Worse Than Hell: Dr. Mads Gilbert Decries Israeli Military Raid on Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 15, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/15 ... transcript
Transcript
The Israel military raid on Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, where thousands of Palestinians are sheltering, is an “unprecedented attack on civilian society” in the “darkest time in modern history,” that is being justified in the West by “a deep-rooted and frightening racism,” says Dr. Mads Gilbert, who worked at Al-Shifa. “You don’t do these things to people you consider equal.” Dr. Gilbert is a Norwegian physician who just spent weeks in Cairo trying to enter Gaza to help his colleagues and has worked extensively in Palestine since 1981. “The civilian population of Gaza [have] done nothing wrong other than being born Palestinians in Gaza,” he says. “Israeli impunity has reached a new level, and we are all sinking into that abyss of disregard for human life.”
AMY GOODMAN: We begin the show in Gaza, where Israel is conducting a military raid on Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, where thousands of Palestinians have sought refuge or medical treatment. The Palestinian Authority has decried the raid as a violation of international law. There are reports Israeli troops have ordered all young men on the hospital grounds to surrender. Many Palestinian men are already being interrogated, some while being held naked and blindfolded. Israel has accused Hamas of placing a command center below Al-Shifa, but Hamas and hospital officials have denied the claim. Israeli tanks are now inside the hospital complex.
This is Dr. Ahmed al-Mokhallati, a plastic surgeon at Al-Shifa.
DR. AHMED AL-MOKHALLATI: And understand we can’t look through the windows or doors. We don’t know what’s happening. We have tanks moving within the hospital. We can hear continuous shooting, and right now. But again, it’s totally risky, the situation.
REPORTER: So, what are these sounds, Doctor? I’m hearing sounds.
DR. AHMED AL-MOKHALLATI: It’s continuous shooting from the tanks. We don’t know what to do. We are within the building. Israel within the building. They are in. We can’t go between the hospital buildings at all for food. So, we are with each other, with the patients, with the civilians within the hospital. And it’s totally risky, the situation.
AMY GOODMAN: Doctors in Al-Shifa are struggling to keep patients alive, including dozens of premature babies, amidst a lack of fuel and the ongoing Israeli military raid.
AL-SHIFA DOCTOR: [translated] I am standing here at the ICU at Al-Shifa medical complex. The department is suffering after the shutdown of electricity due to the lack of fuel. The Health Ministry warned about the lack of the fuel. This department today at dawn was struck directly by the Israeli occupation forces. Here also, the ICU and these children, who were on life machines and artificial respiration, were taken into the corridors of the ICU department. These people here were denied life support devices. They face the loss of their lives because there are no support machines or artificial respiration devices. Around 29 patients are facing this tragedy.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Dr. Mads Gilbert, Norwegian physician who’s worked in Al-Shifa for years, just spent weeks in Cairo getting — trying his best to get into Gaza. He’s a professor at University Hospital of North Norway and the Arctic University of Norway who’s worked with Palestinians since 1981, was in Gaza there during the major Israeli bombardments of 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2014. Dr. Gilbert, where are you right now?
DR. MADS GILBERT: Right now I arrived this early morning in Johannesburg in South Africa. I will be on an invited speaking tour here on Gaza and Palestine, but with —
AMY GOODMAN: We just — we just have a few minutes, but I know that you’ve been speaking to people within Gaza, in Al-Shifa. Can you talk about the scene that we just described? What do you understand is happening there?
DR. MADS GILBERT: If I should choose today between hell and Al-Shifa, I would choose hell. I got a report yesterday from the minister of health that 20 out of the 23 ICU patients had died. Seventeen other patients died because of lack of supplies, oxygen and water. And three, if not five, of the 38 premature newborns have died because of this slow suffocation that the Israeli occupation army is exposing all the hospitals to by cutting electricity, oxygen and medical supplies. And it’s — you know, it’s beyond description. I’m out of words to describe this systematic, man-made slaughtering of patients in civilian hospitals.
And when I heard the crowd in the United States shout, you know, “No ceasefire,” I think that’s the only place on Earth where people are supporting Israel. And the other streets of the world are supporting a ceasefire, a human solution, a lift of the siege and a support for the people of Gaza. So this is a deeply divided world, and the lies are flying around like never before in any war.
And I think we need to keep our heads and our hearts calm now and understand that what we are seeing is an unprecedented attack on a civilian society, occupied by one of the most brutal and ruthless armies in the world, exercising a systematic attack on civilian healthcare, completely against international law and the standards that we want to apply, and being back-patted all the time by the U.S. president.
I mean, we’re in the darkest time in modern history now. So far, if you look at the U.N. numbers, the U.N. numbers that are coming out every day in their fact sheets, 40,000 Palestinians have been killed or are missing under the rubble or have been injured for four weeks. Forty thousand. Six thousand of the killed and missing are children. When did that become defense of a country? When did it become decent to drag neonates out of their incubators and kill children? You know, the only explanation for this is a deep-rooted and very frightening racism, because you don’t do these things to people you consider your equal. I’m extremely disturbed. I’m extremely upset. And I blame the European leaders and your president for this bloody bloodshed of people who are being completely defenseless.
And I talked to a colleague in Mustashfa Al-Aqsa in the south yesterday. He told me they were seeing influx of patients coming, walking from the north, having followed the Israeli command to leave the north, and they were being shot in the legs. And they were treating gunshots in the legs from people trying to escape the north. Forty percent —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Dr. Gilbert —
DR. MADS GILBERT: — of the [inaudible].
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Dr. Gilbert, I wanted to ask you what — the Israeli government continues to insist that Hamas is using the hospitals in Gaza as command centers and as underground headquarters storing weapons and even hostages. What is your response to these claims?
DR. MADS GILBERT: Twofold. Why are you in the media conveying these false claims continuously and taking the attention away from what is the real problem — namely, the continuous bombing and killing of people in Gaza? There is absolutely no proof, so far, that I know of, neither from U.S. intelligence nor from the Israeli intelligence, and we’ve heard these accusations for 16 years. Show us the proof. Show us the evidence. And don’t forget that the Geneva Convention, the Fourth Convention, is telling the fighting parties to make both distinction and precaution. If it’s a mixed military and civilian target, the civilian precaution takes priority over the military again. And they have been bombing not only Shifa and al-Quds, but lots of hospitals, with even bothering to claim that there is any military activity in that hospital. They bombed the Turkish. They bombed Al-Rantisi Pediatric Hospital. And we’ve all seen these ridiculous videos where they say, “Oh, here are Pampers in a pediatric hospital. It’s got to be the terrorists.” So I think this is a big sham, and I’m a bit worried that you in the media so easily are conveying these unsubstantiated accusations. And regardless, they don’t have the right to bomb hospitals. That’s very clear.
And now it’s not only Al-Shifa. Now the al-Quds Hospital is being evacuated with all the patients and all the staff. And it is really a convoy of shame to the Western world and to the United States to see these hospitals, the last resorts in a dramatic assault on the civilian population in Gaza, who have done nothing wrong other than being born Palestinians in Gaza. And this convoy of misery is the result of a lenient attitude to the Israeli violations of international law through many, many years. The Israeli impunity has reached a new level, and we are all sinking into that abyss of the disregard for human life and humanity, as we are seeing this going on without anybody trying to stop the Israeli army.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mads Gilbert, we thank you for being with us, Norwegian physician who’s spent decades working in Gaza, attempted to get in to go back to Al-Shifa but wasn’t able to, now speaking to us from Johannesburg, South Africa.
Coming up, Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents.
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Peter Beinart: Israel Will Only Be Secure & Safe If Palestinians Are Given Freedom
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 15, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/15 ... transcript
Transcript
Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, discusses proposals for a prisoner swap with Hamas, the ongoing cycle of Palestinian oppression and resistance, censorship of pro-Palestine advocacy in the United States, what he calls a “generational struggle” among American Jews over Zionism, and more on Israel’s current assault of Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
In Israel, family members of some of the 240 hostages being held by Hamas have begun a five-day march from Tel Aviv to Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem, where they plan to arrive Saturday. The family members are accusing the prime minister of not doing enough to free their loved ones.
On Monday, Hamas offered to release up to 70 women and children hostages in exchange for a five-day ceasefire and the release of 275 Palestinian women and children prisoners being held in Israeli jails. Israel has ignored the offer so far and has rejected all calls for a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people gathered in Washington, D.C., for a March for Israel, where speakers and rallygoers repeatedly voiced opposition to a ceasefire.
To talk more about the overall situation, we’re joined by Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, professor of journalism and political science at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, the City University of New York. He also writes a newsletter on Substack called The Beinart Notebook.
Peter, welcome back to Democracy Now! I want to start with President Biden saying there’s about to be a hostage release. And if you can talk about what this deal you see — you can’t possibly know exactly what we’re talking about here, but the issue of a trade for these hostages for prisoners, and who these prisoners are that Hamas is demanding be released?
PETER BEINART: I don’t know the details, but I pray that this will happen. Many of the hostage families have been calling for this. I can’t even imagine the agony of these families not knowing where their relatives are and if they’re alive or dead. In our own family, we have all the names of the hostages on our refrigerator door so we see them every day. But there are Palestinians who have been in prison, often for a long time, sometimes in administrative detention, without any due process. And it seems to me that allowing women and children, Palestinian women and children who have been held under those conditions, as part of a negotiated deal would be a humane gesture on both sides.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about some of the leaders who are imprisoned by Israel right now, like, for example, Marwan Barghouti?
PETER BEINART: Right. So, I think one of the problems in Palestinian politics is that there’s a whole generation of leaders, really, who are in jail, most famously, Marwan Barghouti, the nationalist leader. He’s not an Islamist like Hamas. Polling consistently shows he’s the most popular Palestinian leader.
And I think Israel needs to think about what its political strategy is here. You can’t defeat Hamas militarily, because even if you depose it in Gaza, you will be laying the seeds for the next group of people who will be fighting Israel. We know that Hamas recruits from the families of people that Israel has killed. You need, it seems to me, to support Palestinian leaders who offer a vision of ethical resistance, not what we saw on October 7th, but ethical resistance, and a path to Palestinian freedom, that also means safety for Israeli Jews.
Marwan Barghouti, although he was involved in armed attacks during the Second Intifada, has spoken from jail about the path of Nelson Mandela, about reconciliation, about justice not vengeance. If Israel wanted legitimate Palestinian leaders that it could work with to build a horizon for Palestinian freedom, because only Palestinian freedom in the long run will ensure Israeli Jewish safety, then it could let him out and create the beginnings of a more legitimate Palestinian leadership, rather than Mahmoud Abbas, who’s viewed as a corrupt, authoritarian subcontractor of Israel at this point.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Peter, I’m wondering your response to the way that many pro-Palestinian voices are being silenced in the United States. Last week, for instance, Columbia University suspended Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voices for Peace as official student groups through the end of the term. And your sense of what — the impact of these kinds of policies and the pressures from a lot of university donors on their universities to silence these voices?
PETER BEINART: I think when historians look back at the periods of repression of free speech in the United States from World War I to the Red Scare of the McCarthy era to the post-9/11 era, tragically, we are writing another chapter now. And it’s being done in part because of the cowardice of university administrators and others, people who were sworn to defend the principles of free speech and academic freedom, because of pressure, as you say, very, very often from donors.
You don’t have to agree with everything that Students for Justice in Palestine says. I myself don’t. But they have the right to make their voices heard. Yes, do some of the things they say — are some of the things upsetting to some Jewish students? Yes. Some of the things that the pro-Israel groups on campus say are upsetting to some of the Palestinian students.
The point of a university is that people are able to express their views. And for goodness’ sakes, one of the things we’ve been hearing from people on the right for years and years in their opposition to cancel culture is that universities are supposed to make you uncomfortable. Physical safety is one thing. Intellectual discomfort is another. It is not the job of university presidents to protect students from hearing things that, because they were raised in pro-Israel families, they find deeply upsetting. The point is to allow people to have these conversations. And it’s really deeply, deeply disturbing to me that in these places that are supposed to be bastions of free speech and academic freedom, we’re seeing this kind of crumbling.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, and I’m wondering also — there was a report in The New York Times today, which inexplicably, in my view, should have been on the front page but was buried in the back, about an attack on the Al-Shifa Hospital on Friday that initially the Israeli Defense Forces claimed was, again, errant missiles of Hamas, but The New York Times has been able to document that — from some of the fragments of the missiles, that they were actually anti-tank artillery from the — Israeli anti-tank artillery. And this really raises deep questions about the credibility of prior statements of Israel about some of these attacks. Wondering your response.
PETER BEINART: I mean, look, I’m not a military expert. I would just say this: Israel is saying that Hamas is embedding itself in civilian areas and using Palestinian civilians as, quote-unquote, “human shields.” There may be cases in which that is true, but we know that this is the way guerrilla armies fight, right? The Viet Cong, when they were fighting the United States in Vietnam, didn’t just walk out into the fields and say, “Here we are.” They embedded themselves in villages. This is the nature of fighting against a guerrilla movement, against an insurgency. It doesn’t give you carte blanche to then basically go and kill vast numbers of civilians.
The underlying lesson is you can’t defeat an insurgency unless you address the core political grievances. This is the fundamental flaw behind Israel’s strategy. And Israel, it’s so tragic to see this, because it’s been happening again and again for decades. Israel went into southern Lebanon in the early 1980s to depose the PLO, and they kicked the PLO out of Lebanon. And what happened? They ended up in an occupation that led to Hezbollah. Israel is not laying the foundations here for anything that will lead to mutual coexistence and mutual freedom between the two societies. The civilians it kills are laying the groundwork for more and more destruction and death on both sides, because Israeli leaders are not willing to face the fundamental fact, and American leaders are not forcing them to, that the issue, even deeper than Hamas, as horrible as Hamas is, the issue is the lack of Palestinian freedom.
AMY GOODMAN: Peter Beinart, you just wrote a piece in The New York Times, “There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive,” where you talk about the ANC. If you can talk about apartheid, Palestine, the ANC and the day after, as they say?
PETER BEINART: The point I tried to make is that the African National Congress, although it did use armed resistance against apartheid, it tried hard to not go after civilians. And one of the reasons it was able to maintain this ethical line, which tragically Hamas brutally crossed on October 7, was that it saw its strategy of ethical resistance was working. It saw that it was resonating around the world. By the late ’80s, an anti-apartheid movement had grown that had led to sanctions, that had led to divestment. And this created a kind of virtuous cycle that made it easier for the ANC to resist in an ethical way.
The point I wanted to make in the piece is, if we find what Hamas did on October 7th despicable, as I did, it is incumbent on us to support Palestinians who are fighting for their freedom in an ethical way. And when you shut that down, as the United States has done again and again — you shut down Palestinian efforts at the U.N., you shut down Palestinians’ efforts at the International Criminal Court, you criminalize Boycott, Divestment and Sanction, even though these are nonviolent efforts in the language of human rights and international law — you are actually empowering forces like Hamas that will resist in these immoral ways. We have to create paths for Palestinians to fight for freedom ethically, and we have done the opposite.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I’m wondering also — you tweeted on Monday, quote, “American Jewish institutions have assembled alibis for the horror Israel is inflicting on Gaza. They’re not just intellectually flimsy. They aim to squelch our noblest emotions: solidarity with suffering people + outrage at the state that is killing them.” Could you talk about the enormous battle that is occurring within the American Jewish community, where groups like Jewish Voices for Peace are being arrested by the hundreds in cities across the country, yet many of the major Jewish institutions continue to line up behind Israel?
PETER BEINART: Yeah. You know, it says in the Talmud that the imperative of human dignity is so great that it overrides all rabbinic commands. And it’s really — it’s tragic to me to see that the institutional leaders of our Jewish community have forgotten that in this moment when it needs to be remembered most. And instead what you have is a series of alibis that just don’t make any sense. For instance, the idea that people in Gaza deserve this because they voted for Hamas in 2006. Well, most of the — only 25% of the people in Gaza were even alive during that election. And if we set the precedent that you can be killed because you vote for the wrong political party, I think that’s going to have very, very bad consequences for many people all around the world.
There is a generational struggle, above all, that’s happening among American Jews. The bulk of the people who are leading these protests, these Jewish people who are protesting in the name of a ceasefire, are young. And what gives me hope is there are people on both sides, Hamas and the Israeli government, who basically see this struggle as a zero-sum struggle of tribe versus tribe, and that logic is going to lead to greater and greater destruction and misery; what I think we’re seeing among young American Jews is a different claim. It’s that this is not a struggle of Jews against Palestinians; it’s a struggle of Jews and Palestinians and people of conscience from all around the world around a series of basic principles. The principle is that there has to be safety and freedom and decent lives for Palestinians, if there is ever going to be safety and decency and dignity for Israeli Jews, as well, that these two people are bound together in a garment of destiny, as Martin Luther King said. And I actually think that it’s this multiracial, multireligious, multiethnic movement that, in this incredibly dark time, is the one thing, I think, that we can cling to as something as a source of hope.
AMY GOODMAN: Peter, we have less than a minute, but what is your assessment of what President Biden is doing and should be doing?
PETER BEINART: President Biden keeps saying that he would like Benjamin Netanyahu to do something else, and Benjamin Netanyahu keeps doing what he’s doing, because there is no stick attached to what President Biden is saying. Right? There are no consequences. Now Netanyahu is saying that Israel is going to reoccupy Gaza. Biden knows that this is a nightmare for Israel and a nightmare for the United States. It will be a quagmire, an insurgency for as long as the eye can see. America has to use its considerable leverage to get the Israeli government to do something to show Palestinians that it has — that there is a way for them to fight for their freedom, that Israel and the world will offer them; otherwise, we are going to have round after round after round of this hideous killing on both sides.
AMY GOODMAN: Peter Beinart, we want to thank you for being with us, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, professor at CUNY Journalism School. We’ll link to your recent New York Times op-ed headlined “There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive.”
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Rabbis for Ceasefire: Jewish Leaders Organize to Halt Israel’s Bombardment of Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 15, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/15 ... transcript
We speak to Rabbi Alissa Wise, an organizer with Rabbis for Ceasefire and the founding co-chair of Jewish Voice for Peace’s Rabbinical Council, about Tuesday’s “March for Israel” in Washington, D.C., that was covered widely by the mainstream media and platformed antisemitic Christian Zionists. Wise sees a deep connection between Jewish religious principles and anti-Zionist activism and says accusations that anti-Zionists are antisemitic are a cynical strategy used to “shield Israel from accountability.” She says Israel cannot be uniquely exempt from political and humanitarian critique. “Israel is not a Jewish person. Israel is a state. God forbid we should not be able to cry out when states are committing horrific genocidal violence in the name of Jewish people.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
This week has been dubbed the Jews for a Ceasefire Week of Action by groups including IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace. In Chicago, hundreds of Jews and allies blocked the entrance to the Israeli Consulate Monday.
PROTESTER: Ceasefire means ending the genocide, the invasion, the siege. It means hostage release now. It means no more escalation to further war, violence and death. And it means creating a space for a true diplomatic solution that addresses the root causes of occupation and apartheid.
AMY GOODMAN: Around the country, Jews calling for a ceasefire also held sit-ins in the offices of congressmembers. In Washington, D.C., Monday, dozens of rabbis with Rabbis for Ceasefire were joined by spiritual leaders and hundreds of others for a morning prayer and reading of the Torah in front of the U.S. Capitol to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
RABBI: [reading Torah] Sound the great shofar for all people’s freedom.
AMY GOODMAN: After the special Shacharit service, rabbis and supporters marched to congressional offices, where they met with elected officials. This is Congressmember Cori Bush.
REP. CORI BUSH: We are rabbis. We are pastors. We are congressmembers. We are surviving family members. We are human beings. And we are bound by our faith to demand a ceasefire now, to demand an end to the violence now, to demand that love and peace and justice and humanity reigns and is at the center of all of our work now — not tomorrow, not next week, not in a month, not in a year. Now. Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Rabbi Alissa Wise, organizer with Rabbis for Ceasefire, former co-executive director of the organization Jewish Voice for Peace, where she was also the founding co-chair of JVP’s Rabbinical Council.
So, we’re seeing all of this opposition around the country. Can you describe what happened in Washington? We just saw Cori Bush. I think AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, a number of other congressmembers were there for your prayer service. Talk about the support you’re getting.
RABBI ALISSA WISE: We’re getting tremendous support from the signers of the Ceasefire Now Resolution. And on Monday, when we brought our message to D.C., we were buoyed by the embrace of these members of Congress, but actually the embrace went both ways. It was clear that our presence there in D.C. was a balm for their souls. They are being run through the mud for their voice of humanity and their voice of justice. And likewise, we need support, too. We are Rabbis for Ceasefire. We are, as rabbis, responsible to serve the Jewish people’s spiritual, cultural, communal health. And as part of that, our obligation as rabbis is to ensure that Jewish people are part of the most profound and sacred obligation in Jewish tradition, which is saving lives. And that is the root of our call for ceasefire.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Rabbi, I’m wondering if you could talk about your experience and work within the Palestinian solidarity movement. And how do you counter claims that critique of Israeli policies and of the occupation is inherently antisemitic?
RABBI ALISSA WISE: You know, there has been an effort over the past number of years to conflate critique of Israel with antisemitism. This is a deliberate strategy by those who seek to shield Israel from accountability. The truth is, Judaism is a beautiful, evolving religious civilization that has been part of the world for thousands of years. Zionism and the Jewish state has a far shorter history. Zionism is just over 125 years old, and the state just 75 years. There is nothing inherent in critiquing the Israeli state as antisemitic. The thing that we have to remember is that states must be held accountable when they violate human rights. And the cynical strategy by legacy Jewish institutions to shield Israel from accountability, through claims that Israel is a Jew or Israel is the Jew of the world — Israel is not a Jewish person. Israel is a state. God forbid we should not be able to cry out when states are committing horrific genocidal violence in the name of Jewish people.
