospital, and they have also 400 patients.
And today they didn’t bomb directly to the hospital, but they bombed all around the hospital, so all the glasses, the doors were distorted, and it’s not functioning now, as country functioning, because, you know, all the infrastructure is destructed.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Dr. Fadel Naim, who works at Al-Ahli Hospital.
We’re joined now by Dr. Mads Gilbert, Norwegian physician specializing in anesthesiology and emergency medicine. Dr. Gilbert has been working with the Palestinians since 1981, has been in Gaza there during the Israeli assaults in 2006, 2009, 2012, 2014, delivering life-saving trauma care emergency medicine, mainly in the largest hospital, in Al-Shifa, but also in al-Quds. Dr. Gilbert is currently with an emergency medical team supported by the Norwegian government in Cairo, Egypt, where they’ve waited for over two weeks to enter Gaza. Dr. Gilbert is also the author of several books on Gaza, including Eyes in Gaza and Night in Gaza.
Dr. Mads Gilbert, welcome back to Democracy Now! Let’s talk about this Israeli order that al-Quds Hospital must be evacuated immediately, and the World Health Organization saying, “You are asking our doctors and staff to choose their own lives over their patients’ lives who can’t be moved.” Can you respond to this?
DR. MADS GILBERT: Yes, I can, Amy.
And I think, first of all, it is completely absurd that we, in 2023, should have a state army that is threatening to bomb hospital, and de facto is bombing hospitals and killing children by the thousands in what is called a war. Now, these threats to the Palestinian civilian hospitals in Gaza is extremely serious, not only because it is illegal according to international law, but it’s threatening the lives of thousands of patients, of staff, and not to forget the 12,000 refugees who have taken refuge in al-Quds Hospital and the more than 50,000 who have taken refuge in the Shifa Hospital. So, these hospitals are not only clinical entities doing some treatment. These are cornerstones of the social fabric that remains in Gaza, because most of all other fabric is bombed away.
I’ve talked to my colleagues both in Shifa and in al-Quds this morning. And my colleagues in al-Quds Hospital, I know very well. They report continuous bombing very close to the hospital, and they can see fires. Also during the night, there has been heavy bombardment of the Turkish hospital, which is a little bit further south and which is the central cancer hospital of Gaza. For Shifa Hospital, there is also threats. And don’t forget that before they bombed the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, there were threats and what we call knock-on-the-roof bombardment around the hospital. So there is an urgent fear among my colleagues — doctors, nurses, paramedics — in these two large hospitals that indeed the Israeli governmental army will execute the threats of bombing the hospitals. But they stay put. And in that capacity as health workers, to me, they are moral compasses and lighthouses of hope today in a very, very dark area of our history.
AMY GOODMAN: You have worked in Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza. The Israeli military says that that’s where the Hamas command and control is. Can you respond?
DR. MADS GILBERT: I will ask President Netanyahu to put on the table the proofs and the evidence that there is a control and command center for the Palestinian resistance in Shifa Hospital. We have heard these claims since 2009. We have twice been threatened to leave Shifa Hospital, in 2009 and 2014, because the Israelis were going to bomb it because it was a command center. Now, I have been working in Shifa for 16 years, 16 years on and off, in very hectic periods, very hectic periods. I’ve been able to walk freely around. I take lots of pictures. I video, film. I’ve been sleeping in the hospital during bombardment. I’ve been all over. I’ve never been restricted, controlled. Nobody has ever controlled my picture and documentation material. So, well, if there is a command center, show us. You have pictures and X-ray films of all Gaza, all the tunnels, everything. So, why is it that these 16 years of threats that Shifa is a command center has not been given any evidence at all that it de facto is? Now, if it was a military command center, I would not work there, because I obey to the Geneva Convention, number one.
Number two, if the Israelis claim that this is a mixed military-civilian target, because obviously it is civilian, with tens of thousands of people gathering there and 2,000 patients being treated — if it is a mixed military-civilian target, the civilian precautions take priority over the military. So, in accordance with the Geneva Convention, you can’t bomb hospitals, unless they have very clear military functions.
So, to me, this is all part of this immense intimidation of the Palestinian people in Gaza. They are threatened with leaflets from the planes and the helicopters. They are threatened by phone calls. They are threatened by, you know, “If you stay in northern Gaza now, we define you as a terrorist.” What is this? 2023, two-and-a-half million — 2.2 million people, civilian, unarmed people being killed, a child killed every 10 minutes. So far today, the number of killed Palestinian children is 3,324, and there are missing 2,062 Palestinian children in Gaza. That’s 5,300 Palestinian children killed in three weeks.
And I ask President Biden: What kind of president are you? And the vice president. Do you have children? Do you accept that this is a war? Do you accept that your supported Israeli army is killing, by the thousands, children? For heaven’s sake, let’s have a ceasefire. Let’s lift the siege of Gaza. Let’s let in supplies and international teams to work. My colleagues are overburdened. They have worked night and day for three weeks now. This has to stop. I don’t need to use the word “genocide.” It’s enough to say “mass murder of civilians.” It has to stop.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally —
DR. MADS GILBERT: There is no doctor. There is no medical effort.
AMY GOODMAN: Last question, and we just have 20 seconds. Why are you trying so hard, as Israel threatens to bomb hospitals, to get into Gaza and work in a hospital?
DR. MADS GILBERT: To show concrete solidarity with the Palestinian people. That is our strongest tool now. All over the world, we need to stand up and say we don’t accept this. We need to show solidarity. My solidarity, as a medical doctor, is to go to Gaza, stand shoulder to shoulder, do the work together with my colleagues and try to be a decent human person.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mads Gilbert, we’re going to try to do a Part 2 interview with you and post it at democracynow.org. Dr. Mads Gilbert, Norwegian physician, has been working with the Palestinians for the last 20 years. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30/gaza_hospitals
Amid growing alarm that more Israeli airstrikes will hit hospitals in Gaza, we speak with two physicians about Gaza’s medical system and Israel’s orders to evacuate key hospitals. Dr. Fadel Naim, head of orthopedic surgery at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza, says Israel has “bombed all around the hospital.” Dr. Mads Gilbert, who has helped provide emergency trauma care in Gaza for over four decades, condemns Israel for using allegations of military activity to attack civilian hospitals without proof. “This is all part of this immense intimidation of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” says Gilbert, who is trying to enter the besieged territory from Egypt “to show concrete solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
As Israel intensifies its ground invasion and aerial bombardment of Gaza, concern is growing Israel may soon bomb the al-Quds Hospital, the second-largest hospital in Gaza City. Israel has ordered the hospital to be evacuated, but doctors say they have no way to move critically ill patients. The World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, quote, “We reiterate — it’s impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without endangering their lives.” This is Nebal Farsakh of the Palestinian Red Crescent.
NEBAL FARSAKH: [We do not] have the means to evacuate al-Quds Hospital. We have over 400 patients who are inside the hospital. Many of them are in the intensive care unit. Evacuating them means killing them. That’s why we refuse the evacuation order. We call on the international community to intervene immediately to stop a humanitarian catastrophic that is unfolding.