When American Jews around the world, rabbis and our congregants alike, are saying, “Not in our name,” they are enacting their obligation as Jewish people to protect life, to say every life is sacred and to make no distinction between Israeli life and Palestinian life. As Representative Rashida Tlaib said, the cries of Israeli and Palestinian children don’t sound different to her. They don’t sound different to us. When you seek to stop critique of a nation-state that is committing such horrific genocidal violence with claims of antisemitism, you are lending credence to that violence.
You know, yesterday in D.C. at the pro-Israel rally, I was horrified to see that the most powerful antisemite in our country was given a headline spot. Shame on them! Shame on them for allowing Pastor John Hagee, who believes that Israel needs to be supported by Christian Zionists in order to hasten the second coming of the Messiah, at which point Jews must either convert en masse or burn. There is nothing more antisemitic than that. And shame on them for putting Jewish lives at risk, for playing Russian roulette with Jewish safety to protect Israel and to shield them from accountability for this horrific violence. When the crowd started shouting “No ceasefire,” I was humiliated. I was horrified. I was brought up in a tradition that teaches life is sacred. I prayed on Monday with my fellow rabbis in front of the Capitol that we are guided by an ahava rabbah, an unending love. And that unending love is not finite. It extends to all people. And it must. I think about my children, my Jewish children that I’m raising, and the peril that these Jewish organizations are putting them in when they cynically seek to conflate critique of Israel and antisemitism and create a stage for those who joyfully claim that Jews must convert or be burned at the coming of a second Messiah, and that is their reason why they support Israel. Shame on them.
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March for Israel Speaker Pastor Hagee Once Said God “Sent Hitler to Help Jews Reach the Promised Land”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 15, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/15 ... transcript
Transcript
Speakers at Tuesday’s “March for Israel” on the National Mall included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Christian fundamentalist House Speaker Mike Johnson and radical Christian Zionist pastor John Hagee, who once said God “sent Hitler to help Jews reach the Promised Land.” Sarah Posner, a reporter focused on the American Christian right, discusses Hagee and Johnson’s backgrounds and explains how Hagee and other extremist evangelical Christians and Jewish Zionists use each other to advance their own movements. Rabbis for Ceasefire’s Alissa Wise notes the “influence of Christian Zionism on U.S. foreign policy is way understated” and should be vigorously countered by white American Christians, just as white American Jews have mobilized a high-profile opposition to Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.
AMY GOODMAN: We were going to bring in a second guest to join you, Rabbi Alissa Wise, and to talk more about the Christian Zionist pastor John Hagee, who once said God had, quote, “sent Hitler to help Jews reach the Promised Land.” This is part of what he said at Tuesday’s march in Washington.
JOHN HAGEE: Israel is the shining city on the hill. Israel said — God says of Israel, “Israel is my first-born son.”
CROWD: Yeah!
JOHN HAGEE: Jerusalem is the city of God. Jerusalem is the shoreline of eternity. Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel, today and forever.
AMY GOODMAN: Other high-profile speakers at Tuesday’s protest included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the new House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has ties to the Christian Zionist movement.
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: As Prime Minister Netanyahu says so well, this is a fight between good and evil, between light and darkness, between civilization and barbarism.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re, in addition to Rabbi Alissa Wise, joined by Sarah Posner, who has long covered Christian Zionists and is the author of Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind. She’s an MSNBC columnist, her recent piece titled “The dispiriting truth about why many evangelical Christians support Israel.”
If you can talk about that, Sarah, and also specifically talk about John Hagee addressing these tens of thousands of people, and then the House speaker?
SARAH POSNER: So, Hagee has long walked this line between seeming like he — or, pretending to a Jewish audience like he’s really only interested in policy and what’s happening in the present. He walks this line, but then, when he goes into a church to preach about his theology, what he says is really quite different. He didn’t say on Tuesday that he expects, according to biblical prophecy, that one day Jesus will return and fight a very bloody battle, which, as the rabbi said, will result in Jews either converting or dying — and Muslims, too, by the way. He didn’t say that. He didn’t say that he believes that at the end of that, Jesus will rule the world from his throne on the Temple Mount. He didn’t say that everything is playing out according to biblical prophecy. And so he has basically hoodwinked many Jews into believing that he actually supports Israel, but what he really supports is his claim that Bible — Israel is just a pawn, really, in this Bible prophecy, which at the end of which — at the end of which Jesus will rule the world as basically a theocrat.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Sarah Posner, you’ve noted that, quote, “At the heart of Christian Zionism is not a love for Israel but rather Christian nationalism.” But what does Israel and its staunchest defenders get from this alliance?
SARAH POSNER: Well, what Israelis and American Jews who embrace Hagee’s support get is a huge movement, much larger than the number of Jewish Americans, that has the ear of the Republican Party, that is enmeshed in the Republican Party. And so, it’s much more than CUFI has juice — CUFI is Hagee’s organization, Christians United for Israel — has juice on Capitol Hill or in the White House, when a Republican is in the White House. It is more than that. It is so common among evangelicals, even if they’re not members of CUFI, to share these ideas about Israel and Bible prophecy and the return of Jesus. And so, what they do is they bring this huge constituency to Republicans, many of whom, like Speaker Johnson, believe all of this themselves.
And so they have morphed together this idea of supporting Israel with being a good American Christian. They believe that God has commanded America as a country, not just them as Americans, to, quote-unquote, “support Israel.” But in their minds, supporting Israel involves supporting the occupation, supporting the Israeli military, no matter what it does. It doesn’t mean supporting Israel from the standpoint that some day, perhaps, Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace. That’s not part of the equation.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play another clip. In 2008, John McCain rejected Pastor John Hagee’s endorsements, after the pastor said God sent Hitler to help Jews get to Israel. This is a clip of Hagee’s sermon.
JOHN HAGEE: Then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone who comes with a gun, and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarah Posner?
SARAH POSNER: So, this is part of Hagee’s overriding theology, that all of history can be sandwiched into his view of what the Bible prophecy is about: the return of Jesus. So, basically, what he’s saying is — what he’s saying there, and what he’s essentially saying in other much more recent statements than that, is that God has punished or disciplined the Jews throughout history as part of his plan to get them to return to Israel, which is a precondition of Jesus’s return. So he’s not trying to make it happen on a faster timetable. He will say that it’s all going to happen on God’s timing. But what he’s saying is any world event that’s occurring now or has occurred in the past is part of what has been prophesied in the Bible, and God is directing traffic here. And one of God’s intentions is to get Jews to return to Israel, because that is a precondition of Jesus’s return. He says that — he claims this is all laid out in the Bible, and this is just Bible prophecy playing out.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to bring Rabbi Alissa Wise back into the conversation. Your response to this whole issue of the extreme Christian right in the United States lining up in support of Israel for its own religious purposes?
RABBI ALISSA WISE: Yeah. As Sarah mentioned, you know, CUFI boasts more members — 10 million, they claim, which surpasses the total number of Jews in the United States. So one thing that’s really critical is that white Christians need to be mobilizing just as American Jews are. American Jews are getting arrested by the hundreds, as you mentioned. Christians who oppose this vision that Christianity — that Hagee is proliferating need to, likewise, be stepping out. The influence of Christian Zionism on U.S. foreign policy is way understated. The Jewish pro-Israel lobby is dwarfed in comparison to what the Christian Zionist lobby is doing to promote U.S. foreign policy.
But I think the most important piece here is that all of this is making Jews less safe in the world. Israel’s actions in Gaza, but also not just now but for generations — when Palestinians are not free, Jews are less safe in the world. And that is the crux of the matter. There is no way for Jewish safety to be found when others are being oppressed. That’s just the simple truth of it. And organizations that seek to distract from those of us that are trying to realize freedom, democracy, equal rights — it’s simple. It’s equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis. Those people claim that we are antisemitic, when, in fact, their actions at aiding and abetting genocidal violence in Gaza now, but apartheid and occupation for generations, that is what is making Jews less safe in the world.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to put this question to Sarah Posner, author of Unholy. You have written about Mike Johnson, the new House speaker’s Christian nationalist track record. Can you talk about his views and when you first encountered him in 2007 working on a story about the Alliance Defense Fund’s ambitions to gut the separation of church and state? Explain what that all this.
SARAH POSNER: So, the organization is now called Alliance Defending Freedom. It’s a major Christian right legal organization that sees itself as a Christian counterweight to the ACLU. It is behind many Supreme Court cases, including Dobbs, which overturned Roe v. Wade; Masterpiece Cakeshop, involving the anti-gay baker. And Johnson was working for them at the time that I interviewed him.
And he laid out for me the organization’s ambition to eviscerate the separation of church and state at the Supreme Court and to create a legal framework in which conservative Christians could object to things like LGBTQ rights in the name of religious freedom. Everything he said to me back in 2007, ADF has pretty much done and accomplished or is well on its way to accomplishing — undermining church-state separation, elevating the religious freedom of conservative Christians who oppose LGBTQ and reproductive rights. And that is the framework and the ideology that he brings to Congress.
He also believes that God created civil government and that the government should be run from what Christian nationalists would call a biblical worldview. So, his entire ideology and framework and way of looking at the world and way of looking at government, in particular, is very classic, to the T of the Christian right, of Christian nationalists, whatever you want to call it, believing that their biblical worldview is what should dictate law and policy in the United States.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’m wondering: Is this phenomena of the Christian Zionism largely centered in the United States, or have you seen similar movements in other advanced industrial countries, especially in Europe, as well?
SARAH POSNER: Sure. It’s worldwide. There are organizations that bring together Christian Zionists from different countries, that, in particular, bring together Christian Zionist legislators from different countries. So it’s definitely a worldwide movement. But Hagee is probably the world’s foremost and most well-known Christian Zionist, in part because of his decadeslong preaching on the question, but also because of his founding of CUFI in 2006.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarah Posner, we want to thank you for being with us, author of Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind. And thank you to Rabbi Alissa Wise of Rabbis for Ceasefire and former co-executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace.
U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
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DemocracyNow! Headlines
November 16, 2023
Israel Orders Palestinians to Flee Parts of Southern Gaza, Continues Attacks on Hospitals
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in a 41st consecutive day of unrelenting attacks by Israel’s military on the Gaza Strip. Overnight, Israel’s Air Force dropped leaflets over parts of the southern city of Khan Younis ordering people to leave their homes and shelters “for their own safety.” Many are being expelled for a second time, after Israel last month ordered more than a million Palestinians to leave their homes in northern Gaza.
On Wednesday, Israeli authorities allowed the first shipment of fuel into the Gaza Strip since early October. The U.N.'s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says just over 6,000 gallons of fuel — half a tanker truck's worth — was allowed to cross from Egypt. That’s just 9% of what UNRWA says is needed daily to sustain life-saving activities. Israel is not allowing the fuel to be used in hospitals or to power water and sewage pumps.
The U.N.'s human rights chief, Volker Türk, said outbreaks of disease and hunger in Gaza now appear “inevitable.” His remarks came amid a worsening humanitarian catastrophe at Gaza's largest hospital, the Al-Shifa medical complex, which is being occupied by Israel’s army. Thousands of patients, medical workers and displaced Palestinians remain trapped inside the hospital and unable to leave. Medical workers report Israeli attacks have severely damaged Al-Shifa’s main surgery building, and about 200 people were reportedly blindfolded by Israeli troops and led away to interrogations. The World Health Organization’s Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says 26 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are now closed due to damage from Israeli strikes or because they have run out of fuel.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “Israel’s military incursion into Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is totally unacceptable. Hospitals are not battlegrounds.”
Without Citing Evidence, Biden Backs Israel’s Claim That Hamas Used Hospital as Base
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
Israel’s military has displayed images of weapons they claim were found inside the hospital, but Hamas has dismissed the photos as propaganda. On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces published video showing what they claimed were “Hamas grab bags” of rifles and grenades stashed inside the hospital. Doctors at Al-Shifa have repeatedly denied such claims.
President Biden has repeated Israeli claims about Hamas using hospitals as military bases. Biden spoke to reporters from California Wednesday evening after wrapping the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco.
President Joe Biden: “You have a circumstance where the first war crime is being committed by Hamas by having their headquarters, their military hidden under a hospital. And that’s a fact. That’s what’s happened.”
Biden provided no evidence for the claim.
Biden Calls Xi Jinping a “Dictator” After APEC Meeting
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
President Biden’s remarks came after a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the APEC summit. The pair emerged with several agreements, including one to reestablish military communications and one curbing the Chinese export of chemicals used for the production of fentanyl. On Wednesday evening, Xi Jinping mingled with leaders of corporate America, including Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook, at a lavish reception. Hours after their meeting, Biden ratcheted up tensions with China when he called President Xi a “dictator.”
President Joe Biden: “I mean he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours. Anyway.”
Earlier today, Beijing responded to Biden’s remarks, calling them “irresponsible political manipulation.”
U.N. Security Council Passes Resolution Calling for “Humanitarian Pauses” in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
The United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip.” The measure was approved by a 12-0 vote after the United States, United Kingdom and Russia abstained. Four prior attempts by the Security Council to pass resolutions calling for ceasefires or so-called humanitarian pauses had failed.
Protesters Take Over Strategic Sites in D.C., Los Angeles, Oakland to Call for End to Gaza Assault
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
Daily protests against Israel’s attack on Gaza continue. In Washington, D.C., human rights activists gathered in front of the White House for a vigil calling on President Biden to back an immediate ceasefire. Body bags were laid out on the ground to represent the more than 11,500 Palestinians killed by the U.S.-backed Israeli assault.
Later in the evening, activists blocked the entrance of the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters before police violently removed them. Lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, were gathered for a campaign event. This is Eva Borgwardt of the Jewish peace group IfNotNow.
Eva Borgwardt: “We’re outside the Democratic Party headquarters because this party claims to be on the side of life and peace and equality, and we’re saying that we want them to live up to their values and oppose this horrific war and call for a ceasefire now. And we’re being responded to by the police shoving antiwar activists down the stairs, shoving peaceful protesters back with their bikes. And because our party, our party that 80% of us want a ceasefire, would rather beat up protesters than” —
Chuck Modi: “Hold on. To be continued. One second. One second. One second.”
The interview was interrupted when police resumed beating protesters, spraying them with chemical agents and arresting them.
In Los Angeles, over 1,000 American Jews and others held an emergency sit-in on one of Hollywood’s busiest streets to demand an immediate ceasefire. Earlier this week, over 700 Jewish activists and their allies shut down Oakland’s federal building. Hundreds of people were arrested in the action.
Majority of National Book Award Finalists Call for Ceasefire During Prize Ceremony
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
At the prestigious National Book Awards ceremony in New York last night, 20 of the 25 nominated authors made a collective statement on stage calling for a ceasefire. This is author Aaliyah Bilal.
Aaliyah Bilal: “On behalf of the finalists, we oppose the ongoing bombardment of Gaza and call for a humanitarian ceasefire to address the urgent humanitarian needs of Palestinian civilians, particularly children. We oppose antisemitism and anti-Palestinian sentiment and Islamophobia equally, accepting the human dignity of all parties, knowing that further bloodshed does nothing to secure lasting peace.”
One of the event’s sponsors, Zibby Media, withdrew its support ahead of the prize ceremony, after learning of the authors’ plan to speak out against the war.
Meanwhile, Black Christian faith leaders have been meeting with White House officials and members of the Congressional Black Caucus to call for an end to the violence. Last week, over 900 Black faith leaders representing churches across the U.S. took out a full-page ad in The New York Times to call for a ceasefire and a commitment to a meaningful peace process.
24 House Lawmakers Call for Gaza Ceasefire, Citing Violation of Children’s Rights
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
Twenty-four members of the House of Representatives have signed a joint letter calling on President Biden to press for a bilateral ceasefire in Gaza, on the basis of grave violations of children’s rights. The letter was authored by Democratic Congressmembers Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and Betty McCollum of Minnesota. This comes as the powerful lobby group AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, steps up its support for primary challengers to lawmakers who’ve voiced support for a ceasefire. Slate magazine reports AIPAC is expected to spend $100 million in Democratic primaries backing opponents of House progressives.
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“Failure to Prevent Genocide”: Biden Sued as U.S. Provides Arms & Support for Israel’s Gaza Assault
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 16, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/16 ... transcript
Transcript
As Israel rejects growing international calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Center for Constitutional Rights in the United States is suing President Biden for failing to prevent genocide. The center is seeking an emergency order to block Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin from providing further military funding, arms and diplomatic support to Israel. Katherine Gallagher, a senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights on the case, argues the U.S. is complicit with Israel in the “crime of crimes” by “aiding and abetting genocide” with military aid, advisers and political support despite clear signs of intent to collectively punish the Palestinian population.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel is rejecting a United Nations Security Council call for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses in Gaza as Israel’s bombardment of the besieged enclave continues for a 41st day. The U.N. Security Council passed the resolution by a vote of 12 to 0, with the United States, Britain and Russia abstaining. It’s the first resolution passed by the U.N. Security Council since Israel began its bombardment after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th.
This comes as Israel is continuing its military raid on Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza. Israel has long claimed Hamas placed a major command center underneath the hospital, but Israel has not shared any evidence of this so far. Israel has displayed images of weapons they claim were found inside the hospital, but Hamas has dismissed the photos as propaganda. On Wednesday, the [director]-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, condemned the raid on Al-Shifa.
TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS: Israel’s military incursion into Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is totally unacceptable. Hospitals are not battlegrounds. We’re extremely worried for the safety of staff and patients. Protecting them is paramount. WHO has lost contact with health workers at Al-Shifa Hospital. But one thing is clear: Under international humanitarian law, health facilities, health workers, ambulances and patients must be safeguarded and protected against all acts of war. Not only that, they must be actively protected during military planning.
AMY GOODMAN: As Israel rejects growing international calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, there are mounting efforts to hold Israel and its backers accountable for committing war crimes in Gaza. Here in the United States, the Center for Constitutional Rights has sued President Biden, accusing him of failing to prevent genocide. Today CCR is seeking an emergency order to block Biden, as well as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, from providing further military funding, arms and diplomatic support to Israel.
We’re joined now by Katherine Gallagher, senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, one of the lawyers who brought the case.
Katherine, can you lay out the case for us? What are you demanding of the U.S. government, of President Biden?
KATHERINE GALLAGHER: Good morning, Amy.
This case, filed on Monday, was filed on behalf of two Palestinian human rights organizations — Defense for Children International–Palestine, Al-Haq, which is the oldest Palestinian human rights organization, which for the first time in its history is unable to do its work in Gaza because of the conditions — as well as three Palestinians in Gaza and five Palestinian American families, who have members of their families killed, injured and under direct threat right now in Gaza.
We filed this case against President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken and Secretary of State [sic] Austin with two claims. One is that they have absolutely and completely failed in their duty under international law and U.S. law to take all measures possible to prevent the unfolding genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza. The United States is a signatory to the Genocide Convention. And in recognition of the severity, that this is the crime of crimes, when it requires the specific intent to destroy a group, a national or ethnic group, in whole or in part, that is such a serious crime that states are obligated to take all measures within their control, all measures possible, from the second, from the minute they learn of the possibility of genocide, to stop that. We have not seen the United States do that, despite its considerable influence over Israel in the form of hundreds of billions of dollars in military aid that it’s sent over the decades and billions in the past year. Instead of using that influence to stop the killing, to stop the imposition of a total siege, denying all basic necessities to 2.2 million people in the enclosed space of Gaza, they have rushed weapons. They have given unconditional political support. Up until yesterday, when we saw a Security Council resolution not yet call for a complete ceasefire, the United States had blocked all measures at the international level. So we are bringing the first claim for its failure to prevent the unfolding genocide.
And the second claim is that it’s actually complicit in genocide. We lay out the case that Israel is actually committing genocide at this moment. And we are able to do so, unfortunately — it’s with no pleasure that we say this — at this early moment because of the very clear statements of intent by Prime Minister Netanyahu, by his minister of defense and other senior Israeli officials about their intentions against the entire population in Gaza. They have been clear that they see this, the people, the children of Gaza, as less than human, describing the population as “monsters” or “human animals,” and then taking away all of the basic necessities — food, fuel, water, electricity. We’ve certainly, as you just played, heard what has happened to the healthcare and medical facilities: bombed and invaded. And so, in the face of all of this, the United States, when it has continued to send weapons, to send military advisers, to rush aid and give moral and political support to Israel’s actions, we say it is aiding and abetting genocide.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And so, Katherine, could you — because it seems that there’s some disagreement or dispute about whether what’s taking place right now is a genocide or ethnic cleansing, even among scholars of genocide, so could you explain the distinction between the two and how it is that the people who you’ve had advising you on this case are convinced that what’s happening right now — not what is to come — what is unfolding right now is a genocide?
KATHERINE GALLAGHER: So, just to first clarify, ethnic cleansing is actually not a crime. Ethnic cleansing is a description that is often used, whether for crimes against humanity, such as extermination, or forcible transfer and deportation. And I want to be very clear: Those, in and of themselves, are serious crimes. The International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over those crimes. And frankly, it should be bringing arrest warrants for those crimes at this moment. So, that is the first point.
As to why we believe it is a genocide, the elements of genocide are that specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a group, and then there are underlying acts for genocide. And we think three of the five underlying acts are present in this case: killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and creating the conditions of life intended to destroy a population, in whole or in part.