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday night, Democracy Now! reached Dr. Fadel Naim, head of orthopedic surgery at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza.
DR. FADEL NAIM: The Israelis want all hospitals in Gaza, about 24 hospitals, to evacuate all patients and all displaced people in the hospitals, because the people look for safety and search for safety in the hospitals because they think it’s a safe place. We have here in Baptist Hospital about 3,000 people. They have about 12,000 people in al-Quds Hospital, and they have also 400 patients.
And today they didn’t bomb directly to the hospital, but they bombed all around the hospital, so all the glasses, the doors were distorted, and it’s not functioning now, as country functioning, because, you know, all the infrastructure is destructed.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Dr. Fadel Naim, who works at Al-Ahli Hospital.
We’re joined now by Dr. Mads Gilbert, Norwegian physician specializing in anesthesiology and emergency medicine. Dr. Gilbert has been working with the Palestinians since 1981, has been in Gaza there during the Israeli assaults in 2006, 2009, 2012, 2014, delivering life-saving trauma care emergency medicine, mainly in the largest hospital, in Al-Shifa, but also in al-Quds. Dr. Gilbert is currently with an emergency medical team supported by the Norwegian government in Cairo, Egypt, where they’ve waited for over two weeks to enter Gaza. Dr. Gilbert is also the author of several books on Gaza, including Eyes in Gaza and Night in Gaza.
Dr. Mads Gilbert, welcome back to Democracy Now! Let’s talk about this Israeli order that al-Quds Hospital must be evacuated immediately, and the World Health Organization saying, “You are asking our doctors and staff to choose their own lives over their patients’ lives who can’t be moved.” Can you respond to this?
DR. MADS GILBERT: Yes, I can, Amy.
And I think, first of all, it is completely absurd that we, in 2023, should have a state army that is threatening to bomb hospital, and de facto is bombing hospitals and killing children by the thousands in what is called a war. Now, these threats to the Palestinian civilian hospitals in Gaza is extremely serious, not only because it is illegal according to international law, but it’s threatening the lives of thousands of patients, of staff, and not to forget the 12,000 refugees who have taken refuge in al-Quds Hospital and the more than 50,000 who have taken refuge in the Shifa Hospital. So, these hospitals are not only clinical entities doing some treatment. These are cornerstones of the social fabric that remains in Gaza, because most of all other fabric is bombed away.
I’ve talked to my colleagues both in Shifa and in al-Quds this morning. And my colleagues in al-Quds Hospital, I know very well. They report continuous bombing very close to the hospital, and they can see fires. Also during the night, there has been heavy bombardment of the Turkish hospital, which is a little bit further south and which is the central cancer hospital of Gaza. For Shifa Hospital, there is also threats. And don’t forget that before they bombed the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, there were threats and what we call knock-on-the-roof bombardment around the hospital. So there is an urgent fear among my colleagues — doctors, nurses, paramedics — in these two large hospitals that indeed the Israeli governmental army will execute the threats of bombing the hospitals. But they stay put. And in that capacity as health workers, to me, they are moral compasses and lighthouses of hope today in a very, very dark area of our history.
AMY GOODMAN: You have worked in Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza. The Israeli military says that that’s where the Hamas command and control is. Can you respond?
DR. MADS GILBERT: I will ask President Netanyahu to put on the table the proofs and the evidence that there is a control and command center for the Palestinian resistance in Shifa Hospital. We have heard these claims since 2009. We have twice been threatened to leave Shifa Hospital, in 2009 and 2014, because the Israelis were going to bomb it because it was a command center. Now, I have been working in Shifa for 16 years, 16 years on and off, in very hectic periods, very hectic periods. I’ve been able to walk freely around. I take lots of pictures. I video, film. I’ve been sleeping in the hospital during bombardment. I’ve been all over. I’ve never been restricted, controlled. Nobody has ever controlled my picture and documentation material. So, well, if there is a command center, show us. You have pictures and X-ray films of all Gaza, all the tunnels, everything. So, why is it that these 16 years of threats that Shifa is a command center has not been given any evidence at all that it de facto is? Now, if it was a military command center, I would not work there, because I obey to the Geneva Convention, number one.
Number two, if the Israelis claim that this is a mixed military-civilian target, because obviously it is civilian, with tens of thousands of people gathering there and 2,000 patients being treated — if it is a mixed military-civilian target, the civilian precautions take priority over the military. So, in accordance with the Geneva Convention, you can’t bomb hospitals, unless they have very clear military functions.
So, to me, this is all part of this immense intimidation of the Palestinian people in Gaza. They are threatened with leaflets from the planes and the helicopters. They are threatened by phone calls. They are threatened by, you know, “If you stay in northern Gaza now, we define you as a terrorist.” What is this? 2023, two-and-a-half million — 2.2 million people, civilian, unarmed people being killed, a child killed every 10 minutes. So far today, the number of killed Palestinian children is 3,324, and there are missing 2,062 Palestinian children in Gaza. That’s 5,300 Palestinian children killed in three weeks.
And I ask President Biden: What kind of president are you? And the vice president. Do you have children? Do you accept that this is a war? Do you accept that your supported Israeli army is killing, by the thousands, children? For heaven’s sake, let’s have a ceasefire. Let’s lift the siege of Gaza. Let’s let in supplies and international teams to work. My colleagues are overburdened. They have worked night and day for three weeks now. This has to stop. I don’t need to use the word “genocide.” It’s enough to say “mass murder of civilians.” It has to stop.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally —
DR. MADS GILBERT: There is no doctor. There is no medical effort.
AMY GOODMAN: Last question, and we just have 20 seconds. Why are you trying so hard, as Israel threatens to bomb hospitals, to get into Gaza and work in a hospital?
DR. MADS GILBERT: To show concrete solidarity with the Palestinian people. That is our strongest tool now. All over the world, we need to stand up and say we don’t accept this. We need to show solidarity. My solidarity, as a medical doctor, is to go to Gaza, stand shoulder to shoulder, do the work together with my colleagues and try to be a decent human person.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mads Gilbert, we’re going to try to do a Part 2 interview with you and post it at democracynow.org. Dr. Mads Gilbert, Norwegian physician, has been working with the Palestinians for the last 20 years. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Sat Nov 04, 2023 12:09 am
Gaza Doctor Says Hospitals Have to Choose Who Lives and Who Dies Amid Worsening Humanitarian Crisis
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 31, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/31 ... transcript
As Israeli tanks and other ground forces enter Gaza, we speak with a doctor in the besieged territory. Dr. Hammam Alloh is working at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in the area, and says tens of thousands of people have sought shelter to escape Israel’s heavy bombardment. He describes making harrowing decisions with rapidly dwindling supplies, such as not resuscitating a patient who went into cardiac arrest because of a lack of ventilators. He also remains steadfast in staying at the hospital, despite Israeli demands to evacuate south. “You think I went to medical school and for my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years so I think only about my life and not my patients?” he says. “This is not the reason why I became a doctor.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Top United Nations officials are expressing growing alarm over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as the enclave’s last remaining hospitals are on the verge of shutting down due to a lack of fuel, as Israel intensifies its ground invasion while rejecting growing calls for a humanitarian ceasefire. Palestinian health officials say over 8,500 people, mostly women and children, have been killed over the past 26 days. The head of UNICEF said, “The lack of clean water and safe sanitation is on the verge of becoming a catastrophe.” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestine refugees, repeated his call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, saying it’s, quote, “become a matter of life and death for millions.”