And so, to unpack that a bit, what we have at the front end — and usually specific intent is something that needs to be determined and only able to be concluded after the fact. I worked at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal on the Srebrenica cases, and I know how difficult even in that case it was to make the conclusion that it was genocide. Here we have those statements up front. And what we have from the Israeli officials is backing up those statements to impose a total siege and deny an entire population the basic necessities of life — the access to, as I said, food, fuel, electricity, which are necessary for hospitals to run, for people to be able to make their food, for water. We are seeing the start of starvation happening.
And, of course, all of that has happened under intense and continual military bombardment of a space that has a blockade and closed borders. And that blockade has been in place for 16 years. And again, I would say that there have been crimes against humanity being committed against the Palestinian population in Gaza at least throughout the entirety of that 16-year blockade.
What we have seen now is the expression of specific intent to destroy that population. And that, with the killings that we have seen — already well over 11,000 people have lost their lives, including over 4,600 children — we see that this is a campaign against the entire population. So, for genocide, when you take that specific intent, as expressed by the senior Israeli officials who have the capacity to carry out those threats and then the actions — and we are seeing that they are carrying out exactly what they promised — then you are able to make the case for genocide.
And I just want to emphasize again that because of the seriousness of this crime of crimes, the duty to prevent kicks in as soon as a country is on notice of a serious risk of genocide. And the United States has been on notice since at least October 9th, when the minister of defense announced the total siege, which was then imposed, if not already on October 7th, when Prime Minister Netanyahu made threats to turn the entire Gaza Strip into rubble and to erase it off the Earth. And so that is why we feel that that duty to prevent, if not already liability for complicity, is present.
And what we need — we don’t need to be quibbling about legal definitions at this moment. What we need is action. We need the president of the United States, the secretary of state and the secretary of defense to do what the vast majority of the world has been calling for for weeks, and that is, stop this killing. Stop the siege on Gaza. Allow the 2.2 million people to live with dignity, to have their rights respected, and to not be subjected to this horror that we have all been witnessing, and trying to do whatever we can to make the most powerful country on Earth have some compassion and comply with the law.
AMY GOODMAN: Katherine Gallagher, we thank you for being with us, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is seeking an emergency order today to block President Biden, as well as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, from providing further military funding, arms and diplomatic support to Israel.
Coming up, we go to France and Italy to speak with human rights attorneys — rather, Germany and France — to hold Israel and its backers, including the U.S., legally accountable. And we’ll try to reach a human rights attorney in Gaza. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Toyour” by Rasha Nahas and Dina El Wedidi. Rasha Nahas is a Palestinian singer who held a concert Tuesday in Berlin, donating all proceeds to Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors without Borders.
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Israel Has Enjoyed Decades of Legal Impunity. Could the War on Gaza Finally Change That?
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/16 ... transcript
Transcript
We speak with two experts in international criminal law about the long history of Palestinians attempting to seek justice in global institutions and the “very grave crimes” for which Israel is being prosecuted regarding the country’s ongoing assault and siege of Gaza. Chantal Meloni, an international criminal lawyer who represents victims in Palestine before the International Criminal Court, lays out the history of cases brought before the ICC regarding Israel’s siege and collective punishment of Palestinians being denied justice for more than 14 years. “The fact that there was no accountability for the last decades of occupation and crimes related to the occupation has created a sense of impunity,” says Reed Brody, a war crimes prosecutor, who reports this new assault on Gaza has forced ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan to confront Israel. “Will this be followed up by real action for the first time?”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
As Israel rejects the United Nations Security Council resolution calling for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses in Gaza, we’re continuing to look at growing efforts to hold Israel legally accountable for war crimes in Gaza.
Joining us from Berlin, Germany, is Chantal Meloni. She is an international criminal lawyer, international criminal law professor at the University of Milan in Italy. She’s also senior legal adviser for international crimes accountability with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin. She also consults with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and represents victims in Palestine before the International Criminal Court. She’s the author of the book Is There a Court for Gaza? Her new piece for Justice in Conflict is headlined “The War in Gaza: International Law Is Nothing If It Is Not Applied.”
And with us in France is Reed Brody, longtime human rights attorney, war crimes prosecutor. Brody has been involved in several major war crimes cases, including against Chile’s former dictator Augusto Pinochet, Haiti’s Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and the former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré. He’s author of To Catch a Dictator: The Pursuit and Trial of Hissène Habré. And he’s the son of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor. Reed’s recent piece for The Nation is headlined “Gaza — Where Is the Law?”
Chantal Meloni, let’s begin with you. Where is the law? We are trying to reach a man you and Reed have worked closely with in Gaza, Raji Sourani, who lived in northern Gaza. His home was bombed, now forced to live in Khan Younis. And now parts of Khan Younis have been covered with leaflets saying that those who are there must move further south.
CHANTAL MELONI: Yes, indeed. Well, first of all, thank you very much for having me with you today.
I think that what we have witnessed in the past weeks, it’s literally the commission on each and every international crime that you may find listed under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. And I was listening very carefully to what my colleague Katie Gallagher just said before, their very, very important legal action in the U.S. And, of course, as she started to talk about the fact that Gaza is under blockade since 16 years, so I think we need to go back. We need to go back to 2007, and we need to go back to the first efforts that have been done already in 2009 to basically bring these violations and possible grave crimes to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. So, let’s just remember that it was already in January 2009 that the Palestinian Authority, so to say, knocked on the door of the International Criminal Court, lodging an Article 15(3), so, in a doc, acceptance of the jurisdiction of the ICC, in order to have these grave crimes that had already been committed during the Operation Cast Lead investigated and possibly prosecuted in The Hague.
And I want to remember, really, the conclusions that already the U.N. fact-finding mission on the Gaza Strip, the so-called Goldstone Report, after the name of Richard Goldstone, the famous South African judge, had reached in 2009, meaning that the closure of the Gaza Strip that had been imposed continuously since 2007 was unlawful, collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza and a possible crime against humanity. The conclusions were in the sense of the commission of the crime of persecution, a very grave crime against humanity, exactly because there was this disproportionate, collective punishment on an entire population, 2 million people of Gaza, with the declared purpose by the Israeli authorities to try to break their support to Hamas, and therefore diminish, basically, their possibility, apparently, to commit anything that could be harmful for Israel. And already at that time, the fact-finding mission concluded that the series of acts that deprived the Palestinians in Gaza of their basic needs of subsistence, employment, housing, water, as well as, of course, their freedom of movement, amounted to collective punishment and possible crime against humanity.
So, what we have seen after that is a very long and protracted now denial of justice, because while we are talking — it is 14 years later — we are still in a phase where we don’t see any concrete steps in The Hague, at the ICC. The investigation is now formally open since 2021, but we have not seen any warrant of arrest nor any concrete action.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Chantal, could you talk more about this issue of what the — Israel’s claim that they will take actions to make sure that Hamas does not pose a threat to Israel in any form? I just want to read a statement, because, of course, what we hear again and again in light of Hamas’s attack on October 7th is that Israel has the right to self-defense. And I just want to read a statement that U.N. special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, recently made. She says that Israel cannot, quote, “claim the right of self-defense against a threat that emanates from the territory that it occupies, from a territory that is kept under belligerent occupation.”
So, if you could explain that and what the distinction is between two things, the fact that it is a territory that is occupied by Israel and, second, that Hamas is, of course, not a state? It is a nonstate actor that is considered by Israel, the U.S., the U.K. to be a terrorist organization. So what law applies in that case?
CHANTAL MELONI: Yes, exactly. It is very important to understand what is the law, the legal framework that applies to this, because Gaza is still part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and Israel, regardless of the disengagement — so, the occupation changed its form in the Gaza Strip since 2006, but it didn’t change substance, meaning that Israel is still exercising effective control on the Gaza Strip and its entire population by different means, not anymore with boots on the ground, but rather through controlling its borders, its aerial space, its sea and, of course, also the civilian life. We have to remember that even, you know, the civilian registries in Gaza are still basically kept by the Israeli authorities. And as you know, of course, no one gets in and out of Gaza. Not even the U.N. functionaries, not even international experts comes into Gaza if Israel do not allow this from happening. So this is why not the Palestinians, but also international bodies, the ICRC, the U.N., have considered, and also the International Criminal Court, that Gaza is still occupied territory. This means that Israel bears very specific duties and responsibilities with regard to the civilian population of Gaza. Not only they should not harm them, they should actually protect them. So, what we are witnessing in these weeks, but, honestly, what we have witnessed in particular since 2007 on, it’s a violation, grave violations of international humanitarian law, also taking into account the very strong duty that is placed on Israel as occupying power.
With regard to the specific question you were making, you were asking me about whether Israel can rely or not on self-defense with regard to Gaza and with regard to Hamas — not being, Hamas, a state, but a armed group that is considered to be a terrorist group internationally. So, I don’t think, honestly, that this is the most important legal point to be disentangled. It is a very complex legal point, but it is only — if you want, it is only relevant if we want to discuss whether Israel’s reaction to the grave crimes committed by Hamas on the 7th of October is an action of aggression or not. The point is that regardless of what we think in this regard — and I personally think that what Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur, is arguing is absolutely reasonable and can be the line to be followed. But regardless of whether we agree with her and with other scholars on this point, the issue is that the response — so, what Israel is doing after the 7th of October in Gaza — is in grave violations of international humanitarian law, meaning the law, the rules that regulate war, the armed conflict. And so, this is, for me, the most important point to make. Regardless of the legitimacy or not of the intervention, we are witness these very grave crimes that can be analyzed under the lenses of war crimes, of crimes against humanity or, as we heard from Katie Gallagher and the CCR, genocide.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Reed Brody, I’d like to bring you into the conversation. You wrote this piece for The Nation called “Gaza — Where Is the Law?” If you could lay out the argument you make in that piece and the background that you give about the role, in particular, of the International Criminal Court in the past in prosecuting, or not prosecuting, crimes that Israel was accused of?
REED BRODY: Sure. I mean, as Chantal was saying, every attempt by Palestinians, by Raji and others, to use the International Criminal Court and other institutions of international justice to hold Israeli officials legally accountable has been sidelined or delegitimized as lawfare. I mean, as Chantal has said, the ICC really subjected the Palestinian complaints to this obstacle course over 15 years, to the point that in all of that time there has been no — no charges have ever been brought. And this includes the things that — I mean, the decades of Israeli occupation, the collective punishment, the apartheid, the war crimes that were — the illegal settlements. Settlements are illegal under international law, to bring your people into an occupied territory.
And they have been given the “go slow” treatment. First it was the question of whether they were a state. The first prosecutor kicked the ball — spent three years looking at it and kicked the ball down the road. Fatou Bensouda, the second prosecutor, spent five years conducting a preliminary examination before assuring that there were grounds to believe that both Israel and Palestinians had committed crimes, including the settlements, including war crimes, and then she left it to the current prosecutor, Karim Khan. When the invasion — when the Russian— compare this to the Russian— so, 15 years of no action. You compare this to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Right after the Russian invasion, as the war crimes started to mount, the International Criminal Court and most of the Western justice systems did what they were supposed to do. Immediately Karim Khan went to Ukraine, talked about it as a crime scene, raised an enormous amount of money for the ICC’s investigation, and has already, in fact, issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin for the transfer of Ukrainian children. Compare that then to Palestine, where none of this has happened.
Now, we did see — and I think this is important — last week, the prosecutor, Karim Khan, who has been, you know, criticized for not doing anything, for not moving, went finally to the Rafah crossing. He followed it up with a very powerful speech from Cairo in which he spoke about the crimes that were — or, he spoke about the allegations on both sides. He spoke very bluntly, in a way, to the Israeli authorities. He reminded them that the conduct of the conflict has to respect the laws of war, the distinction between civilian population and military objects, proportionality, precaution. I think, as we can talk about — I mean, I think these are not being honored. But it was very clear to Israel that mosques, that churches, that houses, that hospitals have a protected status, and that it is the — that the burden is on the, as he put it, those who fire the gun or the rocket or the missile to show that they’ve lost their protective status.
Will this be followed up by real action for the first time? I mean, as many people have pointed out, the fact that there was no accountability for the last decades of occupation and crimes related to the occupation has created a sense of impunity. Is that sense of — you know, are we going to finally deal with that sense of impunity?
AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, Israel’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Miller claimed Israel always adheres to international law. This is what he said.
JONATHAN MILLER: Hamas is solely responsibility for the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and they weaponized it to prevent Israel from defending itself. Israel does not need a resolution to remind us to adhere to international law. Israel always adheres to international law.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Israel’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Miller. Reed, if you could respond to that and also talk about investigation of Hamas for war crimes?
REED BRODY: Sure. I mean, you know, the core principles, as everyone should know, regarding the laws of war is the protection of civilians. Military operations can’t be directed at civilians. And that’s expressed through the principle of distinction. You have to make a distinction between civilian objects and military objects. Even — and this is, you know, like in the hospital case — even where you say that there is a military objective there, the leaders still have to act with proportionality. They cannot just go and, you know, attack civilians in a way that is disproportionate. And one can argue about what “disproportionate” means. Under the law, it’s where the — that an action is expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, that is excessive in relation to the military advantage that’s anticipated. It’s very hard to see, as we look at this conflict today, the 10,000 people who have been killed, 4,600 children, how these things are considered proportionate. I think Israel has a heavy burden to bear here to show in any way that these actions fit within the laws of the war.
You brought up Hamas’s crimes. And I think we all believe that Hamas on October 7th committed very serious war crimes, probably crimes against humanity. These do not — just as the decades of crimes under Israeli occupation do not justify Hamas committing crimes against civilians, committing war crimes, those crimes by Hamas cannot in any way justify further war crimes and many of the actions that are being taken — undertaken by the Israeli armed forces today.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Reed, you are the son of a Holocaust survivor, a Hungarian forced laborer. Can you talk about what this means to you? You’re in France. You live in Barcelona, Spain. The issue of increased antisemitism and then also the equation of the criticizing of the Israeli state with antisemitism?
REED BRODY: Well, those are a lot of questions to unpack. It’s very difficult — I mean, I was with Chantal, actually, in Germany last week, where it’s very, very difficult to criticize the conduct of Israel, where the line is very thin. And as somebody who’s spent half my life in Europe, I’m also aware of how prevalent antisemitism is and how much and how careful we have to be not to allow criticisms of Israel to spill over antisemitism, and to be ruthless when we hear antisemitism.
You know, I come to my positions as an international lawyer, as a Jew, as a son of a Holocaust survivor. I don’t think that these things can be conducted in my name, certainly. Obviously, in America and around the world, there are many Jews who have stood up and talked about “Not in our name.” In Europe, it’s quite — I have to say, in Spain, where I live, there are a lot fewer, and it’s quite a big deal. But next week there’s a rally in Paris by Jews who are against what Israel is doing.
I think more and more this is becoming — I mean, this is a question of humanity. One Holocaust does not justify another. This is an — what happened to my father’s generation, to my father, to members of my family was a genocide. But just like war crimes don’t justify other war crimes, there’s an asymmetrism between what happened with the Jews and what is happening today. And I don’t think we can invoke the Holocaust, we can invoke what happened to our parents, to allow Israel to commit war crimes today.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Chantal, finally, we just have one minute, but if you could say whether the fact that Hamas has taken over 200 hostages, 240 Israeli hostages, into Gaza — what effect that has, what impact, whether there’s any allowance or what international law says can be done in the event of a hostage-taking on this scale in terms of the return of the hostages?
CHANTAL MELONI: I mean, if I understand correctly your question, of course, also what Hamas did with regard to the hostage-taking from Israel, Israeli civilians, can amount to war crimes, is a violation of the rules of international humanitarian law. And it will follow — it follows, potentially, under the jurisdiction of the [inaudible] what we really [inaudible]. And I think we will see an acceleration in the investigations for the International Criminal [inaudible] are so dramatic. And I’m sure that the prosecutor will analyze 360 degrees the responsibilities, meaning both the Israeli authorities and the Palestinian armed groups. But what we really urgently need is accountability and to break this circle of impunity, which fosters violence and has been already for too long denounced in this way as one of the triggers of the violence and brutality that we are witnessing today.
AMY GOODMAN: Chantal Meloni, we want to thank you so much for being with us, international criminal lawyer, consulted with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and represents victims in Palestine before the International Criminal Court, and Reed Brody, human rights attorney and war crimes prosecutor, son of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor.
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Niece of Israeli PM Netanyahu Backs Ceasefire in Gaza, Says Military Solutions Will Not Bring Peace
by Amy Goodman
November 16, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/16 ... transcript
Transcript
Ruth Ben-Artzi, the niece of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, joins Democracy Now! to call for the Netanyahu government to focus efforts on releasing Israeli hostages and to stop the bombing. A professor of political science at Providence College, Ben-Artzi recently joined prominent Rhode Island rabbis, Jewish leaders and Israelis demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. “A ceasefire is really the only way that any solution can be achieved,” says Ben-Artzi, who explains why military actions will never resolve this conflict and that “finding a political solution … is really the only way that the roughly 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians who live between the river and the sea will ever be able to find peace.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
We spend the rest of the hour with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s niece, a Providence College political science professor and Middle East expert. She’s the niece of Netanyahu’s wife, Sara Netanyahu. This month she was one of the signatories to a letter from Jewish and Israeli residents of Rhode Island that asks the state’s federal delegation to support ceasefire in Gaza.
In March, Ruth Ben-Artzi spoke out about distancing herself from all contact with the prime minister’s family. When asked by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz why she chose to speak out, she said, quote, “The answer is that I am ashamed, sad and angry. Ashamed that my relatives have no shame. That they are in a position of power that promotes and encourages violence, racism, nationalism and fascism. These are not the Jewish values I absorbed and to which I feel connected. Israel could remain a country in which Jews find a safe and free haven of equality and partnership with all the population groups within the state’s borders.”
Well, professor Ruth Ben-Artzi joins us now, again, a Providence College political science professor and Middle East expert. She’s an Israeli and U.S. citizen.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! Thank you so much for being with us. Your voice has so much power because you are the prime minister’s niece. Can you speak directly to him, to the people of Palestine and Israel and the world about what you want to see happen right now, Ruth Ben-Artzi?
RUTH BEN-ARTZI: So, I, first of all, speak as an Israeli citizen, as an American citizen, as a person who is observing everything that is happening, with my experience having grown up in Israel, and also as a political scientist who studies and researches these issues for many, many years now. From all of those different perspectives, I come to this realization, or that we came to this decision that a ceasefire is really the only way that any solution can ever be achieved.
I think that any — the continued violence that begets violence that begets violence is only going to bring us further away from a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And, you know, it’s really important to remember that we’ve been hearing also from policymakers, from American policymakers and even from Israeli policymakers, military experts, that there’s no military solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And if there’s no military solution to the conflict, there is no military way to eradicate Hamas, as well. The more harm that we’re inflicting, the more violence that is occurring, whatever anybody wants to — as a backdrop to either justify it or to explain it, does not make sense for the future. It only brings us further away from finding that solution, from being able to move toward that political solution.
And it’s clear that the day that this war is over is going to be the day that a political solution is going to have to start to be implemented. The occupation in the West Bank, the siege in Gaza that happened until October 7th, all of these kind of — what we typically call status quo, what we traditionally call status quo, but it’s not really status quo because things are changing. People are — the population is changing. The demographics are changing. The infrastructure is changing over all of these years of occupation. That can’t continue. The management of the conflict that has been the policy of the Israeli government at least since 2009 isn’t — it was never going to work. And it has no long-term prospects. The ceasefire is the only — we’re seeing the number of innocent civilians who are caught in the crossfires, the number of those who are victims of this war grow every single minute. And that is in addition to the humanitarian — to all the humanitarian concerns that — and the experts that you had on the show before me, the legal concerns, in addition to that, that also bring us further away from being able to implement the kinds of policies that we need to implement the day after the war.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Professor Ben-Artzi, you’ve also, like many, of course, expressed concern about the well-being of the hostages who are in Gaza still, about 240 of them. If you could talk about how you think a ceasefire might make it possible for their safe return? I mean, it was just reported that Israel and Hamas appear close to an agreement whereby 50 women and children, Israeli civilians, would be released in return for 50 Palestinian women and children prisoners being freed. So, if you could talk about the impact a ceasefire may have on the release of the Israeli civilian hostages in Gaza?
RUTH BEN-ARTZI: Right. So, in Jewish tradition, we have a tradition that is called pidyon shvuyim, which means that the release of the hostages comes first and at all costs. And that is to save lives. The bombing of Gaza — those hostages are in Gaza. When Gaza is being bombed, when we are — when we don’t know where those hostages are, it puts them in danger, too. There is going to be a day, or already, there’s a judgment for Hamas and for those who have inflicted the horrible violence on Israel on October 7th. But right now the focus has to be the release of those hostages. And the bombing, that is clearly not very specifically targeted and is putting those hostages in harm’s way, is only exacerbating the situation and putting the — I think, is putting the — and not just myself, but including the Rhode Islanders who signed this letter. I’ve also joined hundreds of political scientists who signed a letter to demand immediate ceasefire, for some of those same strategic reasons, humanitarian reasons, and also for what is for me in the front of my mind, the release of the hostages.
We buried today a peace activist who was murdered on October 7th, who was — who had spent decades in activism trying to help to bring a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and continuing that tradition. There’s Israelis who are continuing that tradition. There’s Israelis in Israel now and abroad. There’s organizations, both Palestinian and Jewish organizations, that are working towards that solution, to find a peaceful solution.
And to bring the hostages back, we have to have those negotiations. And if the negotiations have to — they have to happen with the group, with the terrorist group, that is holding those hostages. There is no other way. There is no other — there’s no other solution for this. Get the hostages out. This is what the families of the hostages are demanding. And then we can continue the political work of rehabilitating Gaza, removing Hamas from power, and finding a political solution, which is really the only way that the roughly 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians who live between the river and the sea will ever be able to find peace.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Ben-Artzi, we just have 30 seconds, but as the niece of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have the two senators from Rhode Island spoken to you, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, or Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo, the congressmembers?
RUTH BEN-ARTZI: As Rhode Islanders, we speak to our delegation all the time. Our group that signed this letter and that sent them this letter spoke to our delegation. We’re in contact all the time. We have various connections in our small state. And I think that we have a listening ear to all the different voices —
AMY GOODMAN: Well —
RUTH BEN-ARTZI: — that are part —
AMY GOODMAN: — we have to leave it there. We thank you so much, Providence College political science professor Ruth Ben-Artzi, niece of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
November 16, 2023
Israel Orders Palestinians to Flee Parts of Southern Gaza, Continues Attacks on Hospitals
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in a 41st consecutive day of unrelenting attacks by Israel’s military on the Gaza Strip. Overnight, Israel’s Air Force dropped leaflets over parts of the southern city of Khan Younis ordering people to leave their homes and shelters “for their own safety.” Many are being expelled for a second time, after Israel last month ordered more than a million Palestinians to leave their homes in northern Gaza.
On Wednesday, Israeli authorities allowed the first shipment of fuel into the Gaza Strip since early October. The U.N.'s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says just over 6,000 gallons of fuel — half a tanker truck's worth — was allowed to cross from Egypt. That’s just 9% of what UNRWA says is needed daily to sustain life-saving activities. Israel is not allowing the fuel to be used in hospitals or to power water and sewage pumps.
The U.N.'s human rights chief, Volker Türk, said outbreaks of disease and hunger in Gaza now appear “inevitable.” His remarks came amid a worsening humanitarian catastrophe at Gaza's largest hospital, the Al-Shifa medical complex, which is being occupied by Israel’s army. Thousands of patients, medical workers and displaced Palestinians remain trapped inside the hospital and unable to leave. Medical workers report Israeli attacks have severely damaged Al-Shifa’s main surgery building, and about 200 people were reportedly blindfolded by Israeli troops and led away to interrogations. The World Health Organization’s Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says 26 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are now closed due to damage from Israeli strikes or because they have run out of fuel.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “Israel’s military incursion into Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is totally unacceptable. Hospitals are not battlegrounds.”
Without Citing Evidence, Biden Backs Israel’s Claim That Hamas Used Hospital as Base
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
Israel’s military has displayed images of weapons they claim were found inside the hospital, but Hamas has dismissed the photos as propaganda. On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces published video showing what they claimed were “Hamas grab bags” of rifles and grenades stashed inside the hospital. Doctors at Al-Shifa have repeatedly denied such claims.
President Biden has repeated Israeli claims about Hamas using hospitals as military bases. Biden spoke to reporters from California Wednesday evening after wrapping the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco.
President Joe Biden: “You have a circumstance where the first war crime is being committed by Hamas by having their headquarters, their military hidden under a hospital. And that’s a fact. That’s what’s happened.”
Biden provided no evidence for the claim.
Biden Calls Xi Jinping a “Dictator” After APEC Meeting
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
President Biden’s remarks came after a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the APEC summit. The pair emerged with several agreements, including one to reestablish military communications and one curbing the Chinese export of chemicals used for the production of fentanyl. On Wednesday evening, Xi Jinping mingled with leaders of corporate America, including Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook, at a lavish reception. Hours after their meeting, Biden ratcheted up tensions with China when he called President Xi a “dictator.”
President Joe Biden: “I mean he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours. Anyway.”
Earlier today, Beijing responded to Biden’s remarks, calling them “irresponsible political manipulation.”
U.N. Security Council Passes Resolution Calling for “Humanitarian Pauses” in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
The United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip.” The measure was approved by a 12-0 vote after the United States, United Kingdom and Russia abstained. Four prior attempts by the Security Council to pass resolutions calling for ceasefires or so-called humanitarian pauses had failed.
Protesters Take Over Strategic Sites in D.C., Los Angeles, Oakland to Call for End to Gaza Assault
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
Daily protests against Israel’s attack on Gaza continue. In Washington, D.C., human rights activists gathered in front of the White House for a vigil calling on President Biden to back an immediate ceasefire. Body bags were laid out on the ground to represent the more than 11,500 Palestinians killed by the U.S.-backed Israeli assault.
Later in the evening, activists blocked the entrance of the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters before police violently removed them. Lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, were gathered for a campaign event. This is Eva Borgwardt of the Jewish peace group IfNotNow.
Eva Borgwardt: “We’re outside the Democratic Party headquarters because this party claims to be on the side of life and peace and equality, and we’re saying that we want them to live up to their values and oppose this horrific war and call for a ceasefire now. And we’re being responded to by the police shoving antiwar activists down the stairs, shoving peaceful protesters back with their bikes. And because our party, our party that 80% of us want a ceasefire, would rather beat up protesters than” —
Chuck Modi: “Hold on. To be continued. One second. One second. One second.”
The interview was interrupted when police resumed beating protesters, spraying them with chemical agents and arresting them.
In Los Angeles, over 1,000 American Jews and others held an emergency sit-in on one of Hollywood’s busiest streets to demand an immediate ceasefire. Earlier this week, over 700 Jewish activists and their allies shut down Oakland’s federal building. Hundreds of people were arrested in the action.
Majority of National Book Award Finalists Call for Ceasefire During Prize Ceremony
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
At the prestigious National Book Awards ceremony in New York last night, 20 of the 25 nominated authors made a collective statement on stage calling for a ceasefire. This is author Aaliyah Bilal.
Aaliyah Bilal: “On behalf of the finalists, we oppose the ongoing bombardment of Gaza and call for a humanitarian ceasefire to address the urgent humanitarian needs of Palestinian civilians, particularly children. We oppose antisemitism and anti-Palestinian sentiment and Islamophobia equally, accepting the human dignity of all parties, knowing that further bloodshed does nothing to secure lasting peace.”
One of the event’s sponsors, Zibby Media, withdrew its support ahead of the prize ceremony, after learning of the authors’ plan to speak out against the war.
Meanwhile, Black Christian faith leaders have been meeting with White House officials and members of the Congressional Black Caucus to call for an end to the violence. Last week, over 900 Black faith leaders representing churches across the U.S. took out a full-page ad in The New York Times to call for a ceasefire and a commitment to a meaningful peace process.
24 House Lawmakers Call for Gaza Ceasefire, Citing Violation of Children’s Rights
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
Twenty-four members of the House of Representatives have signed a joint letter calling on President Biden to press for a bilateral ceasefire in Gaza, on the basis of grave violations of children’s rights. The letter was authored by Democratic Congressmembers Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and Betty McCollum of Minnesota. This comes as the powerful lobby group AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, steps up its support for primary challengers to lawmakers who’ve voiced support for a ceasefire. Slate magazine reports AIPAC is expected to spend $100 million in Democratic primaries backing opponents of House progressives.
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“Failure to Prevent Genocide”: Biden Sued as U.S. Provides Arms & Support for Israel’s Gaza Assault
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 16, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/16 ... transcript
Transcript
As Israel rejects growing international calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Center for Constitutional Rights in the United States is suing President Biden for failing to prevent genocide. The center is seeking an emergency order to block Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin from providing further military funding, arms and diplomatic support to Israel. Katherine Gallagher, a senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights on the case, argues the U.S. is complicit with Israel in the “crime of crimes” by “aiding and abetting genocide” with military aid, advisers and political support despite clear signs of intent to collectively punish the Palestinian population.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel is rejecting a United Nations Security Council call for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses in Gaza as Israel’s bombardment of the besieged enclave continues for a 41st day. The U.N. Security Council passed the resolution by a vote of 12 to 0, with the United States, Britain and Russia abstaining. It’s the first resolution passed by the U.N. Security Council since Israel began its bombardment after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th.
This comes as Israel is continuing its military raid on Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza. Israel has long claimed Hamas placed a major command center underneath the hospital, but Israel has not shared any evidence of this so far. Israel has displayed images of weapons they claim were found inside the hospital, but Hamas has dismissed the photos as propaganda. On Wednesday, the [director]-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, condemned the raid on Al-Shifa.
TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS: Israel’s military incursion into Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is totally unacceptable. Hospitals are not battlegrounds. We’re extremely worried for the safety of staff and patients. Protecting them is paramount. WHO has lost contact with health workers at Al-Shifa Hospital. But one thing is clear: Under international humanitarian law, health facilities, health workers, ambulances and patients must be safeguarded and protected against all acts of war. Not only that, they must be actively protected during military planning.
AMY GOODMAN: As Israel rejects growing international calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, there are mounting efforts to hold Israel and its backers accountable for committing war crimes in Gaza. Here in the United States, the Center for Constitutional Rights has sued President Biden, accusing him of failing to prevent genocide. Today CCR is seeking an emergency order to block Biden, as well as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, from providing further military funding, arms and diplomatic support to Israel.
We’re joined now by Katherine Gallagher, senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, one of the lawyers who brought the case.
Katherine, can you lay out the case for us? What are you demanding of the U.S. government, of President Biden?
KATHERINE GALLAGHER: Good morning, Amy.
This case, filed on Monday, was filed on behalf of two Palestinian human rights organizations — Defense for Children International–Palestine, Al-Haq, which is the oldest Palestinian human rights organization, which for the first time in its history is unable to do its work in Gaza because of the conditions — as well as three Palestinians in Gaza and five Palestinian American families, who have members of their families killed, injured and under direct threat right now in Gaza.
We filed this case against President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken and Secretary of State [sic] Austin with two claims. One is that they have absolutely and completely failed in their duty under international law and U.S. law to take all measures possible to prevent the unfolding genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza. The United States is a signatory to the Genocide Convention. And in recognition of the severity, that this is the crime of crimes, when it requires the specific intent to destroy a group, a national or ethnic group, in whole or in part, that is such a serious crime that states are obligated to take all measures within their control, all measures possible, from the second, from the minute they learn of the possibility of genocide, to stop that. We have not seen the United States do that, despite its considerable influence over Israel in the form of hundreds of billions of dollars in military aid that it’s sent over the decades and billions in the past year. Instead of using that influence to stop the killing, to stop the imposition of a total siege, denying all basic necessities to 2.2 million people in the enclosed space of Gaza, they have rushed weapons. They have given unconditional political support. Up until yesterday, when we saw a Security Council resolution not yet call for a complete ceasefire, the United States had blocked all measures at the international level. So we are bringing the first claim for its failure to prevent the unfolding genocide.
And the second claim is that it’s actually complicit in genocide. We lay out the case that Israel is actually committing genocide at this moment. And we are able to do so, unfortunately — it’s with no pleasure that we say this — at this early moment because of the very clear statements of intent by Prime Minister Netanyahu, by his minister of defense and other senior Israeli officials about their intentions against the entire population in Gaza. They have been clear that they see this, the people, the children of Gaza, as less than human, describing the population as “monsters” or “human animals,” and then taking away all of the basic necessities — food, fuel, water, electricity. We’ve certainly, as you just played, heard what has happened to the healthcare and medical facilities: bombed and invaded. And so, in the face of all of this, the United States, when it has continued to send weapons, to send military advisers, to rush aid and give moral and political support to Israel’s actions, we say it is aiding and abetting genocide.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And so, Katherine, could you — because it seems that there’s some disagreement or dispute about whether what’s taking place right now is a genocide or ethnic cleansing, even among scholars of genocide, so could you explain the distinction between the two and how it is that the people who you’ve had advising you on this case are convinced that what’s happening right now — not what is to come — what is unfolding right now is a genocide?
KATHERINE GALLAGHER: So, just to first clarify, ethnic cleansing is actually not a crime. Ethnic cleansing is a description that is often used, whether for crimes against humanity, such as extermination, or forcible transfer and deportation. And I want to be very clear: Those, in and of themselves, are serious crimes. The International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over those crimes. And frankly, it should be bringing arrest warrants for those crimes at this moment. So, that is the first point.
As to why we believe it is a genocide, the elements of genocide are that specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a group, and then there are underlying acts for genocide. And we think three of the five underlying acts are present in this case: killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and creating the conditions of life intended to destroy a population, in whole or in part.
And so, to unpack that a bit, what we have at the front end — and usually specific intent is something that needs to be determined and only able to be concluded after the fact. I worked at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal on the Srebrenica cases, and I know how difficult even in that case it was to make the conclusion that it was genocide. Here we have those statements up front. And what we have from the Israeli officials is backing up those statements to impose a total siege and deny an entire population the basic necessities of life — the access to, as I said, food, fuel, electricity, which are necessary for hospitals to run, for people to be able to make their food, for water. We are seeing the start of starvation happening.
And, of course, all of that has happened under intense and continual military bombardment of a space that has a blockade and closed borders. And that blockade has been in place for 16 years. And again, I would say that there have been crimes against humanity being committed against the Palestinian population in Gaza at least throughout the entirety of that 16-year blockade.
What we have seen now is the expression of specific intent to destroy that population. And that, with the killings that we have seen — already well over 11,000 people have lost their lives, including over 4,600 children — we see that this is a campaign against the entire population. So, for genocide, when you take that specific intent, as expressed by the senior Israeli officials who have the capacity to carry out those threats and then the actions — and we are seeing that they are carrying out exactly what they promised — then you are able to make the case for genocide.
And I just want to emphasize again that because of the seriousness of this crime of crimes, the duty to prevent kicks in as soon as a country is on notice of a serious risk of genocide. And the United States has been on notice since at least October 9th, when the minister of defense announced the total siege, which was then imposed, if not already on October 7th, when Prime Minister Netanyahu made threats to turn the entire Gaza Strip into rubble and to erase it off the Earth. And so that is why we feel that that duty to prevent, if not already liability for complicity, is present.
And what we need — we don’t need to be quibbling about legal definitions at this moment. What we need is action. We need the president of the United States, the secretary of state and the secretary of defense to do what the vast majority of the world has been calling for for weeks, and that is, stop this killing. Stop the siege on Gaza. Allow the 2.2 million people to live with dignity, to have their rights respected, and to not be subjected to this horror that we have all been witnessing, and trying to do whatever we can to make the most powerful country on Earth have some compassion and comply with the law.
AMY GOODMAN: Katherine Gallagher, we thank you for being with us, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is seeking an emergency order today to block President Biden, as well as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, from providing further military funding, arms and diplomatic support to Israel.
Coming up, we go to France and Italy to speak with human rights attorneys — rather, Germany and France — to hold Israel and its backers, including the U.S., legally accountable. And we’ll try to reach a human rights attorney in Gaza. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Toyour” by Rasha Nahas and Dina El Wedidi. Rasha Nahas is a Palestinian singer who held a concert Tuesday in Berlin, donating all proceeds to Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors without Borders.
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Israel Has Enjoyed Decades of Legal Impunity. Could the War on Gaza Finally Change That?
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 16, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/16 ... transcript
Transcript
We speak with two experts in international criminal law about the long history of Palestinians attempting to seek justice in global institutions and the “very grave crimes” for which Israel is being prosecuted regarding the country’s ongoing assault and siege of Gaza. Chantal Meloni, an international criminal lawyer who represents victims in Palestine before the International Criminal Court, lays out the history of cases brought before the ICC regarding Israel’s siege and collective punishment of Palestinians being denied justice for more than 14 years. “The fact that there was no accountability for the last decades of occupation and crimes related to the occupation has created a sense of impunity,” says Reed Brody, a war crimes prosecutor, who reports this new assault on Gaza has forced ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan to confront Israel. “Will this be followed up by real action for the first time?”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
As Israel rejects the United Nations Security Council resolution calling for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses in Gaza, we’re continuing to look at growing efforts to hold Israel legally accountable for war crimes in Gaza.
Joining us from Berlin, Germany, is Chantal Meloni. She is an international criminal lawyer, international criminal law professor at the University of Milan in Italy. She’s also senior legal adviser for international crimes accountability with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin. She also consults with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and represents victims in Palestine before the International Criminal Court. She’s the author of the book Is There a Court for Gaza? Her new piece for Justice in Conflict is headlined “The War in Gaza: International Law Is Nothing If It Is Not Applied.”
And with us in France is Reed Brody, longtime human rights attorney, war crimes prosecutor. Brody has been involved in several major war crimes cases, including against Chile’s former dictator Augusto Pinochet, Haiti’s Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and the former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré. He’s author of To Catch a Dictator: The Pursuit and Trial of Hissène Habré. And he’s the son of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor. Reed’s recent piece for The Nation is headlined “Gaza — Where Is the Law?”
Chantal Meloni, let’s begin with you. Where is the law? We are trying to reach a man you and Reed have worked closely with in Gaza, Raji Sourani, who lived in northern Gaza. His home was bombed, now forced to live in Khan Younis. And now parts of Khan Younis have been covered with leaflets saying that those who are there must move further south.
CHANTAL MELONI: Yes, indeed. Well, first of all, thank you very much for having me with you today.
I think that what we have witnessed in the past weeks, it’s literally the commission on each and every international crime that you may find listed under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. And I was listening very carefully to what my colleague Katie Gallagher just said before, their very, very important legal action in the U.S. And, of course, as she started to talk about the fact that Gaza is under blockade since 16 years, so I think we need to go back. We need to go back to 2007, and we need to go back to the first efforts that have been done already in 2009 to basically bring these violations and possible grave crimes to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. So, let’s just remember that it was already in January 2009 that the Palestinian Authority, so to say, knocked on the door of the International Criminal Court, lodging an Article 15(3), so, in a doc, acceptance of the jurisdiction of the ICC, in order to have these grave crimes that had already been committed during the Operation Cast Lead investigated and possibly prosecuted in The Hague.
And I want to remember, really, the conclusions that already the U.N. fact-finding mission on the Gaza Strip, the so-called Goldstone Report, after the name of Richard Goldstone, the famous South African judge, had reached in 2009, meaning that the closure of the Gaza Strip that had been imposed continuously since 2007 was unlawful, collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza and a possible crime against humanity. The conclusions were in the sense of the commission of the crime of persecution, a very grave crime against humanity, exactly because there was this disproportionate, collective punishment on an entire population, 2 million people of Gaza, with the declared purpose by the Israeli authorities to try to break their support to Hamas, and therefore diminish, basically, their possibility, apparently, to commit anything that could be harmful for Israel. And already at that time, the fact-finding mission concluded that the series of acts that deprived the Palestinians in Gaza of their basic needs of subsistence, employment, housing, water, as well as, of course, their freedom of movement, amounted to collective punishment and possible crime against humanity.
So, what we have seen after that is a very long and protracted now denial of justice, because while we are talking — it is 14 years later — we are still in a phase where we don’t see any concrete steps in The Hague, at the ICC. The investigation is now formally open since 2021, but we have not seen any warrant of arrest nor any concrete action.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Chantal, could you talk more about this issue of what the — Israel’s claim that they will take actions to make sure that Hamas does not pose a threat to Israel in any form? I just want to read a statement, because, of course, what we hear again and again in light of Hamas’s attack on October 7th is that Israel has the right to self-defense. And I just want to read a statement that U.N. special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, recently made. She says that Israel cannot, quote, “claim the right of self-defense against a threat that emanates from the territory that it occupies, from a territory that is kept under belligerent occupation.”
[Noura Erakat, Palestinian human rights attorney, legal scholar and assistant professor at Rutgers University] What I want to emphasize about Israel’s use of force is, within the framework of jus ad bellum [Jus ad bellum refers to the conditions under which States may resort to war or to the use of armed force in general. The prohibition against the use of force amongst States and the exceptions to it (self-defence and UN authorization for the use of force), set out in the United Nations Charter of 1945, are the core ingredients of jus ad bellum], Israel does not have the right to self-defense against a population that it occupies. It cannot usurp enforcement, law enforcement power from the native population, impose a siege, govern the airspace, govern the seaports, govern the perimeter, govern entrance and exit, govern how much caloric intake Palestinians have — and then shoot missiles onto a besieged population. It cannot do both. This has been established by legal scholars, such as Christine Gray, on the law of self-defense. It is an old trope that was condemned in the 1970s, when Portugal, South Africa and Israel tried to claim the right to self-defense in order to protect its colonial territories. You cannot dominate another people and then use the claim of self-defense in order to protect that domination. Israel is not protecting itself or its citizens. It is protecting its domination. It is protecting its occupation.
-- “It Is Apartheid”: Rights Group B’Tselem on How Israel Advances Jewish Supremacy Over Palestinians, by Amy Goodman
So, if you could explain that and what the distinction is between two things, the fact that it is a territory that is occupied by Israel and, second, that Hamas is, of course, not a state? It is a nonstate actor that is considered by Israel, the U.S., the U.K. to be a terrorist organization. So what law applies in that case?