PHILIPPE LAZZARINI: The current siege imposed on Gaza is collective punishment. Two weeks of full siege followed by the trickle of aid last week mean that basic services are crumbling, medicine is running out, food and water are running out, fuel is running out. The streets of Gaza have started overflowing with sewage, which will cause a massive health hazard very soon.
AMY GOODMAN: In north Gaza, Israel attacked areas next to the Indonesian Hospital Monday, where Dr. Moaeen al-Masry said the staff is struggling to treat patients.
DR. MOAEEN AL-MASRY: [translated] The damage has been caused to more than one area in this unit. The damage has directly led to the disconnection of the electricity line of this unit. As you know, this means no electricity for the patients and injured here, which directly threatens their lives and could lead to the death of many of these patients. … In a few hours from now, the power will be cut due to the limited fuel available in the generators. Running out of fuel means power will be cut, meaning certain death for many of the patients in the ICU, some of whom need respirators, as well as patients in the surgical suites and patients in other units who numbered around 240 or 250.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Gaza City, where we’re joined by Dr. Hammam Alloh, who works at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza.
Dr. Alloh, thanks so much for joining us. I know you’ve just left the hospital a few minutes ago. You told Jewish Currents yesterday, “I had to stop the resuscitation of a patient who went into cardiac arrest in the dialysis unit, because if she made it back to life, we had no ventilator to offer her. We have to prioritize patients who are younger, healthier. We have lost the ability to provide true care.” If you can talk about the situation right now at your hospital and overall?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Hey. Thank you for contacting me.
This is not an incident I would really love to keep remembering, but this is — what you just said was exactly what happened to me. As physicians, we are trained to resuscitate patients who go into cardiac arrest, hoping they would make it back again to life, and consequently put them on ventilators to help them live again, go back to life. But I had to stop my co-nurses and my physicians from doing this. They asked me, “Why are you asking us to stop resuscitating the patients? It’s like you’re asking us to kill her.” I told them, “We have no better options. We have no other choices, because in case she makes it back to life, we have no ventilators to offer her. And if there is any, we would prevent a younger, healthier injured patient from entertaining that victory — I mean the ventilator.” So, I don’t know if you would imagine the amount of regret, the amount of sadness I’m living with since this happened with me, but I’m sorry to say there was no better options to go for except stopping that resuscitation.
And if this tells us anything, this tells us how things are really getting worse and worse. I was talking to a journalist an hour ago or so, and he kept asking me, “You told me a week earlier that things are bad. And are these now the same? Because you’re telling me things are very bad, as well, now.” I told him, “Yeah, this was probably a very strange answer from my side, because things were really bad one, two weeks into war, but now they are getting really worse.” We have patients admitted to emergency departments where they shouldn’t be admitted, where there should be vacant beds for newcomers, for new patients. We have patients admitted to dialysis unit. You know, dialysis unit is a closed unit where you offer a service, and when you’re done with your patients, you close your doors. But we can’t do this anymore. We are allowing people to live in the unit, actually. And we are admitting now patients who need care other than dialysis patients.
As the few trucks that were allowed in with aid to Gazan people actually is almost nothing compared to what we need, and there was — many of the contents of these trucks that were allowed into Gaza had water, gloves and gauze, and this is not what we are looking for. We are looking for devices, medications, things of really major help and concern for providing real healthcare for people in need. Number of injured patients is increasing. The number of people with chronic medical illnesses who need regular follow-up and regular maintenance of and the provision of medications is increasing. We are not capable of providing the care, other than keeping people dying from death. This is the only thing we can do. And we can’t properly provide this care, because we are getting — we are running out of medications and supply.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Hammam Alloh, you’ve said, “Every day, I see a fear in their eyes that I can’t do much about. It’s very painful. If you have kids, you know how horrible it is not to be able to comfort them, to ensure they are alright, to make them hope for anything beyond living one more day.” If you can talk about that in the hospital, which, as you said, is not just a hospital for sick people? Thousands are taking refuge at Al-Shifa and al-Quds and the other hospitals. And also, we’re talking to you as you just left Al-Shifa. How do you comfort your family? What’s happening to your family as you’re at the hospital?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: I tell them at least we still have a house with a door to close. But many thousand refugees, people like us, who used to live in dignity have no longer houses and no doors to close to protect them as they are surrounded by wastewater, by garbage. They don’t have a liquid, continuous supply of clean water to drink. Many of them have a lot of missing members of their families. They don’t know if they are alive or not. I tell them at least we still have a house to live in, but they don’t have. And surprisingly, my 4- and 5-year-old kids, they accept this as a comfort, as a better situation compared to those refugees living — they are living actually in hospitals, but it’s not like they are living inside the hospital departments. Many of them do not have enough space to go into hospital hallways, so they are living around the buildings and in the garden. So, yeah, surprisingly, my very young kids accept this.
AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli military has dropped thousands of pamphlets warning people where you are, in northern Gaza, to leave. Why don’t you go with your family south?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: And if I go, who treats my patients? We are not animals. We have the right to receive proper healthcare. So we can’t just leave.
AMY GOODMAN: The World Health Organization talked about this issue of telling doctors to leave their patients, choosing your own lives over your patients. Can you talk about that choice, since so many patients can’t leave — for example, babies in incubators?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: You think I went to medical school and for my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years so I think only about my life and not my patients? I’m asking you, Ma’am. Do you think this is the reason I went to med school, to think only about my life? This is not the reason why I became a doctor.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what’s happening to the hospitals? Just in our headlines today, we talked about, and in the last few days, the attack on the Indonesia Hospital. The Turkish Hospital is the only cancer hospital?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the significance of these places, both as a sanctuary, thousands of people taking refuge, and for patients?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Yeah. Indonesian Hospital is providing healthcare for over 400,000 citizens in the Gaza Strip. And this part of the Gaza Strip is being split from the rest of the Gaza Strip. If this hospital stops providing care, so we are exposing many thousand Palestinian souls to the dangers of disease and death.
Turkish Hospital, with its very modest capabilities even before war, was the only hospital providing care and medications for cancer patients from around the Gaza Strip. It was airstruck yesterday. I don’t know how many patients and healthcare professionals were wounded. And many patients are dying now because they are not safe with their families to go to receive care and to continue their chemotherapy.