CHANTAL MELONI: Yes, exactly. It is very important to understand what is the law, the legal framework that applies to this, because Gaza is still part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and Israel, regardless of the disengagement — so, the occupation changed its form in the Gaza Strip since 2006, but it didn’t change substance, meaning that Israel is still exercising effective control on the Gaza Strip and its entire population by different means, not anymore with boots on the ground, but rather through controlling its borders, its aerial space, its sea and, of course, also the civilian life. We have to remember that even, you know, the civilian registries in Gaza are still basically kept by the Israeli authorities. And as you know, of course, no one gets in and out of Gaza. Not even the U.N. functionaries, not even international experts comes into Gaza if Israel do not allow this from happening. So this is why not the Palestinians, but also international bodies, the ICRC, the U.N., have considered, and also the International Criminal Court, that Gaza is still occupied territory. This means that Israel bears very specific duties and responsibilities with regard to the civilian population of Gaza. Not only they should not harm them, they should actually protect them. So, what we are witnessing in these weeks, but, honestly, what we have witnessed in particular since 2007 on, it’s a violation, grave violations of international humanitarian law, also taking into account the very strong duty that is placed on Israel as occupying power.
With regard to the specific question you were making, you were asking me about whether Israel can rely or not on self-defense with regard to Gaza and with regard to Hamas — not being, Hamas, a state, but a armed group that is considered to be a terrorist group internationally. So, I don’t think, honestly, that this is the most important legal point to be disentangled. It is a very complex legal point, but it is only — if you want, it is only relevant if we want to discuss whether Israel’s reaction to the grave crimes committed by Hamas on the 7th of October is an action of aggression or not. The point is that regardless of what we think in this regard — and I personally think that what Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur, is arguing is absolutely reasonable and can be the line to be followed. But regardless of whether we agree with her and with other scholars on this point, the issue is that the response — so, what Israel is doing after the 7th of October in Gaza — is in grave violations of international humanitarian law, meaning the law, the rules that regulate war, the armed conflict. And so, this is, for me, the most important point to make. Regardless of the legitimacy or not of the intervention, we are witness these very grave crimes that can be analyzed under the lenses of war crimes, of crimes against humanity or, as we heard from Katie Gallagher and the CCR, genocide.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Reed Brody, I’d like to bring you into the conversation. You wrote this piece for The Nation called “Gaza — Where Is the Law?” If you could lay out the argument you make in that piece and the background that you give about the role, in particular, of the International Criminal Court in the past in prosecuting, or not prosecuting, crimes that Israel was accused of?
REED BRODY: Sure. I mean, as Chantal was saying, every attempt by Palestinians, by Raji and others, to use the International Criminal Court and other institutions of international justice to hold Israeli officials legally accountable has been sidelined or delegitimized as lawfare. I mean, as Chantal has said, the ICC really subjected the Palestinian complaints to this obstacle course over 15 years, to the point that in all of that time there has been no — no charges have ever been brought. And this includes the things that — I mean, the decades of Israeli occupation, the collective punishment, the apartheid, the war crimes that were — the illegal settlements. Settlements are illegal under international law, to bring your people into an occupied territory.
And they have been given the “go slow” treatment. First it was the question of whether they were a state. The first prosecutor kicked the ball — spent three years looking at it and kicked the ball down the road. Fatou Bensouda, the second prosecutor, spent five years conducting a preliminary examination before assuring that there were grounds to believe that both Israel and Palestinians had committed crimes, including the settlements, including war crimes, and then she left it to the current prosecutor, Karim Khan. When the invasion — when the Russian— compare this to the Russian— so, 15 years of no action. You compare this to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Right after the Russian invasion, as the war crimes started to mount, the International Criminal Court and most of the Western justice systems did what they were supposed to do. Immediately Karim Khan went to Ukraine, talked about it as a crime scene, raised an enormous amount of money for the ICC’s investigation, and has already, in fact, issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin for the transfer of Ukrainian children. Compare that then to Palestine, where none of this has happened.
Now, we did see — and I think this is important — last week, the prosecutor, Karim Khan, who has been, you know, criticized for not doing anything, for not moving, went finally to the Rafah crossing. He followed it up with a very powerful speech from Cairo in which he spoke about the crimes that were — or, he spoke about the allegations on both sides. He spoke very bluntly, in a way, to the Israeli authorities. He reminded them that the conduct of the conflict has to respect the laws of war, the distinction between civilian population and military objects, proportionality, precaution. I think, as we can talk about — I mean, I think these are not being honored. But it was very clear to Israel that mosques, that churches, that houses, that hospitals have a protected status, and that it is the — that the burden is on the, as he put it, those who fire the gun or the rocket or the missile to show that they’ve lost their protective status.
Will this be followed up by real action for the first time? I mean, as many people have pointed out, the fact that there was no accountability for the last decades of occupation and crimes related to the occupation has created a sense of impunity. Is that sense of — you know, are we going to finally deal with that sense of impunity?
AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, Israel’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Miller claimed Israel always adheres to international law. This is what he said.
JONATHAN MILLER: Hamas is solely responsibility for the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and they weaponized it to prevent Israel from defending itself. Israel does not need a resolution to remind us to adhere to international law. Israel always adheres to international law.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Israel’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Miller. Reed, if you could respond to that and also talk about investigation of Hamas for war crimes?
REED BRODY: Sure. I mean, you know, the core principles, as everyone should know, regarding the laws of war is the protection of civilians. Military operations can’t be directed at civilians. And that’s expressed through the principle of distinction. You have to make a distinction between civilian objects and military objects. Even — and this is, you know, like in the hospital case — even where you say that there is a military objective there, the leaders still have to act with proportionality. They cannot just go and, you know, attack civilians in a way that is disproportionate. And one can argue about what “disproportionate” means. Under the law, it’s where the — that an action is expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, that is excessive in relation to the military advantage that’s anticipated. It’s very hard to see, as we look at this conflict today, the 10,000 people who have been killed, 4,600 children, how these things are considered proportionate. I think Israel has a heavy burden to bear here to show in any way that these actions fit within the laws of the war.
You brought up Hamas’s crimes. And I think we all believe that Hamas on October 7th committed very serious war crimes, probably crimes against humanity. These do not — just as the decades of crimes under Israeli occupation do not justify Hamas committing crimes against civilians, committing war crimes, those crimes by Hamas cannot in any way justify further war crimes and many of the actions that are being taken — undertaken by the Israeli armed forces today.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Reed, you are the son of a Holocaust survivor, a Hungarian forced laborer. Can you talk about what this means to you? You’re in France. You live in Barcelona, Spain. The issue of increased antisemitism and then also the equation of the criticizing of the Israeli state with antisemitism?
REED BRODY: Well, those are a lot of questions to unpack. It’s very difficult — I mean, I was with Chantal, actually, in Germany last week, where it’s very, very difficult to criticize the conduct of Israel, where the line is very thin. And as somebody who’s spent half my life in Europe, I’m also aware of how prevalent antisemitism is and how much and how careful we have to be not to allow criticisms of Israel to spill over antisemitism, and to be ruthless when we hear antisemitism.
You know, I come to my positions as an international lawyer, as a Jew, as a son of a Holocaust survivor. I don’t think that these things can be conducted in my name, certainly. Obviously, in America and around the world, there are many Jews who have stood up and talked about “Not in our name.” In Europe, it’s quite — I have to say, in Spain, where I live, there are a lot fewer, and it’s quite a big deal. But next week there’s a rally in Paris by Jews who are against what Israel is doing.
I think more and more this is becoming — I mean, this is a question of humanity. One Holocaust does not justify another. This is an — what happened to my father’s generation, to my father, to members of my family was a genocide. But just like war crimes don’t justify other war crimes, there’s an asymmetrism between what happened with the Jews and what is happening today. And I don’t think we can invoke the Holocaust, we can invoke what happened to our parents, to allow Israel to commit war crimes today.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Chantal, finally, we just have one minute, but if you could say whether the fact that Hamas has taken over 200 hostages, 240 Israeli hostages, into Gaza — what effect that has, what impact, whether there’s any allowance or what international law says can be done in the event of a hostage-taking on this scale in terms of the return of the hostages?
CHANTAL MELONI: I mean, if I understand correctly your question, of course, also what Hamas did with regard to the hostage-taking from Israel, Israeli civilians, can amount to war crimes, is a violation of the rules of international humanitarian law. And it will follow — it follows, potentially, under the jurisdiction of the [inaudible] what we really [inaudible]. And I think we will see an acceleration in the investigations for the International Criminal [inaudible] are so dramatic. And I’m sure that the prosecutor will analyze 360 degrees the responsibilities, meaning both the Israeli authorities and the Palestinian armed groups. But what we really urgently need is accountability and to break this circle of impunity, which fosters violence and has been already for too long denounced in this way as one of the triggers of the violence and brutality that we are witnessing today.
AMY GOODMAN: Chantal Meloni, we want to thank you so much for being with us, international criminal lawyer, consulted with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and represents victims in Palestine before the International Criminal Court, and Reed Brody, human rights attorney and war crimes prosecutor, son of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor.
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Niece of Israeli PM Netanyahu Backs Ceasefire in Gaza, Says Military Solutions Will Not Bring Peace
by Amy Goodman
November 16, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/16 ... transcript
Transcript
Ruth Ben-Artzi, the niece of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, joins Democracy Now! to call for the Netanyahu government to focus efforts on releasing Israeli hostages and to stop the bombing. A professor of political science at Providence College, Ben-Artzi recently joined prominent Rhode Island rabbis, Jewish leaders and Israelis demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. “A ceasefire is really the only way that any solution can be achieved,” says Ben-Artzi, who explains why military actions will never resolve this conflict and that “finding a political solution … is really the only way that the roughly 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians who live between the river and the sea will ever be able to find peace.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
We spend the rest of the hour with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s niece, a Providence College political science professor and Middle East expert. She’s the niece of Netanyahu’s wife, Sara Netanyahu. This month she was one of the signatories to a letter from Jewish and Israeli residents of Rhode Island that asks the state’s federal delegation to support ceasefire in Gaza.
In March, Ruth Ben-Artzi spoke out about distancing herself from all contact with the prime minister’s family. When asked by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz why she chose to speak out, she said, quote, “The answer is that I am ashamed, sad and angry. Ashamed that my relatives have no shame. That they are in a position of power that promotes and encourages violence, racism, nationalism and fascism. These are not the Jewish values I absorbed and to which I feel connected. Israel could remain a country in which Jews find a safe and free haven of equality and partnership with all the population groups within the state’s borders.”
Well, professor Ruth Ben-Artzi joins us now, again, a Providence College political science professor and Middle East expert. She’s an Israeli and U.S. citizen.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! Thank you so much for being with us. Your voice has so much power because you are the prime minister’s niece. Can you speak directly to him, to the people of Palestine and Israel and the world about what you want to see happen right now, Ruth Ben-Artzi?
RUTH BEN-ARTZI: So, I, first of all, speak as an Israeli citizen, as an American citizen, as a person who is observing everything that is happening, with my experience having grown up in Israel, and also as a political scientist who studies and researches these issues for many, many years now. From all of those different perspectives, I come to this realization, or that we came to this decision that a ceasefire is really the only way that any solution can ever be achieved.
I think that any — the continued violence that begets violence that begets violence is only going to bring us further away from a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And, you know, it’s really important to remember that we’ve been hearing also from policymakers, from American policymakers and even from Israeli policymakers, military experts, that there’s no military solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And if there’s no military solution to the conflict, there is no military way to eradicate Hamas, as well. The more harm that we’re inflicting, the more violence that is occurring, whatever anybody wants to — as a backdrop to either justify it or to explain it, does not make sense for the future. It only brings us further away from finding that solution, from being able to move toward that political solution.
And it’s clear that the day that this war is over is going to be the day that a political solution is going to have to start to be implemented. The occupation in the West Bank, the siege in Gaza that happened until October 7th, all of these kind of — what we typically call status quo, what we traditionally call status quo, but it’s not really status quo because things are changing. People are — the population is changing. The demographics are changing. The infrastructure is changing over all of these years of occupation. That can’t continue. The management of the conflict that has been the policy of the Israeli government at least since 2009 isn’t — it was never going to work. And it has no long-term prospects. The ceasefire is the only — we’re seeing the number of innocent civilians who are caught in the crossfires, the number of those who are victims of this war grow every single minute. And that is in addition to the humanitarian — to all the humanitarian concerns that — and the experts that you had on the show before me, the legal concerns, in addition to that, that also bring us further away from being able to implement the kinds of policies that we need to implement the day after the war.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Professor Ben-Artzi, you’ve also, like many, of course, expressed concern about the well-being of the hostages who are in Gaza still, about 240 of them. If you could talk about how you think a ceasefire might make it possible for their safe return? I mean, it was just reported that Israel and Hamas appear close to an agreement whereby 50 women and children, Israeli civilians, would be released in return for 50 Palestinian women and children prisoners being freed. So, if you could talk about the impact a ceasefire may have on the release of the Israeli civilian hostages in Gaza?
RUTH BEN-ARTZI: Right. So, in Jewish tradition, we have a tradition that is called pidyon shvuyim, which means that the release of the hostages comes first and at all costs. And that is to save lives. The bombing of Gaza — those hostages are in Gaza. When Gaza is being bombed, when we are — when we don’t know where those hostages are, it puts them in danger, too. There is going to be a day, or already, there’s a judgment for Hamas and for those who have inflicted the horrible violence on Israel on October 7th. But right now the focus has to be the release of those hostages. And the bombing, that is clearly not very specifically targeted and is putting those hostages in harm’s way, is only exacerbating the situation and putting the — I think, is putting the — and not just myself, but including the Rhode Islanders who signed this letter. I’ve also joined hundreds of political scientists who signed a letter to demand immediate ceasefire, for some of those same strategic reasons, humanitarian reasons, and also for what is for me in the front of my mind, the release of the hostages.
We buried today a peace activist who was murdered on October 7th, who was — who had spent decades in activism trying to help to bring a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and continuing that tradition. There’s Israelis who are continuing that tradition. There’s Israelis in Israel now and abroad. There’s organizations, both Palestinian and Jewish organizations, that are working towards that solution, to find a peaceful solution.
And to bring the hostages back, we have to have those negotiations. And if the negotiations have to — they have to happen with the group, with the terrorist group, that is holding those hostages. There is no other way. There is no other — there’s no other solution for this. Get the hostages out. This is what the families of the hostages are demanding. And then we can continue the political work of rehabilitating Gaza, removing Hamas from power, and finding a political solution, which is really the only way that the roughly 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians who live between the river and the sea will ever be able to find peace.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Ben-Artzi, we just have 30 seconds, but as the niece of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have the two senators from Rhode Island spoken to you, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, or Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo, the congressmembers?
RUTH BEN-ARTZI: As Rhode Islanders, we speak to our delegation all the time. Our group that signed this letter and that sent them this letter spoke to our delegation. We’re in contact all the time. We have various connections in our small state. And I think that we have a listening ear to all the different voices —
AMY GOODMAN: Well —
RUTH BEN-ARTZI: — that are part —
AMY GOODMAN: — we have to leave it there. We thank you so much, Providence College political science professor Ruth Ben-Artzi, niece of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
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Capitol Police Violently Break Up Jewish-Organized DNC Protest Calling for Gaza Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 17, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/17 ... transcript
Transcript
As protests for a ceasefire in Gaza continue around the United States, the Jewish-led peace organization IfNotNow helped organize Wednesday’s protest at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The protesters held hands to block the entrance to the building and were met with pepper spray and police use of force. “Let’s be clear that police escalated the protest,” says Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson for IfNotNow. “Our Jewish values and our safety as Jews is extremely, extremely contingent on calling for a ceasefire now,” Borgwardt, who is Jewish, continues. She also comments on Democratic Party leaders’ resistance to and suppression of public calls to rein in Israel’s lethal assault on Gaza, as well as the role of the powerful lobbying group AIPAC in policing public dissent.
AMY GOODMAN: President Biden is facing increasing pressure to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. But instead, the White House is rushing more arms to Israel. Bloomberg is reporting the U.S. has quietly sent Israel more laser-guided missiles for Apache gunships, as well as new army vehicles, bunker-buster munitions and more ammunition. On Wednesday, the United States abstained from a United Nations Security Council vote in support of extended humanitarian pauses in Gaza.
Meanwhile, protests are continuing across the United States calling for a ceasefire. In California, police arrested at least 81 protesters after they blocked traffic on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for several hours. In Boston, protesters shut down the Boston University Bridge.
Many of the protests calling for a ceasefire have been organized in part by two Jewish organizations: IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace. On Wednesday, the groups helped organize a protest at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., where House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other lawmakers were gathered. U.S. Capitol police violently moved in on the protesters as they held hands to block the entrance to the DNC. Police described the protest as, quote, “not peaceful” and claimed that protesters pepper-sprayed officers. But images from the protest shows it was officers who deployed pepper spray and that officers used force to remove the demonstrators. This is Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson for IfNotNow, speaking during the police action.
EVA BORGWARDT: We’re outside the Democratic Party headquarters because this party claims to be on the side of life and peace and equality, and we’re saying that we want them to live up to their values and oppose this horrific war and call for a ceasefire now. And we’re being responded to by the police shoving antiwar activists down the stairs, shoving peaceful protesters back with their bikes. And because our party, our party that 80% of us want a ceasefire, would rather beat up protesters than —
CHUCK MODI: Hold on. To be continued. One second. One second. One second.
AMY GOODMAN: Protest organizers say 90 people were injured outside the DNC. Capitol police say six of their officers sustained injuries. One person was arrested.
One lawmaker who was inside the DNC, California Congressmember Brad Sherman, took to social media to describe the demonstrators as, quote, “pro-terrorist, anti-Israel protestors.” On Thursday, President Biden called into a DNC meeting to express his appreciation for how law enforcement handled the protest.
We’re joined right now by that person you just heard, Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson for IfNotNow.
Thanks so much for joining us from D.C., Eva. If you can start off by calling — by explaining why you focused on the DNC? And then describe what happened and respond to Congressmember Sherman saying you are pro-terrorist.
EVA BORGWARDT: Well, Amy, thank you so much for having me.
And, yes, the focus on the DNC was because, as we know, the majority of Americans, and certainly the majority of Democrats, want a ceasefire. And our lawmakers are not listening to the thousands of calls and constituent meetings that we’ve been trying — ways that we’ve been trying to reach them over the past month. And so, this was, like many protests across the country, an act of nonviolent civil disobedience. The goal was to assemble peacefully, call attention to the urgent situation in Gaza and ask for Democratic leadership to act and call for a ceasefire now, a release of the hostages, a hostage exchange and a deescalation and to address the root causes of this violence — decades of occupation, apartheid and siege.
And unfortunately, police chose to escalate. And with no verbal warnings or communication with police liaisons who were trying to speak with them, they started shoving protesters down the stairs and shoving protesters back with their bicycles and trampling on the 11,000 tea lights that protesters had brought to represent the Palestinians who have already been killed in Gaza.
And as you mentioned, Democratic lawmakers, including Congressman Brad Sherman, have said that these protesters are pro-Hamas. Speaker Mike Johnson said that this was an antisemitic protest, which is, frankly, absurd, because — for many reasons, but primarily so many of the protesters are not only Jews, but who have loved ones who were either murdered by Hamas on October 7th or Jews and Palestinians who have loved ones either in Gaza or who know people in Gaza who have lost dozens of members of their families over the past month. And so, to say that these, again, many of them personally grieving protesters are pro-terrorist is absurd. And let’s be clear that police escalated this protest.
AMY GOODMAN: Rather than characterize what Congressmember Brad Sherman said, as I did at the beginning, let’s hear what he said on CNN Wednesday night.
REP. BRAD SHERMAN: There were over 200,000 pro-Israel demonstrators, with a permit, entirely peaceful. And here you have a demonstration less than one-thousandth as large that’s also getting publicity. And it’s getting publicity because of their willingness to attack police, as they did with pepper spray, is a force multiplier.
AMY GOODMAN: So, he’s contrasting the protest you had in front of the DNC with the pro-Israel march that took place a few days ago. Your response to what he’s saying? Also, I know a number of reporters outside were scratching their heads when he talked about pro-terrorist protesters.
EVA BORGWARDT: Yes. Thanks, Amy. And, yes, his words do speak for themselves. I mean, first of all, let’s also be clear that there have been hundreds of thousands of nonviolent — hundreds of thousands of peace activists — Palestinian, Jewish, multiracial, multifaith — rising up across the U.S., and millions around the world. And so, to contrast Wednesday night’s demonstration only with the Tuesday demonstration, the pro-Israel march at the Capitol, is telling, because it’s impossible for politicians like Brad Sherman, who are refusing to call for a ceasefire, to acknowledge the massive peaceful uprising that is happening around the world in support of the people of Gaza because the public, the international community, sees Palestinian lives and Israeli lives as equal.
AMY GOODMAN: Eva, on Thursday, yesterday, Vermont’s sole Congressmember Becca Balint became the first Jewish congressmember to call for a ceasefire. That’s very interesting because one of the senators of Vermont, Bernie Sanders, has not called for a ceasefire. In fact, IfNotNow protesters have been arrested in his office requesting that he call for a ceasefire. Your response to both Balint and Sanders?
EVA BORGWARDT: Yes, well, and I was also at that protest at Senator Sanders’ office earlier this month. And I think, in particular, for Jewish lawmakers, as a Jewish movement, as the Jewish movements that have been protesting for ceasefire, we are doing this for safety and freedom for Palestinians who are under siege, and also because we are terrified for our loved ones in Israel and in the entire region if this escalates into a broader regional war. And our disappointment in Senator Sanders so far refraining from calling for a ceasefire is that he has made his legacy as an antiwar champion. And so, we are extremely grateful to Congresswoman Balint for speaking out from a Jewish perspective for ceasefire, because we feel that our Jewish values and our safety as Jews is extremely, extremely contingent on ending this horrific violence and calling for a ceasefire now.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Eva, you were an organizer for President Biden during his 2020 campaign. If you can talk about your response to his position now, and what this means, and what you feel Biden supporters then are feeling today?