Ministry of Health has declared two hours ago also that the electricity would be cut off from Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital, representing 40% of the healthcare power in the Gaza Strip and providing services for many machine-dependent patients, like the ventilated patients and the hemodialysis patients. So, if electricity is cut out from this hospital, so we are directly deciding those patients are going to necessarily die. Ventilated patients will die in minutes. Dialysis patients will die in hours to days after stopping their hemodialysis. Many patients are now being treated with the modest supplies we have. Many diabetic patients are now being admitted to hospital because of their insulin is not being kept in the refrigerator, so it’s not working. We are out — we ran out of many medications, like antifungal medications. We have a patient who died earlier this week with mucormycosis. This is an invasive, ugly type of fungal infection that killed her because we had no amphotericin to offer her. So, my very simple answer to your question is that death is coming to so many people in the Gaza Strip, in hours to days, if this continues the same way it’s going on.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Alloh, the Middle East Eye reports on a baby who died, says, “His death certificate has been issued before his birth certificate.” A 1-day-old baby has been killed by Israeli bombing in Gaza. Israel, the military, the government, says that Al-Shifa, your hospital, is Hamas —
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — the site of Hamas command and control. Can you respond to that, Dr. Alloh?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: I’ve been working this hospital for over two years, and I never saw this. So, I’m no lawyer, I’m no attorney, but this is how I am simply replying. I never saw this for over two years. If this is true, I would see at least a clue.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about the shipments of aid coming in. Normally, in normal times — if there’s ever a normal time in Gaza — over 400 trucks a day. We’re talking about a trickle of trucks now, maybe a dozen, maybe eight in a day. Have you ever seen this aid arriving at the hospital? And can you talk about what you need right now?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Well, that number you just mentioned that was allowed into Gaza Strip is actually — is actually what you were referring to. It is nothing compared to what we need, nothing compared to the shortage in supplies, machines and medications we are in need for. The only thing, came just as I was leaving the hospital today, was a carton of IV fluid bottles. This is the only thing I saw. And I don’t really know if this came through the aid trucks in the few couple of days, or that was from the stores of the Ministry of Health. In addition, I happened to ask about in the hospital administration, and what they mentioned that was all about the gloves and gauze. And this is not what we are actually only in need for. This is what maybe the least we care for, the least we are in need for. So this is, again, nothing compared to what we are in need for in terms of supplies and medications.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Dr. Hammam Alloh, your message at this point to the United States, where we’re based, and to the world?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Actually, the message hasn’t changed since the beginning of this war. First, we need this war to end, because we are real humans. We are no animals. We have the right to live freely.
Second, if you were, and your citizens, to live under these circumstances, what would you do for them? This is what we exactly would like you to do for us as a superpower country, as the United States, because we are really as human as your U.S. citizens are.
We were expecting more — earlier, I mean, solutions for that humanitarian and healthcare catastrophes and the crises, but what we are seeing, mainly through trucks allowed into Gaza, is nothing compared to us. So, we are being exterminated. We are being massly eradicated. And you pretend to care for humanitarian and human rights, which is not what we are living now. To prove us wrong, please do something. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Hammam Alloh, speaking to us from Gaza City, where he works at the largest hospital, Al-Shifa Hospital. Please be safe.
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: I hope I will be. Let’s hope, both together, I will be. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you. Coming up, we speak to the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, author of many books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Palestine Will Be Free” by the Lebanese Swedish singer Maher Zain, who sung at an Istanbul solidarity protest on Saturday.
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Israeli Historian Ilan Pappé on Gaza War, Hostages & the Context Behind Current Violence
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 31, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/31 ... transcript
We speak with Israeli historian Ilan Pappé about Israel’s escalating war on Gaza, as well as a leaked document from the country’s Ministry of Intelligence that suggests permanently expelling Gaza’s entire population to the Sinai Desert in Egypt. “This is a massive operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing, of depopulation,” says Pappé. He also says the only way to secure the release of the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas is to agree to an all-for-all swap for the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners held by Israel, including many women, children and elderly people. “This is the only way to release the people who were taken.” Pappé is a leading critic of the Israeli occupation, a professor of history and the director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. His books include The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples and The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge.
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.
Internal Israeli government documents have revealed the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence is recommending the forcible transfer of the entire population of Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. The 10-page document, which is dated October 13th, has been published in full by the Israeli news outlets Local Call and +972. The document recommends transferring all Palestinians to Egypt, then setting up a, quote, “sterile” zone of several kilometers near the border between Egypt and Gaza. In addition, the document recommends Israel then prevent the, quote, “return of the population to activities/residences near the border with Israel,” unquote.
Fears of a new Nakba, or Catastrophe, have been growing ever since Israel ordered all Palestinians living in Gaza City and in north Gaza to vacate their homes and head south. On Monday, Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour accused Israel of trying to depopulate Gaza.
RIYAD MANSOUR: They want to depopulate the Gaza Strip completely from the entire population and throw them in the lap of Egypt in the Sinai Desert. … No one should justify our killing or find reasons to give more time to the killer. Call for an end of this assault on an entire nation. Stop the killings in the West Bank by settlers and occupation forces and the forced displacement underway there.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Haifa in Israel, where we’re joined by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé. He’s professor of history and the director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. He’s the author of several books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, as well as The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge. Fifty years ago, Ilan Pappé fought in the Israeli military during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, has since become a leading critic of Israel’s occupation.
Professor Pappé, welcome back to Democracy Now!
ILAN PAPPÉ: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can start off by talking about your take on what’s happening today? You just heard the doctor in Gaza, who just left Al-Shifa a few minutes ago.
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes, I think — Amy, it’s good to be back on your program. Thank you for having me.
I think what we are seeing now, what unfolds in front of our eyes, is a genocidal situation, by which people are targeted, whether they are children, babies, in hospital or in schools. And this is a massive operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing, of depopulation. The pretext for that kind of savagery is revenge for what the Hamas did on the 7th of October, but I think the real intention here is not just revenge but trying to exploit what happened on the 7th of October to create new realities in historical Palestine. You called it a new Nakba. I think that this is — the Nakba has never really ended for the Palestinians, so it’s a new horrific chapter in the ongoing Nakba that the Palestinians are suffering here. So, this is a really horrific situation that can only be stopped from the outside, because there is no motivation inside Israel to stop the operations, nor to care more about the lives of innocent people, despite what the Israeli army claims to do in the field itself.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to play a short clip of Prime Minister Netanyahu speaking over the weekend.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember, and we are fighting. Our brave troops and combatants, who are now in Gaza or around Gaza and in all other regions in Israel, are joining this chain of Jewish heroes, a chain that has started 3,000 years ago, from Joshua ben Nun until the heroes of 1948, the Six-Day War, the ’73 October War and all other wars in this country. Our hero troops, they have one supreme main goal: to completely defeat the murderous enemy and to guarantee our existence in this country. We have always said, “Never again.” Never again is now.
AMY GOODMAN: And I want to play Netanyahu from last night.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. That will not happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you respond to the Israeli prime minister, Professor Pappé?
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes. I think the main attempt here is to make sure that people do not understand the context in which the Hamas operation occurred, to totally dishistoricize that event, to forget about the 15 years of inhuman siege on Gaza, of 56 years of a ruthless occupation and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and 75 years of not allowing refugees to come back to their homes. I think this is an attempt to Nazify the Palestinians, which is not new, by the way. The Israelis, every now and then, use it. If you remember, Menachem Begin compared Yasser Arafat in the bunker in 1982 to Hitler in the bunker. The Nazification of the Palestinians is meant to, first of all, license Israeli policies without any consideration to international law or human rights, and, secondly, to divert us from talking about the real issue here, which is not the Hamas or its actions on the 7th of October, but rather the situation that bred this kind of violence. Rather than talking about the symptom of violence, we should talk about the source of violence. And the source of violence has not changed. We have millions of Palestinians for years being oppressed, ruled and controlled by Israel, and they are fighting with the means that they have. And this is going to go on, unless, of course, there is a willingness to go back to the negotiation table and ask why the violence erupted in the first place and what are the best ways to prevent another cycle of violence in the future.
There’s a second reason for Netanyahu’s rhetoric. Of course, he doesn’t want the Israeli media or the international community to deal with his own problems, that were very acute before the 7th of October, and to say, “This is now a situation where you cannot at all — well, this is a domestic issue. You cannot talk about me or my failures. This is a moment of existential threat to Israel.” And therefore, this kind of rhetoric will continue. And it’s very dangerous, not to mention the fact that it abuses — when they use the Holocaust, it abuses the Holocaust memory, because with all the horror of what happened on the 7th of October, this is not the Holocaust. And there’s no comparison between Palestinians, who act after years of oppression and siege, to Nazis, who just target Jews because they are Jews. There’s no comparison. This whole language is not the one to be used. And I think that Netanyahu is trying to galvanize a very vindictive Israel behind him. And the results of this kind of policy are unfolding in front of our eyes, and we just had this horrific and very moving kind of report that you had with the doctor from Gaza before me.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Pappé, can you talk about the hostage families? They don’t get a lot of attention, what they’re calling for, though they get tremendous attention for who these hostages are, and the people who were killed on October 7th. But there are many. For example, we interviewed Noy Katsman, the brother of Hayim, who was killed by Hamas on October 7th. He said his brother was a peace activist, and he himself said, “Not in my brother’s name.” He called for a ceasefire. And I wanted to ask you about this force of the hostage families and about the everybody-for-everybody proposal. On Friday, just after we got off the broadcast, it said, you know, “imminent major release.” And some thought that Netanyahu was pushing forward with the invasion more quickly because he didn’t want this possibility to happen. But explain the proposal of all hostages, over 200 of them, in return for all Palestinian prisoners, and who these prisoners are, close to 7,000 of them.
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes, I think that not everybody among the families, because I don’t think they’re all made of the same cloth, but many of them understand that the only way to bring their dear ones back home is this kind of an exchange of prisoners. We are talking about thousands of Palestinians who are incarcerated in Israeli jails, many of them without trials. And they are kind of — the allegations against them vary, from actual participation in guerrilla or violent actions against Israeli citizens or soldiers, and those who are incarcerated for being a member of a Palestinian organization. Some of them are very young. Some of them are women. Some of them are very old and have been there for a very long time. And some of them were just recently incarcerated without trial in the West Bank. They are all part of the Palestinian liberation movement. And it needs a very different Israeli perception of the Palestinian struggle and those who participated in its struggle to be able to say, indeed, this is only way forward — namely, to release all of them, to the last one, and receive all of the people who were taken by the Hamas on the 7th of October.
What I can tell you, Amy, which is very interesting, is that former generals in the Israeli army, former heads of the Israeli Mossad and Shabak, the secret service, are supporting this kind of exchange. And this is a very important position that they are holding. And that may explain the fear on Netanyahu’s side to let this issue extend longer, because the voices that are calling for such an exchange are not coming from the extreme Israeli left or the liberal Zionists. They’re coming from some very powerful people, who were heading some of Israel’s most important institutions, such as the Mossad, the army and the secret service.
Will it take place? I don’t know. It depends very much on how things unfold on the ground itself with the invasion, that nobody in Israel gives the Israeli public any details of how it goes on, but it seems that it doesn’t go as well as the Israelis claim it does, and depends a lot, of course, on the international community, because quite a few of the people who are held by the Hamas have also dual citizenship. But there’s no doubt, Amy, this is the only way to release the people who were taken on Saturday. Neither Israeli commando salvage operation nor piecemeal deal will bring all the people back. This is a situation where you can solve the problem and not delay it for another five or six years, with babies and old people who might not survive a long stay in captivity.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Pappé, you were born to German Jewish parents who fled German persecution, the Nazis, in the 1930s. You fought in 1973 in the Israeli military. Can you talk about your life trajectory and how you came to write a book talking about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and the response in Israeli society, your university, University of Haifa, and how you ended up at Exeter?
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes, it was — Amy, it was a journey. There was no one moment of epiphany or awakening that makes you actually take positions which will frame you as a traitor in your own society, and definitely would leave you with no reference group in your own society. For me, it was a journey that had many important stations, such as spending some time as a postgraduate student outside of Israel; having an Arab supervisor; looking, as an historian who was interested in the history of my own country, in the documentation that became available about 1948. So, all these possibilities outside to meet Palestinians on equal footing, to be able to research as a professional historian history or documentation that revealed evidence that contradicted, in a very significant way, the narrative on which I grew up on, all this led me to a moment where I thought that I understand what is going on in historical Palestine, what went on in historical Palestine. And I saw quite clearly, at least from my perspective, who were the victimizers, who were the victim, who was the colonizer, who was the colonized, who was the ethnic cleanser, and who was the victims of ethnic cleansing.
And because my parents came from Germany, and because we lost a lot of people in the Holocaust, exactly because of that legacy, I felt I could not be indifferent to the suffering of the Palestinians, nor did I want to be part of the society that caused this suffering. And I think that as the years go by and the research becomes more and more intensive, and my understanding and relationship with the Palestinians become increased and widened, I am even more confident today than I was in the early years of my career, either as an activist or as a professional historian, that I’m very at peace with my moral positions toward Israel and Zionism.
In 2006, that position led to pressure from my university to leave the university and to resign. So I had no choice. I had to resign, and I had to leave. I was very lucky to be offered a position in a university in Britain, where I founded the Centre for Palestine Studies. I am still a citizen of Israel. I’m still going to Israel and spending time in Israel and spending time in Britain, trying to divide between the two places. And I still believe that what I cherish as human rights, as human morality, is the only basis for better life for everyone concerned, Jews and Palestinians alike, in a state in the future that would be based on equality, that would not discriminate against people because of their nationality, religion or culture, and one which will rectify past evils and would allow refugees to return, and hopefully build a state that would radiate and influence the Middle East as a whole.