EVA BORGWARDT: Yes. So, like you mentioned, I worked for President Biden in Arizona in the 2020 election. Let’s be clear: I am terrified of Donald Trump and the white supremacist, antisemitic movement that’s behind him. And I feel immense stake in the Democratic Party winning in November 2024. And frankly, again, I am deeply terrified and angry at Democratic leadership for ignoring the calls from the majority of their base for a ceasefire, a hostage exchange and a deescalation, and creating a lack of faith in the Democratic Party that I am very concerned will hurt Democrats’ chances in November.
And I encourage them, with the fullest, fullest emphasis possible, to reverse course now. We have seen so far that for some Democrats, 1,400 Israeli deaths and over 4,000 Palestinian deaths were enough. Now, for other Democrats, 11,000 Palestinians in Gaza killed are not enough for them to call for ceasefire, which is how we know this horrific violence will end and move toward a political solution in the region. And so, we are waiting to see how many Palestinian lives our Democratic politicians need in order to call for ceasefire. And every day, every hour that they wait has, I fear, implications for what will happen in November.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, I wanted to ask about the powerful lobby group AIPAC — that’s the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — stepping up its support for primary challengers to lawmakers who voice support for a ceasefire. Slate magazine reports AIPAC is expected to spend somewhere around $100 million in Democratic primaries backing opponents of House progressives, like the Squad. Your response?
EVA BORGWARDT: Yes. So, IfNotNow is currently — prior to October 7th, IfNotNow’s main focus was around the campaign around AIPAC and making sure that the Jewish public, in particular, and the American public understand that these days AIPAC is — those $100 million and the money that AIPAC is spending in these elections is primarily from far-right billionaires and that AIPAC is functioning essentially as a way for these Republican billionaires to interfere in Democratic primaries.
And in particular around escalating their spending or threats of spending against those calling for ceasefire, AIPAC has always been determined to prevent any kind of conditionality on U.S. support for Israel, any human rights conditions consistent with U.S. law and any daylight between the U.S. and Israel. And now in attempting to punish any of the lawmakers who are taking a moral and pragmatic stand in calling for ceasefire, they are demonstrating that even the genocidal — and let’s call it genocidal, because it is — rhetoric from — as you have on this show many times, rhetoric from the Israeli leaders in the government right now is not enough to warrant conditionality in U.S. support. And frankly, I am also extremely terrified about the implications of punishing politicians for not supporting, again, this assault on — this massacre in Gaza, because if we say — if AIPAC is determined to tell the American public that supporting an unfolding genocide — that speaking out to oppose an unfolding genocide is beyond the pale in the realm of political acceptability, what is going to become of us, and what is going to happen to this world?
AMY GOODMAN: Eva Borgwardt, I want to thank you so much for being with us, national spokesperson for IfNotNow, one of the organizers of Wednesday’s protest at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.
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Sharif Abdel Kouddous on the Targeting of Journalists & Israel’s “Colonial Fantasy” to Depopulate Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 17, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/17 ... transcript
Transcript
As the United Nations calls again for a ceasefire in Gaza, Palestinian health officials are warning thousands of women, children and sick people could soon die as Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza. Gaza is also facing a second day of a communications blackout. “Gaza City itself is a hollow shell” where “the streets have been turned into graveyards” and “the smell of death is everywhere,” says independent journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous. “It increasingly seems that Israel is trying to push Palestinians into Egypt, which is a long-standing colonial fantasy,” he says of Israel’s campaign of Palestinian displacement in Gaza. Kouddous also calls out the journalism community’s silence in the face of what is the deadliest conflict for journalists in decades, noting the “bias being laid bare.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
As we continue to look at Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, I want to turn to the words of the British Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah describing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. He had been working in the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, which was one of the last functioning hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: Day before yesterday, there was a major airstrike, over 50 killed, on a mosque. And Al-Ahli was completely inundated with the wounded, and we were operating all through the night. And by the early hours of yesterday morning, we had realized that we have basically run out of medication for the anesthetic machines, and we had to stop the operating room. We had finished early, and that is when we made the decision.
At the same time, in the early hours of the morning, there was heavy bombing all around the hospital. I mean, we — close to the hospital, you could feel the building being shook. And we were being — and it sounded like tank fire. It didn’t sound like air raids. And so we made the decision that it was time for at least the operating room staff, since we were being — not going to be able to provide a service, to evacuate. And so, yesterday morning we left. And we could — you could hear the sounds of the tanks around the hospital when we walked out. And we literally walked all the way to Nuseirat camp in the central zone.
When we left, there were over 500 wounded needing the urgent medical care, needing surgical intervention, that we cannot provide because we had run out of medication. We had run out. The operating room could no longer function. And at the best, there were two operating rooms in Al-Ahli. We were always overwhelmed with the number of wounded, compared with what we were able to provide.
AMY GOODMAN: The British Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah, speaking through his surgical mask in Gaza. We’ve been trying to reach people there, but it’s the second straight day of a telecommunications blackout. This is only the latest one.
To talk more about Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, we’re joined now by independent journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous, produced the award-winning documentary The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh for Al Jazeera’s documentary series Fault Lines and has reported from Gaza for Democracy Now! and other outlets.
Sharif, it’s so important to talk about what’s happening there even as this telecommunications blackout is happening. Also, the leaflets that are being dropped on Khan Younis, which is where so many thousands of Palestinians have been instructed to go, to head south, from northern Gaza south — now leaflets are being dropped there, saying they must move further south. Can you respond to this overall situation?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, I mean, you have a situation where the northern part of Gaza, north of Wadi Gaza, and Gaza City itself, which was home to nearly 1 million people, is now a hollow shell. Most neighborhoods in Gaza City and in northern Gaza, in general, have been very badly damaged or destroyed. You have these armored columns of Israeli forces going in and tearing up the roads. Electricity, water, sewage infrastructure basically no longer exist.
And, you know, there are reports that the smell of death is everywhere, as an untold number of bodies are lying under the rubble. The U.N. estimates that about 2,700 people, including 1,500 children, are missing and believed to be buried under the ruins. And there’s reports of the people that have remained in the north digging with their bare hands, trying to find their family members. And the streets have been turned into graveyards.
So, only a fraction of the people who lived in northern Gaza remain there, and most have been forcibly displaced to the south in scenes that are reminiscent of the Nakba. One-point-five million people have been displaced in Gaza. That’s nearly double the number that were ethnically cleansed in 1948 and were never allowed to return to their homes. And many of these people are people who were displaced, or their descendants, from 1948. We have to remember that 80% of Palestinians in Gaza are not from Gaza. They’re refugees. So, most of the Palestinians in northern Gaza are now packed into the south. There’s no indication if or ever they’ll be able to return to the north. The Israeli military effectively controls most of the northern area. And northern Gaza is basically uninhabitable now. You know, it’s been destroyed.
And there’s hardly any aid coming in. You know, Gaza is now receiving only about 10% of its needed food supplies. Dehydration, malnutrition are growing. Nearly all of the people in Gaza, the 2.3 million people, are in need of food, according to the U.N. And as you mentioned, the communications systems are down now for second day. And this is a more serious telecommunications blackout, because it’s the result of no fuel to power the internet and phone networks, so it may be a more permanent communications blackout. And this communications blackout is actually causing disruptions to the little amount of cross-border aid deliveries that were coming in.
And as you mentioned, the Israeli forces now have dropped these leaflets just the other day telling Palestinians in areas east of Khan Younis, which is, you know, a bigger city in the south of Gaza, to evacuate. Where are these people supposed to go? It increasingly seems that, you know, Israel is trying to push Palestinians into Egypt, which is a long-standing colonial fantasy. And, you know, there are plans that have been documented for this. There was a document leaked last month from Israel’s intelligence minister that detailed a durable postwar situation solution for Gaza, which includes the long-term transfer, forcible transfer, of Palestinians to northern Sinai. There’s something called the Eiland plan, which is named after a retired major general, who outlines a proposal to forcibly transfer Palestinians to Sinai.
But right now, yeah, we don’t know what the situation is. Egypt has staunchly refused this kind of mass displacement of Palestinians into its territory, and it has tried to negotiate aid to come in. But there’s increasing pressure right now on Egypt, because at the end of the day, this is an Egyptian border, the Rafah border crossing. It’s the only border crossing into Gaza that is not controlled by Israel. Egypt right now is letting in maybe 50, maybe 80, maybe a hundred trucks a day, just a fraction of the amount of aid that used to come into Gaza even before October 7th. And the reason it’s only letting in a fraction is that it’s allowing Israel to dictate the terms. So it gets approval from Israel of how many trucks can enter the Rafah border crossing. Those trucks then enter. They go up to an Israeli border crossing, where they’re checked. They come back down and then enter into Gaza.
And there’s increasing pressure on Egypt from civil society in Egypt, from people around the world, for Egypt to just open the border and let the aid in. If Israel wants to bomb U.N. aid trucks, then, you know, that’s something else. But right now Egypt is coordinating with Israel on how much aid gets in, and people are beginning to starve, and infectious disease is spreading because of no water, and it’s an incredible crisis.
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif, the number of journalists who have been killed, I think Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 42 journalists and media workers have been killed since October 7th. It’s the deadliest month for journalists since the group began collecting information in 1992. If you can talk about the global response, the global journalist response? And then we’ll talk a bit about the latest on Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed not in Gaza by the Israeli forces, but was killed last year outside the Jenin refugee camp.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yeah. I mean, what can you say? I don’t know what the number is even now. You know, it’s at least 35. Maybe 40 Palestinian journalists have been killed in just over a month, by far the highest number of journalists killed in such a short amount of time. And, you know, foreign journalists can’t get into Gaza. Israel is not letting them in, and nor is Egypt. So you have a situation where you’re killing most of the journalists, the registered journalists in Gaza. You’re not letting other journalists in. And then we’ve seen very problematic coverage from newsrooms, Western newsrooms, of what’s happening on the ground, problematic language, and people have been protesting this. And we just saw — you know, people have been resigning from The New York Times. The poetry editor of The New York Times just resigned from there, you know, because of the language used by The New York Times in this coverage.
But also, you know, you haven’t seen the type of outcry that one would imagine from the journalistic community for their colleagues who are being killed in Gaza. And the ones that aren’t killed in Gaza have lost so much. They’ve lost their families. They’ve lost their homes. When Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered by the Saudi government, there was massive condemnation from Western news outlets for the murder, and rightly so. When Evan Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal reporter, who remains in prison in Russia, was arrested, there has been and still remains a massive outcry over his arrest. But we haven’t seen the same kind of outcry over this record number of journalists, Palestinian journalists, that have been killed in Gaza. I think it’s deeply, deeply problematic and reveals a bias that is being laid bare in many ways.
And as you mentioned Shireen Abu Akleh, you know, when this all kind of — the assault on Gaza began on October 7th, we saw people post on Twitter, on social media kind of photos of Shireen and just saying that — kind of wishing that she was around, that she was alive to report, because she was such an incredible journalist and so needed in a time like this. You know, even the Lebanese journalist who was killed in shelling in southern Lebanon by Israel —
AMY GOODMAN: Issam Abdallah.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: — one of his last tweets — Issam Abdallah, yeah, Issam Abdallah — one of his last tweets was a photo of Shireen. And he just wrote, “Shireen,” with a heart. And then, after he was killed, someone put up his photo and said “Issam,” with a heart.
AMY GOODMAN: And the latest news —
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: So, yeah, Shireen — go ahead.
AMY GOODMAN: — about the Israeli army bulldozing the memorial for her where she was killed?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Right. I mean, as we heard in headlines, you know, Israel has repeatedly conducted very brutal raids on Jenin, on the Jenin refugee camp, which is the heart of militant Palestinian resistance in the West Bank. We’ve seen drone strikes on Jenin. Just a few days ago, a drone strike killed about 14 Palestinians in Jenin, one of the deadliest days in the West Bank since 2005. And we saw drone strikes just the other day, as well, and raids on the hospital.
And during one of these raids, they came in — the site where Shireen was shot by an Israeli sniper has become a memorial area. When I went there last year to report on her killing, there’s photos of her everywhere. There’s flowers. There’s written pieces of tribute that are all hung up. The tree where she was killed under, you can still see the bullet holes. And it’s a place where family and friends have sought some solace by visiting this area and remembering Shireen. And an Israeli bulldozer came in during one of these raids and completely destroyed this road and this area where this memorial was. And it doesn’t seem — it seems to just be some kind of vindictive act, because there was no reason to destroy this road that leads to the entrance of the Jenin refugee camp.
They’ve also — you know, in an earlier raid, they destroyed this memorial which was in the shape of a horse, which was kind of well known in Jenin, in a main roundabout, and was built from the pieces of an ambulance that was blown up in an airstrike by Israel in 2002. And it was — they used the parts of the destroyed ambulance to kind of create this horse monument, which was a testament to Jenin’s spirit of resistance. They also came in and kind of removed that. So there seems to be also an attack on symbols of resistance to Israel, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Sharif, we’re going to ask you to stay with us. We’re going to switch gears. Sharif Abdel Kouddous is a journalist who won a George Polk Award for documentary The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh for Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines series. After the break, Sharif will stay with us, and we’ll be joined by another guest to talk about his new documentary and all the latest developments around Cop City in Atlanta. Back in 20 seconds.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 17, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/17 ... transcript
Transcript
As protests for a ceasefire in Gaza continue around the United States, the Jewish-led peace organization IfNotNow helped organize Wednesday’s protest at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The protesters held hands to block the entrance to the building and were met with pepper spray and police use of force. “Let’s be clear that police escalated the protest,” says Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson for IfNotNow. “Our Jewish values and our safety as Jews is extremely, extremely contingent on calling for a ceasefire now,” Borgwardt, who is Jewish, continues. She also comments on Democratic Party leaders’ resistance to and suppression of public calls to rein in Israel’s lethal assault on Gaza, as well as the role of the powerful lobbying group AIPAC in policing public dissent.
AMY GOODMAN: President Biden is facing increasing pressure to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. But instead, the White House is rushing more arms to Israel. Bloomberg is reporting the U.S. has quietly sent Israel more laser-guided missiles for Apache gunships, as well as new army vehicles, bunker-buster munitions and more ammunition. On Wednesday, the United States abstained from a United Nations Security Council vote in support of extended humanitarian pauses in Gaza.
Meanwhile, protests are continuing across the United States calling for a ceasefire. In California, police arrested at least 81 protesters after they blocked traffic on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for several hours. In Boston, protesters shut down the Boston University Bridge.
Many of the protests calling for a ceasefire have been organized in part by two Jewish organizations: IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace. On Wednesday, the groups helped organize a protest at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., where House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other lawmakers were gathered. U.S. Capitol police violently moved in on the protesters as they held hands to block the entrance to the DNC. Police described the protest as, quote, “not peaceful” and claimed that protesters pepper-sprayed officers. But images from the protest shows it was officers who deployed pepper spray and that officers used force to remove the demonstrators. This is Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson for IfNotNow, speaking during the police action.
EVA BORGWARDT: We’re outside the Democratic Party headquarters because this party claims to be on the side of life and peace and equality, and we’re saying that we want them to live up to their values and oppose this horrific war and call for a ceasefire now. And we’re being responded to by the police shoving antiwar activists down the stairs, shoving peaceful protesters back with their bikes. And because our party, our party that 80% of us want a ceasefire, would rather beat up protesters than —
CHUCK MODI: Hold on. To be continued. One second. One second. One second.
AMY GOODMAN: Protest organizers say 90 people were injured outside the DNC. Capitol police say six of their officers sustained injuries. One person was arrested.
One lawmaker who was inside the DNC, California Congressmember Brad Sherman, took to social media to describe the demonstrators as, quote, “pro-terrorist, anti-Israel protestors.” On Thursday, President Biden called into a DNC meeting to express his appreciation for how law enforcement handled the protest.
We’re joined right now by that person you just heard, Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson for IfNotNow.
Thanks so much for joining us from D.C., Eva. If you can start off by calling — by explaining why you focused on the DNC? And then describe what happened and respond to Congressmember Sherman saying you are pro-terrorist.
EVA BORGWARDT: Well, Amy, thank you so much for having me.
And, yes, the focus on the DNC was because, as we know, the majority of Americans, and certainly the majority of Democrats, want a ceasefire. And our lawmakers are not listening to the thousands of calls and constituent meetings that we’ve been trying — ways that we’ve been trying to reach them over the past month. And so, this was, like many protests across the country, an act of nonviolent civil disobedience. The goal was to assemble peacefully, call attention to the urgent situation in Gaza and ask for Democratic leadership to act and call for a ceasefire now, a release of the hostages, a hostage exchange and a deescalation and to address the root causes of this violence — decades of occupation, apartheid and siege.
And unfortunately, police chose to escalate. And with no verbal warnings or communication with police liaisons who were trying to speak with them, they started shoving protesters down the stairs and shoving protesters back with their bicycles and trampling on the 11,000 tea lights that protesters had brought to represent the Palestinians who have already been killed in Gaza.
And as you mentioned, Democratic lawmakers, including Congressman Brad Sherman, have said that these protesters are pro-Hamas. Speaker Mike Johnson said that this was an antisemitic protest, which is, frankly, absurd, because — for many reasons, but primarily so many of the protesters are not only Jews, but who have loved ones who were either murdered by Hamas on October 7th or Jews and Palestinians who have loved ones either in Gaza or who know people in Gaza who have lost dozens of members of their families over the past month. And so, to say that these, again, many of them personally grieving protesters are pro-terrorist is absurd. And let’s be clear that police escalated this protest.
AMY GOODMAN: Rather than characterize what Congressmember Brad Sherman said, as I did at the beginning, let’s hear what he said on CNN Wednesday night.
REP. BRAD SHERMAN: There were over 200,000 pro-Israel demonstrators, with a permit, entirely peaceful. And here you have a demonstration less than one-thousandth as large that’s also getting publicity. And it’s getting publicity because of their willingness to attack police, as they did with pepper spray, is a force multiplier.
AMY GOODMAN: So, he’s contrasting the protest you had in front of the DNC with the pro-Israel march that took place a few days ago. Your response to what he’s saying? Also, I know a number of reporters outside were scratching their heads when he talked about pro-terrorist protesters.
EVA BORGWARDT: Yes. Thanks, Amy. And, yes, his words do speak for themselves. I mean, first of all, let’s also be clear that there have been hundreds of thousands of nonviolent — hundreds of thousands of peace activists — Palestinian, Jewish, multiracial, multifaith — rising up across the U.S., and millions around the world. And so, to contrast Wednesday night’s demonstration only with the Tuesday demonstration, the pro-Israel march at the Capitol, is telling, because it’s impossible for politicians like Brad Sherman, who are refusing to call for a ceasefire, to acknowledge the massive peaceful uprising that is happening around the world in support of the people of Gaza because the public, the international community, sees Palestinian lives and Israeli lives as equal.
AMY GOODMAN: Eva, on Thursday, yesterday, Vermont’s sole Congressmember Becca Balint became the first Jewish congressmember to call for a ceasefire. That’s very interesting because one of the senators of Vermont, Bernie Sanders, has not called for a ceasefire. In fact, IfNotNow protesters have been arrested in his office requesting that he call for a ceasefire. Your response to both Balint and Sanders?
EVA BORGWARDT: Yes, well, and I was also at that protest at Senator Sanders’ office earlier this month. And I think, in particular, for Jewish lawmakers, as a Jewish movement, as the Jewish movements that have been protesting for ceasefire, we are doing this for safety and freedom for Palestinians who are under siege, and also because we are terrified for our loved ones in Israel and in the entire region if this escalates into a broader regional war. And our disappointment in Senator Sanders so far refraining from calling for a ceasefire is that he has made his legacy as an antiwar champion. And so, we are extremely grateful to Congresswoman Balint for speaking out from a Jewish perspective for ceasefire, because we feel that our Jewish values and our safety as Jews is extremely, extremely contingent on ending this horrific violence and calling for a ceasefire now.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Eva, you were an organizer for President Biden during his 2020 campaign. If you can talk about your response to his position now, and what this means, and what you feel Biden supporters then are feeling today?
EVA BORGWARDT: Yes. So, like you mentioned, I worked for President Biden in Arizona in the 2020 election. Let’s be clear: I am terrified of Donald Trump and the white supremacist, antisemitic movement that’s behind him. And I feel immense stake in the Democratic Party winning in November 2024. And frankly, again, I am deeply terrified and angry at Democratic leadership for ignoring the calls from the majority of their base for a ceasefire, a hostage exchange and a deescalation, and creating a lack of faith in the Democratic Party that I am very concerned will hurt Democrats’ chances in November.
And I encourage them, with the fullest, fullest emphasis possible, to reverse course now. We have seen so far that for some Democrats, 1,400 Israeli deaths and over 4,000 Palestinian deaths were enough. Now, for other Democrats, 11,000 Palestinians in Gaza killed are not enough for them to call for ceasefire, which is how we know this horrific violence will end and move toward a political solution in the region. And so, we are waiting to see how many Palestinian lives our Democratic politicians need in order to call for ceasefire. And every day, every hour that they wait has, I fear, implications for what will happen in November.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, I wanted to ask about the powerful lobby group AIPAC — that’s the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — stepping up its support for primary challengers to lawmakers who voice support for a ceasefire. Slate magazine reports AIPAC is expected to spend somewhere around $100 million in Democratic primaries backing opponents of House progressives, like the Squad. Your response?