AMY GOODMAN: Ilan Pappé, we want to thank you for being with us, professor of history, director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter, author of many books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and Gaza in Crisis, which he co-wrote with Noam Chomsky.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 31, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/31 ... transcript
As Israeli tanks and other ground forces enter Gaza, we speak with a doctor in the besieged territory. Dr. Hammam Alloh is working at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in the area, and says tens of thousands of people have sought shelter to escape Israel’s heavy bombardment. He describes making harrowing decisions with rapidly dwindling supplies, such as not resuscitating a patient who went into cardiac arrest because of a lack of ventilators. He also remains steadfast in staying at the hospital, despite Israeli demands to evacuate south. “You think I went to medical school and for my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years so I think only about my life and not my patients?” he says. “This is not the reason why I became a doctor.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Top United Nations officials are expressing growing alarm over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as the enclave’s last remaining hospitals are on the verge of shutting down due to a lack of fuel, as Israel intensifies its ground invasion while rejecting growing calls for a humanitarian ceasefire. Palestinian health officials say over 8,500 people, mostly women and children, have been killed over the past 26 days. The head of UNICEF said, “The lack of clean water and safe sanitation is on the verge of becoming a catastrophe.” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestine refugees, repeated his call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, saying it’s, quote, “become a matter of life and death for millions.”
PHILIPPE LAZZARINI: The current siege imposed on Gaza is collective punishment. Two weeks of full siege followed by the trickle of aid last week mean that basic services are crumbling, medicine is running out, food and water are running out, fuel is running out. The streets of Gaza have started overflowing with sewage, which will cause a massive health hazard very soon.
AMY GOODMAN: In north Gaza, Israel attacked areas next to the Indonesian Hospital Monday, where Dr. Moaeen al-Masry said the staff is struggling to treat patients.
DR. MOAEEN AL-MASRY: [translated] The damage has been caused to more than one area in this unit. The damage has directly led to the disconnection of the electricity line of this unit. As you know, this means no electricity for the patients and injured here, which directly threatens their lives and could lead to the death of many of these patients. … In a few hours from now, the power will be cut due to the limited fuel available in the generators. Running out of fuel means power will be cut, meaning certain death for many of the patients in the ICU, some of whom need respirators, as well as patients in the surgical suites and patients in other units who numbered around 240 or 250.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Gaza City, where we’re joined by Dr. Hammam Alloh, who works at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza.
Dr. Alloh, thanks so much for joining us. I know you’ve just left the hospital a few minutes ago. You told Jewish Currents yesterday, “I had to stop the resuscitation of a patient who went into cardiac arrest in the dialysis unit, because if she made it back to life, we had no ventilator to offer her. We have to prioritize patients who are younger, healthier. We have lost the ability to provide true care.” If you can talk about the situation right now at your hospital and overall?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Hey. Thank you for contacting me.
This is not an incident I would really love to keep remembering, but this is — what you just said was exactly what happened to me. As physicians, we are trained to resuscitate patients who go into cardiac arrest, hoping they would make it back again to life, and consequently put them on ventilators to help them live again, go back to life. But I had to stop my co-nurses and my physicians from doing this. They asked me, “Why are you asking us to stop resuscitating the patients? It’s like you’re asking us to kill her.” I told them, “We have no better options. We have no other choices, because in case she makes it back to life, we have no ventilators to offer her. And if there is any, we would prevent a younger, healthier injured patient from entertaining that victory — I mean the ventilator.” So, I don’t know if you would imagine the amount of regret, the amount of sadness I’m living with since this happened with me, but I’m sorry to say there was no better options to go for except stopping that resuscitation.
And if this tells us anything, this tells us how things are really getting worse and worse. I was talking to a journalist an hour ago or so, and he kept asking me, “You told me a week earlier that things are bad. And are these now the same? Because you’re telling me things are very bad, as well, now.” I told him, “Yeah, this was probably a very strange answer from my side, because things were really bad one, two weeks into war, but now they are getting really worse.” We have patients admitted to emergency departments where they shouldn’t be admitted, where there should be vacant beds for newcomers, for new patients. We have patients admitted to dialysis unit. You know, dialysis unit is a closed unit where you offer a service, and when you’re done with your patients, you close your doors. But we can’t do this anymore. We are allowing people to live in the unit, actually. And we are admitting now patients who need care other than dialysis patients.
As the few trucks that were allowed in with aid to Gazan people actually is almost nothing compared to what we need, and there was — many of the contents of these trucks that were allowed into Gaza had water, gloves and gauze, and this is not what we are looking for. We are looking for devices, medications, things of really major help and concern for providing real healthcare for people in need. Number of injured patients is increasing. The number of people with chronic medical illnesses who need regular follow-up and regular maintenance of and the provision of medications is increasing. We are not capable of providing the care, other than keeping people dying from death. This is the only thing we can do. And we can’t properly provide this care, because we are getting — we are running out of medications and supply.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Hammam Alloh, you’ve said, “Every day, I see a fear in their eyes that I can’t do much about. It’s very painful. If you have kids, you know how horrible it is not to be able to comfort them, to ensure they are alright, to make them hope for anything beyond living one more day.” If you can talk about that in the hospital, which, as you said, is not just a hospital for sick people? Thousands are taking refuge at Al-Shifa and al-Quds and the other hospitals. And also, we’re talking to you as you just left Al-Shifa. How do you comfort your family? What’s happening to your family as you’re at the hospital?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: I tell them at least we still have a house with a door to close. But many thousand refugees, people like us, who used to live in dignity have no longer houses and no doors to close to protect them as they are surrounded by wastewater, by garbage. They don’t have a liquid, continuous supply of clean water to drink. Many of them have a lot of missing members of their families. They don’t know if they are alive or not. I tell them at least we still have a house to live in, but they don’t have. And surprisingly, my 4- and 5-year-old kids, they accept this as a comfort, as a better situation compared to those refugees living — they are living actually in hospitals, but it’s not like they are living inside the hospital departments. Many of them do not have enough space to go into hospital hallways, so they are living around the buildings and in the garden. So, yeah, surprisingly, my very young kids accept this.
AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli military has dropped thousands of pamphlets warning people where you are, in northern Gaza, to leave. Why don’t you go with your family south?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: And if I go, who treats my patients? We are not animals. We have the right to receive proper healthcare. So we can’t just leave.
AMY GOODMAN: The World Health Organization talked about this issue of telling doctors to leave their patients, choosing your own lives over your patients. Can you talk about that choice, since so many patients can’t leave — for example, babies in incubators?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: You think I went to medical school and for my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years so I think only about my life and not my patients? I’m asking you, Ma’am. Do you think this is the reason I went to med school, to think only about my life? This is not the reason why I became a doctor.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what’s happening to the hospitals? Just in our headlines today, we talked about, and in the last few days, the attack on the Indonesia Hospital. The Turkish Hospital is the only cancer hospital?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the significance of these places, both as a sanctuary, thousands of people taking refuge, and for patients?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Yeah. Indonesian Hospital is providing healthcare for over 400,000 citizens in the Gaza Strip. And this part of the Gaza Strip is being split from the rest of the Gaza Strip. If this hospital stops providing care, so we are exposing many thousand Palestinian souls to the dangers of disease and death.
Turkish Hospital, with its very modest capabilities even before war, was the only hospital providing care and medications for cancer patients from around the Gaza Strip. It was airstruck yesterday. I don’t know how many patients and healthcare professionals were wounded. And many patients are dying now because they are not safe with their families to go to receive care and to continue their chemotherapy.