EVA BORGWARDT: Yes. So, IfNotNow is currently — prior to October 7th, IfNotNow’s main focus was around the campaign around AIPAC and making sure that the Jewish public, in particular, and the American public understand that these days AIPAC is — those $100 million and the money that AIPAC is spending in these elections is primarily from far-right billionaires and that AIPAC is functioning essentially as a way for these Republican billionaires to interfere in Democratic primaries.
And in particular around escalating their spending or threats of spending against those calling for ceasefire, AIPAC has always been determined to prevent any kind of conditionality on U.S. support for Israel, any human rights conditions consistent with U.S. law and any daylight between the U.S. and Israel. And now in attempting to punish any of the lawmakers who are taking a moral and pragmatic stand in calling for ceasefire, they are demonstrating that even the genocidal — and let’s call it genocidal, because it is — rhetoric from — as you have on this show many times, rhetoric from the Israeli leaders in the government right now is not enough to warrant conditionality in U.S. support. And frankly, I am also extremely terrified about the implications of punishing politicians for not supporting, again, this assault on — this massacre in Gaza, because if we say — if AIPAC is determined to tell the American public that supporting an unfolding genocide — that speaking out to oppose an unfolding genocide is beyond the pale in the realm of political acceptability, what is going to become of us, and what is going to happen to this world?
AMY GOODMAN: Eva Borgwardt, I want to thank you so much for being with us, national spokesperson for IfNotNow, one of the organizers of Wednesday’s protest at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.
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Sharif Abdel Kouddous on the Targeting of Journalists & Israel’s “Colonial Fantasy” to Depopulate Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 17, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/17 ... transcript
Transcript
As the United Nations calls again for a ceasefire in Gaza, Palestinian health officials are warning thousands of women, children and sick people could soon die as Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza. Gaza is also facing a second day of a communications blackout. “Gaza City itself is a hollow shell” where “the streets have been turned into graveyards” and “the smell of death is everywhere,” says independent journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous. “It increasingly seems that Israel is trying to push Palestinians into Egypt, which is a long-standing colonial fantasy,” he says of Israel’s campaign of Palestinian displacement in Gaza. Kouddous also calls out the journalism community’s silence in the face of what is the deadliest conflict for journalists in decades, noting the “bias being laid bare.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
As we continue to look at Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, I want to turn to the words of the British Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah describing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. He had been working in the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, which was one of the last functioning hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: Day before yesterday, there was a major airstrike, over 50 killed, on a mosque. And Al-Ahli was completely inundated with the wounded, and we were operating all through the night. And by the early hours of yesterday morning, we had realized that we have basically run out of medication for the anesthetic machines, and we had to stop the operating room. We had finished early, and that is when we made the decision.
At the same time, in the early hours of the morning, there was heavy bombing all around the hospital. I mean, we — close to the hospital, you could feel the building being shook. And we were being — and it sounded like tank fire. It didn’t sound like air raids. And so we made the decision that it was time for at least the operating room staff, since we were being — not going to be able to provide a service, to evacuate. And so, yesterday morning we left. And we could — you could hear the sounds of the tanks around the hospital when we walked out. And we literally walked all the way to Nuseirat camp in the central zone.
When we left, there were over 500 wounded needing the urgent medical care, needing surgical intervention, that we cannot provide because we had run out of medication. We had run out. The operating room could no longer function. And at the best, there were two operating rooms in Al-Ahli. We were always overwhelmed with the number of wounded, compared with what we were able to provide.
AMY GOODMAN: The British Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah, speaking through his surgical mask in Gaza. We’ve been trying to reach people there, but it’s the second straight day of a telecommunications blackout. This is only the latest one.
To talk more about Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, we’re joined now by independent journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous, produced the award-winning documentary The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh for Al Jazeera’s documentary series Fault Lines and has reported from Gaza for Democracy Now! and other outlets.
Sharif, it’s so important to talk about what’s happening there even as this telecommunications blackout is happening. Also, the leaflets that are being dropped on Khan Younis, which is where so many thousands of Palestinians have been instructed to go, to head south, from northern Gaza south — now leaflets are being dropped there, saying they must move further south. Can you respond to this overall situation?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, I mean, you have a situation where the northern part of Gaza, north of Wadi Gaza, and Gaza City itself, which was home to nearly 1 million people, is now a hollow shell. Most neighborhoods in Gaza City and in northern Gaza, in general, have been very badly damaged or destroyed. You have these armored columns of Israeli forces going in and tearing up the roads. Electricity, water, sewage infrastructure basically no longer exist.
And, you know, there are reports that the smell of death is everywhere, as an untold number of bodies are lying under the rubble. The U.N. estimates that about 2,700 people, including 1,500 children, are missing and believed to be buried under the ruins. And there’s reports of the people that have remained in the north digging with their bare hands, trying to find their family members. And the streets have been turned into graveyards.
So, only a fraction of the people who lived in northern Gaza remain there, and most have been forcibly displaced to the south in scenes that are reminiscent of the Nakba. One-point-five million people have been displaced in Gaza. That’s nearly double the number that were ethnically cleansed in 1948 and were never allowed to return to their homes. And many of these people are people who were displaced, or their descendants, from 1948. We have to remember that 80% of Palestinians in Gaza are not from Gaza. They’re refugees. So, most of the Palestinians in northern Gaza are now packed into the south. There’s no indication if or ever they’ll be able to return to the north. The Israeli military effectively controls most of the northern area. And northern Gaza is basically uninhabitable now. You know, it’s been destroyed.
And there’s hardly any aid coming in. You know, Gaza is now receiving only about 10% of its needed food supplies. Dehydration, malnutrition are growing. Nearly all of the people in Gaza, the 2.3 million people, are in need of food, according to the U.N. And as you mentioned, the communications systems are down now for second day. And this is a more serious telecommunications blackout, because it’s the result of no fuel to power the internet and phone networks, so it may be a more permanent communications blackout. And this communications blackout is actually causing disruptions to the little amount of cross-border aid deliveries that were coming in.
And as you mentioned, the Israeli forces now have dropped these leaflets just the other day telling Palestinians in areas east of Khan Younis, which is, you know, a bigger city in the south of Gaza, to evacuate. Where are these people supposed to go? It increasingly seems that, you know, Israel is trying to push Palestinians into Egypt, which is a long-standing colonial fantasy. And, you know, there are plans that have been documented for this. There was a document leaked last month from Israel’s intelligence minister that detailed a durable postwar situation solution for Gaza, which includes the long-term transfer, forcible transfer, of Palestinians to northern Sinai. There’s something called the Eiland plan, which is named after a retired major general, who outlines a proposal to forcibly transfer Palestinians to Sinai.
But right now, yeah, we don’t know what the situation is. Egypt has staunchly refused this kind of mass displacement of Palestinians into its territory, and it has tried to negotiate aid to come in. But there’s increasing pressure right now on Egypt, because at the end of the day, this is an Egyptian border, the Rafah border crossing. It’s the only border crossing into Gaza that is not controlled by Israel. Egypt right now is letting in maybe 50, maybe 80, maybe a hundred trucks a day, just a fraction of the amount of aid that used to come into Gaza even before October 7th. And the reason it’s only letting in a fraction is that it’s allowing Israel to dictate the terms. So it gets approval from Israel of how many trucks can enter the Rafah border crossing. Those trucks then enter. They go up to an Israeli border crossing, where they’re checked. They come back down and then enter into Gaza.
And there’s increasing pressure on Egypt from civil society in Egypt, from people around the world, for Egypt to just open the border and let the aid in. If Israel wants to bomb U.N. aid trucks, then, you know, that’s something else. But right now Egypt is coordinating with Israel on how much aid gets in, and people are beginning to starve, and infectious disease is spreading because of no water, and it’s an incredible crisis.
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif, the number of journalists who have been killed, I think Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 42 journalists and media workers have been killed since October 7th. It’s the deadliest month for journalists since the group began collecting information in 1992. If you can talk about the global response, the global journalist response? And then we’ll talk a bit about the latest on Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed not in Gaza by the Israeli forces, but was killed last year outside the Jenin refugee camp.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yeah. I mean, what can you say? I don’t know what the number is even now. You know, it’s at least 35. Maybe 40 Palestinian journalists have been killed in just over a month, by far the highest number of journalists killed in such a short amount of time. And, you know, foreign journalists can’t get into Gaza. Israel is not letting them in, and nor is Egypt. So you have a situation where you’re killing most of the journalists, the registered journalists in Gaza. You’re not letting other journalists in. And then we’ve seen very problematic coverage from newsrooms, Western newsrooms, of what’s happening on the ground, problematic language, and people have been protesting this. And we just saw — you know, people have been resigning from The New York Times. The poetry editor of The New York Times just resigned from there, you know, because of the language used by The New York Times in this coverage.
But also, you know, you haven’t seen the type of outcry that one would imagine from the journalistic community for their colleagues who are being killed in Gaza. And the ones that aren’t killed in Gaza have lost so much. They’ve lost their families. They’ve lost their homes. When Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered by the Saudi government, there was massive condemnation from Western news outlets for the murder, and rightly so. When Evan Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal reporter, who remains in prison in Russia, was arrested, there has been and still remains a massive outcry over his arrest. But we haven’t seen the same kind of outcry over this record number of journalists, Palestinian journalists, that have been killed in Gaza. I think it’s deeply, deeply problematic and reveals a bias that is being laid bare in many ways.
And as you mentioned Shireen Abu Akleh, you know, when this all kind of — the assault on Gaza began on October 7th, we saw people post on Twitter, on social media kind of photos of Shireen and just saying that — kind of wishing that she was around, that she was alive to report, because she was such an incredible journalist and so needed in a time like this. You know, even the Lebanese journalist who was killed in shelling in southern Lebanon by Israel —
AMY GOODMAN: Issam Abdallah.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: — one of his last tweets — Issam Abdallah, yeah, Issam Abdallah — one of his last tweets was a photo of Shireen. And he just wrote, “Shireen,” with a heart. And then, after he was killed, someone put up his photo and said “Issam,” with a heart.
AMY GOODMAN: And the latest news —
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: So, yeah, Shireen — go ahead.
AMY GOODMAN: — about the Israeli army bulldozing the memorial for her where she was killed?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Right. I mean, as we heard in headlines, you know, Israel has repeatedly conducted very brutal raids on Jenin, on the Jenin refugee camp, which is the heart of militant Palestinian resistance in the West Bank. We’ve seen drone strikes on Jenin. Just a few days ago, a drone strike killed about 14 Palestinians in Jenin, one of the deadliest days in the West Bank since 2005. And we saw drone strikes just the other day, as well, and raids on the hospital.
And during one of these raids, they came in — the site where Shireen was shot by an Israeli sniper has become a memorial area. When I went there last year to report on her killing, there’s photos of her everywhere. There’s flowers. There’s written pieces of tribute that are all hung up. The tree where she was killed under, you can still see the bullet holes. And it’s a place where family and friends have sought some solace by visiting this area and remembering Shireen. And an Israeli bulldozer came in during one of these raids and completely destroyed this road and this area where this memorial was. And it doesn’t seem — it seems to just be some kind of vindictive act, because there was no reason to destroy this road that leads to the entrance of the Jenin refugee camp.
They’ve also — you know, in an earlier raid, they destroyed this memorial which was in the shape of a horse, which was kind of well known in Jenin, in a main roundabout, and was built from the pieces of an ambulance that was blown up in an airstrike by Israel in 2002. And it was — they used the parts of the destroyed ambulance to kind of create this horse monument, which was a testament to Jenin’s spirit of resistance. They also came in and kind of removed that. So there seems to be also an attack on symbols of resistance to Israel, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Sharif, we’re going to ask you to stay with us. We’re going to switch gears. Sharif Abdel Kouddous is a journalist who won a George Polk Award for documentary The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh for Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines series. After the break, Sharif will stay with us, and we’ll be joined by another guest to talk about his new documentary and all the latest developments around Cop City in Atlanta. Back in 20 seconds.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
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DemocracyNow! Headlines
November 20, 2023
IDF Attacks Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital After Forcing Al-Shifa to Shutter, U.N. Helps Evacuate Babies
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
Israeli tanks have surrounded Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital as Israel’s military continues its relentless assault on the Gaza Strip’s health infrastructure. Earlier today Israeli artillery fire killed at least 12 people inside the medical complex, where about 700 others, including medical staff and injured people, remain besieged.
Egyptian television showed ambulances carrying sick and premature babies passing through the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, after the U.N. assisted in moving 31 premature babies from Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital to Rafah on Sunday. UNICEF warned the babies’ conditions were incredibly fragile after the multiple moves in “extremely dangerous conditions.” Other babies died as medical services collapsed at Al-Shifa. Doctors say babies had to drink formula prepared with contaminated water, further endangering their survival. A World Health Organization team visited the Al-Shifa Hospital, which it called a “death zone,” and lauded the “heroic” healthcare workers sacrificing everything to treat patients.
WHO assessment crew member: “As healthcare professionals, I am absolutely humbled by the work of you and your teams, the heroic efforts that you’ve made. I mean, I have no words.”
Israel has claimed it uncovered a Hamas tunnel at the Al-Shifa Hospital. The claim was rejected by Hamas and medical workers and has not been verified by independent parties. Israel also said hostages are being held at Al-Shifa. Hamas has previously said it took several hostages to hospitals for treatment.
Israeli Airstrikes Kill Dozens of Gazans Sheltering at U.N. School as Death Toll Soars Above 13,000
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 50 Palestinian civilians at the U.N.-run al-Fakhoura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, though some estimates put the number as high as 200. A separate attack on the Tal al-Zaatar school also resulted in civilian casualties. Other parts of Jabaliya were also hit, including a large residential complex. This is a Gaza ambulance worker.
Gaza ambulance worker: “We are trying to focus on pulling out survivors. As you can see, we are working with our own two hands. There is no equipment. The only excavator is in northern Gaza, and it stopped working. The bulldozer stopped working. A large number of civil service and ambulance cars stopped working because of fuel running out.”
Israel has killed at least 13,000 Palestinians and injured another 30,000 since the start of its assault. The death toll includes at least 5,500 children, or one out of every 200 children in Gaza. Another 1,800 children are missing under the rubble, most of them presumed dead.
Families of Hostages Complete March to Jerusalem as Int’l Talks Indicate Possible Progress
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
Over the weekend, reports emerged that talks between Israel, the U.S. and Qatari mediators for Hamas were closing in on a deal to release dozens of women and children hostages and pause fighting for five days.
In Israel, thousands completed a march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem Saturday, where they demanded the government do more to release their loved ones who were taken hostage by Hamas on October 7.
Stevie Kerem: “They have to talk to the families. It’s impossible that there are 240 kidnapped people, and the government, our government, isn’t talking to them, isn’t telling them what’s going on, what’s on the table.”
Houthi Fighters Seize Israeli-Linked Japanese Ship in Red Sea
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
Yemen’s Houthi rebels say they seized a Japanese cargo ship in the Red Sea. The vessel, named Galaxy Leader, is reportedly partially owned by an Israeli businessman. Around 25 people are believed to be on board the India-bound ship, though Israel said none of their citizens are among the crew. A Houthi spokesperson warned the international community regional security is at stake unless it helps put an end to the war on Gaza.
Yahya Sarea: “The Yemeni Armed Forces confirm the continuation of carrying out military operations against the Israeli enemy until the aggression on the Gaza Strip stops and the ongoing heinous crimes against our Palestinian brothers in Gaza and the West Bank cease.”
Israeli Forces Continue Deadly Raids in West Bank; Residents of Hebron’s H2 Under Harsh Lockdown
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed at least two Palestinians during multiple raids Sunday. Israeli military and settler attacks have killed some 206 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7.
Meanwhile, Palestinians living in the West Bank’s heavily fortified and monitored H2 district in Hebron have been under one of its longest and strictest lockdowns ever since the start of the conflict. Some 39,000 Palestinians and around 900 extremist Israeli settlers live in H2. Palestinians have largely been barred from leaving their homes, except during very brief windows, with Israeli soldiers forcing them back inside at gunpoint.
President Biden warned violence against Palestinians in the West Bank could result in a visa ban against Israeli perpetrators. In a Washington Post op-ed published Saturday, Biden also continued to reject a ceasefire in Gaza and called for a two-state solution.
Protesters Disrupt Harvard-Yale Football Game to Call for Gaza Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
In New Haven, Connecticut, hundreds of students and alumni from Yale and Harvard brought a football game between the two universities to a halt for nearly two hours Saturday as they called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Protesters waved Palestinian flags and banners that read “End the Occupation; End the Genocide” and “Free Palestine.” They also demanded Yale and Harvard divest from weapons manufacturers that supply Israel’s military.
Activists Shut Down Event for California Candidates to U.S. Senate
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
Palestinian rights advocates shut down a convention organized by the California Democratic Party in Sacramento Saturday. Several protesters held a sit-in, while others marched through the convention hall chanting “Ceasefire now.” Demonstrators also disrupted speeches by U.S. Senate candidates, Congressmembers Katie Porter, Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee. Outside the convention, protesters placed 500 pairs of children’s shoes to represent the over 5,000 Palestinian children killed in Gaza.
American Public Health Association Calls for Ceasefire in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
The American Public Health Association’s governing council is calling on President Biden and Congress to press for a ceasefire in Gaza. A resolution approved last week by 90% of members also calls for the “de-escalation of the current conflict by securing the immediate release of the hostages and those detained; the restoration of water, fuel, electricity and other basic services; and the passage of adequate humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.” Recently, delegates to the American Medical Association voted against debating a similar resolution calling for a ceasefire in order to protect civilian lives and healthcare personnel. The group Healthcare Workers for Palestine said in response, “The AMA has a responsibility to uphold the well-being of healthcare workers and minimize human suffering, and it is clear that these values are not being upheld by some of the most influential physicians in the country.”
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Palestinian Death Toll in Gaza Tops 13,000 as Israel Repeatedly Strikes U.N. Schools Housing Refugees
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/20 ... transcript
Transcript
Over the weekend, at least 82 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on Jabaliya refugee camp, including multiple United Nations schools sheltering Palestinians. At least 85 incidents of Israeli bombing have impacted 67 facilities run by the United Nations relief agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) in the last two months. We speak with Tamara Alrifai, spokesperson for UNRWA, about the organization sheltering close to a million Palestinians from Israel’s assault, which has killed 104 of her colleagues since the beginning of the war — the highest number of United Nations aid workers killed in a conflict in the history of the United Nations. Alrifai says her agency is only getting half of the fuel they need to serve people in Gaza, being forced to choose between clean water, food and transport. “If UNRWA ceases to exist tomorrow, then there is a huge layer of stabilizing and stability that UNRWA usually offers in a very, very volatile area that also collapses.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Health officials in Gaza say the overall death toll from Israel’s 45-day bombardment has topped 13,000. More than 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced, with many fearing they’ll never be allowed to return home.
In Gaza City, Israeli tanks have surrounded the Indonesian Hospital. Palestinian officials say at least 12 people have already been killed in Israeli strikes on the hospital. The government of Indonesia has condemned Israel’s targeting of the hospital, saying it’s a clear violation of international humanitarian laws.
Meanwhile, 31 premature babies were evacuated from Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza City, which has been seized by the Israeli military. The babies, who are suffering from dehydration, hypothermia and sepsis, have been taken to Rafah. Some have already been moved across the border.
On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 50 Palestinian civilians at a U.N.-run school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, though some estimates put the number as high as 200. A second UNRWA school was also hit Saturday. This comes as the World Food Programme is warning residents of Gaza may soon face starvation due to a massive shortage of food.
We begin today’s show with Tamara Alrifai, spokesperson for UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees. She’s joining us from Jordan.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Tamara. If you can talk about the situation right now in Gaza? We understand U.N. workers were allowed in to help transport these premature babies from northern Gaza to southern Gaza. Some have crossed over into Egypt right now. And then you have the bombing of the UNRWA schools — you work for UNRWA — in the Jabaliya refugee camp.
TAMARA ALRIFAI: I do work for UNRWA. And sadly, the bombing of an UNRWA school in Jabaliya is the 85th incident against an UNRWA building. We have 67 UNRWA buildings. Many of them are actual shelters that have sustained damage because of strikes nearby or direct hits, killing 176 people who were displaced inside the U.N. building, under the U.N. flag, in search for safety. So nowhere is safe in Gaza. This is, in a nutshell, the situation. Especially, as you so rightly mentioned, Amy, 1.7 million Gazans, of a total population of 2.2 million — that’s roughly 77% of the Gazan population — is now displaced outside of their homes, not knowing whether they’re going to go back, especially if they have moved from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south, noting that the north has been completely sealed for the last few weeks.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what these schools did before, and now what’s happening.
TAMARA ALRIFAI: UNRWA has a system of education, schooling, where 300,000 girls and boys in Gaza receive quality education, very much focused on human rights, tolerance, conflict resolution. This is before the war. During this war, so for the last now six weeks, these schools have turned into shelters. People in Gaza, sadly, are used to wars, and they’re used to sheltering in UNRWA schools, because this is where they feel that there’s sanctity, a U.N. and a global understanding that when someone is in the protection of the U.N., that these buildings will not be targeted. Sadly, this is not the case. So, not only are three-quarters of the Gaza population now made forcibly displaced, some of them for the second or third time, but also their access to basic, basic food and humanitarian assistance is very, very restricted, given the low level of supplies that have been coming into the strip despite an agreement to get trucks in.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the children — well, I should say the infants — who were at Al-Shifa? We have all seen the pictures of them not in incubators, but huddled together, I think wrapped in aluminum to try to maintain their heat. Now U.N. workers getting in and bringing them south, and now, just as we’re broadcasting, apparently, some are being taken over the border into Egypt. What did that whole journey involve? How did the U.N. workers also get in?