Ministry of Health has declared two hours ago also that the electricity would be cut off from Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital, representing 40% of the healthcare power in the Gaza Strip and providing services for many machine-dependent patients, like the ventilated patients and the hemodialysis patients. So, if electricity is cut out from this hospital, so we are directly deciding those patients are going to necessarily die. Ventilated patients will die in minutes. Dialysis patients will die in hours to days after stopping their hemodialysis. Many patients are now being treated with the modest supplies we have. Many diabetic patients are now being admitted to hospital because of their insulin is not being kept in the refrigerator, so it’s not working. We are out — we ran out of many medications, like antifungal medications. We have a patient who died earlier this week with mucormycosis. This is an invasive, ugly type of fungal infection that killed her because we had no amphotericin to offer her. So, my very simple answer to your question is that death is coming to so many people in the Gaza Strip, in hours to days, if this continues the same way it’s going on.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Alloh, the Middle East Eye reports on a baby who died, says, “His death certificate has been issued before his birth certificate.” A 1-day-old baby has been killed by Israeli bombing in Gaza. Israel, the military, the government, says that Al-Shifa, your hospital, is Hamas —
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — the site of Hamas command and control. Can you respond to that, Dr. Alloh?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: I’ve been working this hospital for over two years, and I never saw this. So, I’m no lawyer, I’m no attorney, but this is how I am simply replying. I never saw this for over two years. If this is true, I would see at least a clue.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about the shipments of aid coming in. Normally, in normal times — if there’s ever a normal time in Gaza — over 400 trucks a day. We’re talking about a trickle of trucks now, maybe a dozen, maybe eight in a day. Have you ever seen this aid arriving at the hospital? And can you talk about what you need right now?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Well, that number you just mentioned that was allowed into Gaza Strip is actually — is actually what you were referring to. It is nothing compared to what we need, nothing compared to the shortage in supplies, machines and medications we are in need for. The only thing, came just as I was leaving the hospital today, was a carton of IV fluid bottles. This is the only thing I saw. And I don’t really know if this came through the aid trucks in the few couple of days, or that was from the stores of the Ministry of Health. In addition, I happened to ask about in the hospital administration, and what they mentioned that was all about the gloves and gauze. And this is not what we are actually only in need for. This is what maybe the least we care for, the least we are in need for. So this is, again, nothing compared to what we are in need for in terms of supplies and medications.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Dr. Hammam Alloh, your message at this point to the United States, where we’re based, and to the world?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Actually, the message hasn’t changed since the beginning of this war. First, we need this war to end, because we are real humans. We are no animals. We have the right to live freely.
Second, if you were, and your citizens, to live under these circumstances, what would you do for them? This is what we exactly would like you to do for us as a superpower country, as the United States, because we are really as human as your U.S. citizens are.
We were expecting more — earlier, I mean, solutions for that humanitarian and healthcare catastrophes and the crises, but what we are seeing, mainly through trucks allowed into Gaza, is nothing compared to us. So, we are being exterminated. We are being massly eradicated. And you pretend to care for humanitarian and human rights, which is not what we are living now. To prove us wrong, please do something. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Hammam Alloh, speaking to us from Gaza City, where he works at the largest hospital, Al-Shifa Hospital. Please be safe.
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: I hope I will be. Let’s hope, both together, I will be. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you. Coming up, we speak to the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, author of many books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Palestine Will Be Free” by the Lebanese Swedish singer Maher Zain, who sung at an Istanbul solidarity protest on Saturday.
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Israeli Historian Ilan Pappé on Gaza War, Hostages & the Context Behind Current Violence
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 31, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/31 ... transcript
We speak with Israeli historian Ilan Pappé about Israel’s escalating war on Gaza, as well as a leaked document from the country’s Ministry of Intelligence that suggests permanently expelling Gaza’s entire population to the Sinai Desert in Egypt. “This is a massive operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing, of depopulation,” says Pappé. He also says the only way to secure the release of the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas is to agree to an all-for-all swap for the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners held by Israel, including many women, children and elderly people. “This is the only way to release the people who were taken.” Pappé is a leading critic of the Israeli occupation, a professor of history and the director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. His books include The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples and The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge.
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.
Internal Israeli government documents have revealed the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence is recommending the forcible transfer of the entire population of Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. The 10-page document, which is dated October 13th, has been published in full by the Israeli news outlets Local Call and +972. The document recommends transferring all Palestinians to Egypt, then setting up a, quote, “sterile” zone of several kilometers near the border between Egypt and Gaza. In addition, the document recommends Israel then prevent the, quote, “return of the population to activities/residences near the border with Israel,” unquote.
Fears of a new Nakba, or Catastrophe, have been growing ever since Israel ordered all Palestinians living in Gaza City and in north Gaza to vacate their homes and head south. On Monday, Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour accused Israel of trying to depopulate Gaza.
RIYAD MANSOUR: They want to depopulate the Gaza Strip completely from the entire population and throw them in the lap of Egypt in the Sinai Desert. … No one should justify our killing or find reasons to give more time to the killer. Call for an end of this assault on an entire nation. Stop the killings in the West Bank by settlers and occupation forces and the forced displacement underway there.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Haifa in Israel, where we’re joined by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé. He’s professor of history and the director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. He’s the author of several books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, as well as The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge. Fifty years ago, Ilan Pappé fought in the Israeli military during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, has since become a leading critic of Israel’s occupation.
Professor Pappé, welcome back to Democracy Now!
ILAN PAPPÉ: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can start off by talking about your take on what’s happening today? You just heard the doctor in Gaza, who just left Al-Shifa a few minutes ago.
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes, I think — Amy, it’s good to be back on your program. Thank you for having me.
I think what we are seeing now, what unfolds in front of our eyes, is a genocidal situation, by which people are targeted, whether they are children, babies, in hospital or in schools. And this is a massive operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing, of depopulation. The pretext for that kind of savagery is revenge for what the Hamas did on the 7th of October, but I think the real intention here is not just revenge but trying to exploit what happened on the 7th of October to create new realities in historical Palestine. You called it a new Nakba. I think that this is — the Nakba has never really ended for the Palestinians, so it’s a new horrific chapter in the ongoing Nakba that the Palestinians are suffering here. So, this is a really horrific situation that can only be stopped from the outside, because there is no motivation inside Israel to stop the operations, nor to care more about the lives of innocent people, despite what the Israeli army claims to do in the field itself.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to play a short clip of Prime Minister Netanyahu speaking over the weekend.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember, and we are fighting. Our brave troops and combatants, who are now in Gaza or around Gaza and in all other regions in Israel, are joining this chain of Jewish heroes, a chain that has started 3,000 years ago, from Joshua ben Nun until the heroes of 1948, the Six-Day War, the ’73 October War and all other wars in this country. Our hero troops, they have one supreme main goal: to completely defeat the murderous enemy and to guarantee our existence in this country. We have always said, “Never again.” Never again is now.
AMY GOODMAN: And I want to play Netanyahu from last night.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. That will not happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you respond to the Israeli prime minister, Professor Pappé?
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes. I think the main attempt here is to make sure that people do not understand the context in which the Hamas operation occurred, to totally dishistoricize that event, to forget about the 15 years of inhuman siege on Gaza, of 56 years of a ruthless occupation and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and 75 years of not allowing refugees to come back to their homes. I think this is an attempt to Nazify the Palestinians, which is not new, by the way. The Israelis, every now and then, use it. If you remember, Menachem Begin compared Yasser Arafat in the bunker in 1982 to Hitler in the bunker. The Nazification of the Palestinians is meant to, first of all, license Israeli policies without any consideration to international law or human rights, and, secondly, to divert us from talking about the real issue here, which is not the Hamas or its actions on the 7th of October, but rather the situation that bred this kind of violence. Rather than talking about the symptom of violence, we should talk about the source of violence. And the source of violence has not changed. We have millions of Palestinians for years being oppressed, ruled and controlled by Israel, and they are fighting with the means that they have. And this is going to go on, unless, of course, there is a willingness to go back to the negotiation table and ask why the violence erupted in the first place and what are the best ways to prevent another cycle of violence in the future.
There’s a second reason for Netanyahu’s rhetoric. Of course, he doesn’t want the Israeli media or the international community to deal with his own problems, that were very acute before the 7th of October, and to say, “This is now a situation where you cannot at all — well, this is a domestic issue. You cannot talk about me or my failures. This is a moment of existential threat to Israel.” And therefore, this kind of rhetoric will continue. And it’s very dangerous, not to mention the fact that it abuses — when they use the Holocaust, it abuses the Holocaust memory, because with all the horror of what happened on the 7th of October, this is not the Holocaust. And there’s no comparison between Palestinians, who act after years of oppression and siege, to Nazis, who just target Jews because they are Jews. There’s no comparison. This whole language is not the one to be used. And I think that Netanyahu is trying to galvanize a very vindictive Israel behind him. And the results of this kind of policy are unfolding in front of our eyes, and we just had this horrific and very moving kind of report that you had with the doctor from Gaza before me.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Pappé, can you talk about the hostage families? They don’t get a lot of attention, what they’re calling for, though they get tremendous attention for who these hostages are, and the people who were killed on October 7th. But there are many. For example, we interviewed Noy Katsman, the brother of Hayim, who was killed by Hamas on October 7th. He said his brother was a peace activist, and he himself said, “Not in my brother’s name.” He called for a ceasefire. And I wanted to ask you about this force of the hostage families and about the everybody-for-everybody proposal. On Friday, just after we got off the broadcast, it said, you know, “imminent major release.” And some thought that Netanyahu was pushing forward with the invasion more quickly because he didn’t want this possibility to happen. But explain the proposal of all hostages, over 200 of them, in return for all Palestinian prisoners, and who these prisoners are, close to 7,000 of them.
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes, I think that not everybody among the families, because I don’t think they’re all made of the same cloth, but many of them understand that the only way to bring their dear ones back home is this kind of an exchange of prisoners. We are talking about thousands of Palestinians who are incarcerated in Israeli jails, many of them without trials. And they are kind of — the allegations against them vary, from actual participation in guerrilla or violent actions against Israeli citizens or soldiers, and those who are incarcerated for being a member of a Palestinian organization. Some of them are very young. Some of them are women. Some of them are very old and have been there for a very long time. And some of them were just recently incarcerated without trial in the West Bank. They are all part of the Palestinian liberation movement. And it needs a very different Israeli perception of the Palestinian struggle and those who participated in its struggle to be able to say, indeed, this is only way forward — namely, to release all of them, to the last one, and receive all of the people who were taken by the Hamas on the 7th of October.
What I can tell you, Amy, which is very interesting, is that former generals in the Israeli army, former heads of the Israeli Mossad and Shabak, the secret service, are supporting this kind of exchange. And this is a very important position that they are holding. And that may explain the fear on Netanyahu’s side to let this issue extend longer, because the voices that are calling for such an exchange are not coming from the extreme Israeli left or the liberal Zionists. They’re coming from some very powerful people, who were heading some of Israel’s most important institutions, such as the Mossad, the army and the secret service.
Will it take place? I don’t know. It depends very much on how things unfold on the ground itself with the invasion, that nobody in Israel gives the Israeli public any details of how it goes on, but it seems that it doesn’t go as well as the Israelis claim it does, and depends a lot, of course, on the international community, because quite a few of the people who are held by the Hamas have also dual citizenship. But there’s no doubt, Amy, this is the only way to release the people who were taken on Saturday. Neither Israeli commando salvage operation nor piecemeal deal will bring all the people back. This is a situation where you can solve the problem and not delay it for another five or six years, with babies and old people who might not survive a long stay in captivity.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Pappé, you were born to German Jewish parents who fled German persecution, the Nazis, in the 1930s. You fought in 1973 in the Israeli military. Can you talk about your life trajectory and how you came to write a book talking about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and the response in Israeli society, your university, University of Haifa, and how you ended up at Exeter?
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes, it was — Amy, it was a journey. There was no one moment of epiphany or awakening that makes you actually take positions which will frame you as a traitor in your own society, and definitely would leave you with no reference group in your own society. For me, it was a journey that had many important stations, such as spending some time as a postgraduate student outside of Israel; having an Arab supervisor; looking, as an historian who was interested in the history of my own country, in the documentation that became available about 1948. So, all these possibilities outside to meet Palestinians on equal footing, to be able to research as a professional historian history or documentation that revealed evidence that contradicted, in a very significant way, the narrative on which I grew up on, all this led me to a moment where I thought that I understand what is going on in historical Palestine, what went on in historical Palestine. And I saw quite clearly, at least from my perspective, who were the victimizers, who were the victim, who was the colonizer, who was the colonized, who was the ethnic cleanser, and who was the victims of ethnic cleansing.
And because my parents came from Germany, and because we lost a lot of people in the Holocaust, exactly because of that legacy, I felt I could not be indifferent to the suffering of the Palestinians, nor did I want to be part of the society that caused this suffering. And I think that as the years go by and the research becomes more and more intensive, and my understanding and relationship with the Palestinians become increased and widened, I am even more confident today than I was in the early years of my career, either as an activist or as a professional historian, that I’m very at peace with my moral positions toward Israel and Zionism.
In 2006, that position led to pressure from my university to leave the university and to resign. So I had no choice. I had to resign, and I had to leave. I was very lucky to be offered a position in a university in Britain, where I founded the Centre for Palestine Studies. I am still a citizen of Israel. I’m still going to Israel and spending time in Israel and spending time in Britain, trying to divide between the two places. And I still believe that what I cherish as human rights, as human morality, is the only basis for better life for everyone concerned, Jews and Palestinians alike, in a state in the future that would be based on equality, that would not discriminate against people because of their nationality, religion or culture, and one which will rectify past evils and would allow refugees to return, and hopefully build a state that would radiate and influence the Middle East as a whole.
AMY GOODMAN: Ilan Pappé, we want to thank you for being with us, professor of history, director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter, author of many books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and Gaza in Crisis, which he co-wrote with Noam Chomsky.
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