TAMARA ALRIFAI: So, I think this picture of these premature infants will remain as one of the most compelling ones of this conflict. And I think it’ll come back to remind us that Gazans really hold onto life.
It took a very, very complex and elaborate U.N. operation to be able to go to Al-Shifa Hospital and remove these premature babies. The mission was led by the World Health Organization’s colleagues, actual heroes, with support from several U.N. organizations, including UNRWA.
But these kids, I’m afraid, these babies, might be joining their peers in Gaza, who before the war we had already identified that most children in Gaza suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder because of having grown up within a choking blockade on the strip, where they cannot leave the strip, and because of having survived so many conflicts at such a young age. I really, really hope that these kids’ parents are alive and that they will be taken care of, but that’s something to remember about the long-term impact on the psychology of children of all these wars.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play for you a clip. This is Mark Regev, senior adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He recently spoke on MSNBC, where he was interviewed by Mehdi Hasan.
MEHDI HASAN: I have seen lots of children with my own lying eyes being pulled from the rubble. So —
MARK REGEV: Now, because they’re the pictures Hamas wants you to see. Exactly my point, Mehdi.
MEHDI HASAN: And also because they’re dead, Mark. Also —
MARK REGEV: They’re the pictures Hamas wants — no.
MEHDI HASAN: But they’re also people your government has killed. You accept that, right? You’ve killed children? Or do you deny that?
MARK REGEV: No, I do not. I do not. I do not. First of all, you don’t know how those people died, those children.
MEHDI HASAN: Oh wow.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Mehdi Hasan saying, “Oh wow,” when Mark Regev said he did not accept that children have died in Gaza. Tamara Alrifai, your response?
TAMARA ALRIFAI: There are enough — there is enough footage, and there is enough documenting from credible sources, including the U.N., of children dying. Save the Children already a few weeks ago said that at least 4,000 children died. It is a reality. Every war in Gaza sees scores of children dead. And those who do not die, most of them have long-term impact on their psychological and mental well-being.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering if you can talk about UNRWA, your agency, that serves Palestinians, warning that you’ll have to stop life-saving operations in Gaza unless you receive more fuel.
TAMARA ALRIFAI: A couple of days ago, there was an agreement on letting fuel into the strip, after many weeks, since the beginning of the war, of not allowing fuel in. The Israeli authorities had not allowed fuel in. I want to say a word about the centrality of fuel to humanitarian operations. Trucks that bring the aid from the Rafah crossing, and electricity generators that provide electricity to water pumping and water desalination so that people can have access to clean drinking water, life-saving machines at hospitals, bakeries that run — everything needs fuel.
The agreement of two days ago is an agreement to bring in 120,000 liters of fuel to cover two days. We require that same amount every single day. So, effectively, we’re getting half of what we need for our humanitarian operations, for the bakeries, the hospitals, the trucks and the clean water, which then will force us to have to take very difficult decisions as to what do we — what do we diminish? Do we diminish access to clean drinking water at the risk of skin and gastro diseases, especially in overcrowded shelters? Do we diminish the bread and the bakeries, especially to people, I just heard you say, that World Food Programme is warning of famine? And what do we diminish? Do we diminish bringing the trucks in from the Rafah border? If we do not get the exact amount we need for a minimal humanitarian response, then we’re going to have to function halfway and only provide half of what these people need.
AMY GOODMAN: If the IDF knows the coordinates of UNRWA locations, you know, among them, schools, can you explain how at least 40 UNRWA buildings have been hit?
TAMARA ALRIFAI: Sixty-seven buildings now, that we’re speaking. I cannot explain militarily how decisions are taken, but I can reiterate that UNRWA provides very regularly, every two weeks, the GPS locations of all its installations to both parties, so to the Israeli authorities but also to the de facto Hamas authorities, so that no one can say, “We did not know.” Every one of our schools and installations and warehouses are very clearly marked, and that marking is communicated.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the UNRWA mandate, Tamara?
TAMARA ALRIFAI: The UNRWA mandate is to provide basic services, schools, health services, social protection to Palestine refugees until there is a political solution whereby 5.9 people who are the descendants of the original Palestine refugees who were expelled or fled in 1948 — there’s a solution that takes them into account so that they’re no longer refugees. These Palestine refugees are not citizens of a country, and therefore UNRWA runs services that are like public services — schools and health centers — until there’s a political solution and, hopefully, they no longer have that status in limbo of a refugee.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you respond to Republicans who — Senate Republicans who introduced a bill to block funds for UNRWA, accusing it of teaching antisemitic school curricula and harboring terrorists in its facilities, Tamara?
TAMARA ALRIFAI: I respond by reminding of the extremely thorough reviews we do of all our teaching material. Page by page is reviewed to ensure that nothing we teach in our school, over 700 schools, runs against the U.N. values and principles. But I also respond that if UNRWA ceases to exist tomorrow, then there is a huge layer of stabilizing and stability that UNRWA usually offers in a very, very, very volatile area that also collapses. It is in everyone’s interest that the UNRWA schools, the health centers, the food assistance and the protection continues, because besides its humanitarian and human rights value, it has a stabilizing impact on the region.
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you say to the Israeli military, that says they won’t allow in fuel because Hamas will take it?
TAMARA ALRIFAI: I will say that our trucks take the fuel from the borders into our depots, into our warehouses, and that we use it directly, or we deliver it directly to the bakeries and the hospitals. So there is no intermediary between the fuel and the beneficiaries. We are the only entity responsible for using that fuel.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Tamara, the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has repeatedly called for a ceasefire. That has not been accomplished at this point. There have been protests around the world demanding a ceasefire. The first Jewish American congressmember, Becca Balint of Vermont, has joined scores of other congressmembers in calling for a ceasefire. But especially around the U.N., at this point, what can it do?
TAMARA ALRIFAI: It can continue calling for a ceasefire. I want to notice that several countries have called for a ceasefire, including France, and that without a ceasefire, it’s going to be very difficult to come back from the brink or to deescalate. So, the U.N., on the political side, must — different U.N. member states must continue to push for a ceasefire. And on the humanitarian side, we must continue to advocate for more funding and for more access to different parts of the Gaza Strip, because right now the access of aid agencies is almost entirely restricted to the south. The north is completely sealed. But we have to be able to reach people where they are, and for that, we need a ceasefire.
AMY GOODMAN: We thank you so much for being with us, Tamara Alrifai, spokesperson for UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees. We’re going to break now. When we come back, we’ll talk more about what’s happening in Gaza. Stay with us.
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Israel’s Raid on Al-Shifa Questioned as IDF Fails to Present Hard Evidence Linking Hamas to Hospital
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/20 ... transcript
Transcript
We continue our coverage of Israel’s unrelenting 45-day bombardment of Gaza, where health officials say the overall death toll has topped 13,000 since October 7. Writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada joins Democracy Now! to discuss the global protests calling for a ceasefire, the ongoing hostage negotiations, and Israel’s failure to prove Hamas ran a command post underneath Al-Shifa Hospital.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
To talk more about the dire situation in Gaza, we’re joined by Muhammad Shehada, a writer and analyst from Gaza, chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor and a columnist at The Forward newspaper, a Jewish weekly in New York. He’s joining us from Copenhagen, where there have been a number of protests.
In fact, Muhammad, can you start with those protests? We are covering the protests here in the country and around the world. What’s happening in Copenhagen?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: It was actually pretty remarkable. I’ve never seen a protest of that size in Denmark for at least the last two years. There was the climate march last year in November around elections time, so every political party was very keen to show up there, including the prime minister. But the demonstration yesterday for Gaza was almost twice the size of Denmark’s climate march, and the climate is a very huge topic here. And it’s been a tremendous ongoing daily movement where people move with demonstrations every night to different locations of Denmark’s capital to make a statement about the necessity of a ceasefire and to stop the bloodshed in Gaza. So it’s been extraordinary.
AMY GOODMAN: And do people there face the same issue that they face in the United States, being accused by some that if they criticize Israel, they’re automatically antisemitic?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There’s plenty of that. Even the Danish prime minister, she laid a wreath of flowers at the Israeli Embassy, and then she was asked, “Would you do the same to Palestinian victims?” And she said, “There is no comparison whatsoever. Israel is defending itself. Hamas is a terrorist organization.” So, that was basically the sentiment. It’s the same in Danish media. So, for instance, the question of “Do you condemn Hamas?” is, again, the same question asked to any person of color whenever they want to talk about what Israel has done to them and their own families in Gaza. And the media bias is very visible, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: In the last few days — well, the Israeli military completely controls the media of international journalists in Gaza, does not let them in unless they are embedded with the Israeli military, and they review their video, unless they’re, you know, journalists, Gazan journalists, Palestinian journalists inside Gaza, of course, are there operating. So many of them, more than 30 of them, have been killed. But in the last few days, the Israeli military has brought in journalists from BBC, from CNN, and they show them a hole at Al-Shifa Hospital, where they say this goes directly down, right near Al-Shifa, into the ground and then underneath Al-Shifa. Can you talk about what we understand at this point?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yeah, absolutely. As you said, Amy, it’s very horrendous to see journalists agreeing to these humiliating conditions that basically mean anything they convey is literal propaganda, because there are three conditions. You are not allowed to speak to any Palestinian or Gazan to challenge what the IDF is spoon-feeding you. You are not allowed to go beyond the tour that the IDF has staged, so you stick to what the IDF wants to show you and where they take you. And you have to review the material with them before you publish, so that the result of that is not journalism. It’s propaganda.
But with Al-Shifa Hospital, what we’ve seen is, basically, for Gaza’s main medical complex, of giant symbolic value and of important, crucial necessity to the lives of thousands — there were about 50,000 people sheltering there — for Israel to say that it has lost its protected status, it has a huge burden of proof to show that the hospital was used to direct or engage in hostilities against it. But up until now, what we have, the facts that we know, is that not a single bullet was fired against the IDF from the hospital over the last week or they have operated in the hospital completely. Not a single bullet. Not a single footage of a Hamas rocket being fired from the hospital. And not a single incident of the sprawling — alleged sprawling command-and-control centers that Israel has published as CGI-animated footage of and claimed that they knew the precise entrance to. They have not shown any of that. And they have not shown or captured any Hamas militants in the hospital or Hamas members. So, basically, there is no satisfying proof for the hospital to lose its protected status and for what Israel has inflicted on the hospital for the last week. They starved, literally starved, everyone inside. About eight babies were suffocated to death. Twenty-two people in the ICU units were killed, and six dialysis patients were killed. The overall totality of how many people killed were there were 53 in total. So, that is very atrocious.
And as you said, the only evidence that Israel had to show for it was a hole in the ground. And I consulted with experts in Gaza, experienced engineers who are familiar with sort of different structures that were observed — for instance, Hamas tunnels — and they said that does not look like a Hamas tunnel whatsoever, because you have two very giant, very solid concrete columns on both sides of the entrance, the shaft’s entrance, and these can only be built by pouring cement down in a mold and vibrating every time you pour a little bit, and vibrate it with a concrete vibrator, and wait for it to dry. And that takes days, and it makes a huge noise. In a hospital in full view of thousands of people going in and out on a daily basis, that’s not how you build a secret tunnel. And the IDF has not allowed anyone to go inside the alleged tunnel to see what’s in it. But even if you presume that it is a tunnel, the IDF would still have a burden of proof to show that Hamas was actually using it at the time of the IDF raid to essentially legitimize their raid, or using it at all during that war. They have not shown any evidence of that.
AMY GOODMAN: I saw one Israeli military spokesperson showing a CNN reporter and saying, “We believe that at the bottom there,” where you see a metal door — they haven’t opened it, because they say they’re afraid there are explosives that are attached to it — it would make some kind of sharp turn, and that would then go under the hospital. So, they haven’t shown that the tunnel itself is under the hospital. They say what’s behind it, what they can’t see, they think, makes a turn.
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yeah, but even with that door, I know [inaudible] that Hamas and other militant groups were abiding by a very strict decision, since 2014 at least, to not have any military activities in or around hospitals, because that was previously Israel’s pretext for bombing medical facilities and schools and homes. So they say they had a strict decision not to use it. You don’t need to believe Hamas, but you take a statement that Gaza’s Ministry of Health and Hamas, as well, have made. They said that we would allow any international expedition, a group of experts, to come into Gaza and vet and scrutinize every little aspect of the hospital, without any of the patients dying. And Israel’s answer to that has been a resounding refusal.
So, if Israel had more than a week — they had eight days inside the hospital, daily operations, uninterrupted, unattacked, unimpeded, going through every single room, every single detail — and still unable to show any traces of Hamas using the hospital for military activities, the IDF propaganda becomes more or less a laughingstock than actual sort of evidence or communication. Especially when last week they went to a children’s hospital, the Rantisi Hospital, after doing the same, surrounding it, besieging it, starving people inside, forcing them out at gunpoint, and then, once they went inside, the spokesperson of the IDF, he went to the basement, and he showed a piece of paper on the wall, and he said, “This shows the names of Hamas terrorists that were guarding hostages here.” And he showed a baby nappy and a bottle of milk, and he said that’s proof — a bottle of milk in a children’s hospital, where thousands of people were taking refuge. But even with the list that he showed on the wall, it was basically a calendar with the names “Saturday,” “Sunday,” “Monday.” So, if you believe Monday is a terrorist, a legitimate target, go ahead and kill Monday. You would have my utmost sympathy.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you have any information on the latest negotiations, the deal where dozens of hostages would be released by Hamas, particularly women and children, prisoners would be released by Israel — there are thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails — and there would be some kind of ceasefire?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yeah, yeah. There’s plenty of proposals that have been put on the table, and I’ve been following them up very meticulously. So, the priority right now is to get Israeli children, women and elderly, and civilian hostages altogether, especially foreigners, released and returned to Israel. And Hamas alleges that some of them were kidnapped by other groups, once the fence collapsed, and that they still need to audit and collect these hostages and release them, which is why they’ve been asking for a temporary ceasefire for five days, to allow them to go and find the hostages held by more minor and less known groups, and with Nasser Salah al-Deen, Saraya al-Quds, Kitab ul-Mujahideen, etc. So, basically, that’s one of the reasons.
The other is, the negotiations, where it stopped is Hamas promised to release about 50 to 70 civilian hostages on stages during a five-day ceasefire, in return mainly for Israel to allow food and humanitarian aid and fuel to go to all of Gaza, especially the north, because now the northern half, Israel has not been allowing any food, water, electricity or fuel to go inside the north for the last 44 days. It has become a death zone to force people out and to defeat Hamas militarily by besieging and starving and randomly even killing everyone inside. So, basically, Hamas’s condition was that Israel allows aid to go to the north for people that are still there, tens of thousands, if not over 100,000 people, and to allow fuel to go through the United Nations to run, for instance, Gaza’s sole power plant to power water distillation facilities and water sewage treatment facilities, etc., to prevent diseases and a humanitarian catastrophe. So, that has been the demand.
There are two logistical stumbling blocks that are obstructing the talks. They say the two sides are almost in agreement, but the two major blocks is basically Hamas asking that people who fled to the south be allowed during these five days of ceasefire — they should be allowed to go back if they wanted to, or people in the north to go south. And Israel is objecting to that. And Hamas is asking the Israeli military tanks and vehicles on the ground to pull back a little bit to allow for the hostages to be taken out and to be moved to Rafah, where they would be released, and also in the south, as well. And they’re asking the Israelis to suspend their drone surveillance on top of Gaza, because they are afraid that Israel would use that moment of the hostage release to find out the hideouts of Hamas and their military infrastructure. So it’s more of a logistical militant demand than sort of a substantial block. But Israel is still refusing, as I said, the entry of humanitarian aid and fuel to the northern half, and they are refusing the return of people that were displaced south to return back to the north.
AMY GOODMAN: Muhammad Shehada, I want to thank you for being with us, writer and analyst from Gaza, chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, columnist with The Forward newspaper, a Jewish weekly here in New York, joining us from Copenhagen.
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Palestinian Activist Remembers Vivian Silver, Israeli Canadian Peace Activist Killed in Hamas Attack
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/20 ... transcript
Transcript
Israeli and Palestinian peace activists are mourning 74-year-old Canadian Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver after she was confirmed killed on October 7 during the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, where she lived. She was previously thought to be held hostage. Silver co-founded the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation, sat on the board for the human rights group B’Tselem and was an active member of Women Wage Peace. Silver’s friend and colleague Samah Salaime, a Palestinian feminist activist, says Silver would have pushed for dialogue to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. “This was her legacy, and this is what we have to march for and fight for after her death.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
We end today’s show remembering the 74-year-old Canadian Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver. She was killed October 7th during the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, where she lived. She was declared dead only last week, after Israeli authorities identified her remains. Up until last week, her family thought that she may have been taken hostage. Vivian Silver had co-founded the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment, and Cooperation and was a member of Women Wage Peace. In 2017, she joined a march of Israeli and Palestinian women to the shores of the Jordan River to call for an end to Israel’s occupation.
VIVIAN SILVER: We are organizing women from all over the country, from every side of the political spectrum, who are saying, “Enough! Maspik” — in Arabic, it’s ”makkafi” — “Enough. We’re no longer willing to do this.” We must reach a political agreement. We must change the paradigm that we have been taught for seven decades now, where we’ve been told that only war will bring peace. We don’t believe that anymore. It’s been proven that it’s not true.
AMY GOODMAN: Those were the words of Vivian Silver in 2017. On Thursday, friends and family and relatives of Vivian Silver gathered for her memorial service. During a recent BBC interview, her son Yonatan Ziegen was asked what his mother would say about what’s happening in Israel and Gaza now.
YONATAN ZIEGEN: That this is the outcome. This is the outcome of war, of not striving for peace. We’ve been — you know, Israelis have that saying, “living under a sword.” And this is what happens. You know, it’s very overwhelming, but it’s not completely surprising. We couldn’t — it’s not sustainable to live in a state of war for so long. And now it bursts. It burst.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Samah Salaime. She is a writer at +972 Magazine, a Palestinian feminist activist, her most recent piece, “A tribute to Vivian,” which went viral. In the piece, Samah writes, quote, “Nothing prepared me for yesterday’s bitter news of Vivian’s tragic end. I felt deep despair, like a bottomless sink-hole had opened under the foundations of humanity, where thousands are already buried — men, women, children, innocent Palestinians and Israelis. People who had wished for peace, and did not live to see that wish fulfilled,” Samah Salaime wrote.
Samah, welcome to Democracy Now!, under horrific circumstances. Can you tell us more about Vivian, and your response last week when you learned, no, she wasn’t a hostage, as you all and her family had hoped, but she had died at the kibbutz she lived on for decades, Be’eri?
SAMAH SALAIME: Yeah. So, thank you for the invitation. And I will use the few minutes that you give me to introduce Vivian Silver to your audience.
Vivian was a feminist, very optimistic woman. And she believed in people. She believed in humanity. And she made a difference in every room that she joined, every group or initiative or any peace process that she wished to be part of. Vivian, for five decades, put all of her — dedicated her life to make shared life possible in Israel. She truly believed of partnership between Palestinians and Israelis to end this vicious, ugly conflict that we all live in.
Vivian passed away. She was killed, and we didn’t know. We all believed — all her friends, we believed that she became a hostage like 240 hostages, because the army told her family that there is no any evidence that something bad happened to her. And they believed it. And it [inaudible]. All the friends, all the feminists and peace activists prayed for her safety. And we truly believed that she will know how to communicate with people in Gaza. She was in Gaza. She visited Gaza many times. And after the siege started, she insisted to take Palestinian kids from the checkpoint, from the border, to the hospitals inside Israel. And she combined them. We have a dream that one of these kids that she helped will find her and will communicate with her in Gaza. These images were wishful thinking for anyone and for everyone. And we had to deal with the devastating sad news that she’s gone.
And the painful thing in Israel, that there are some people who used her memory to justify the war in Gaza, something that she truly didn’t believe in force and militarism and bombs. And she really wanted and fighted for peaceful process and peaceful ending for this conflict. And, for example, one of the Israeli activists put her name on a rocket that was supposed to bomb Gaza and for her memory. And this is the quite opposite thing that Vivian teach us. The minister of security, on internal security in Israel, Ben-Gvir, he’s this extremist fascist minister in Netanyahu’s government, also posted in his — tweeted on his Twitter account saying that this is what the Palestinian do with people who believe in peace, and she paid the price.
And this kind of ugliness and harassment and incitement against peace activists, this is the atmosphere here. We were not allowed to demonstrate, and still, against the ministry, against the war. We cannot shout, as Palestinian activists inside Israel, that we need and we want ceasefire. Any gathering between Arab and Jewish is now forbidden in Israel. But what the death of or the murder of Vivian succeeds to do is to gather hundreds of people in her memorial, Arab and Jewish, Palestinian and Israelis, men and women, religious and secular, from all the aspect, all the region, came to say goodbye to this wonderful, amazing, prominent woman.
AMY GOODMAN: We had hoped to have her son Yonatan on, as well, but he is still sitting shiva right now since the funeral, still mourning his mother’s death. Is it true that someone wrote Vivian’s name on a rocket that would be used in Gaza?
SAMAH SALAIME: This is one of the photos that one of the activists showed me during the memorial, and I was shocked by this photo. Someone posted that on the social media for her memorial, which is — it’s like putting salt in our open wound. And we both cried to see this, because this is not on the memory of thing that is something that Vivian Silver will do or wish or want her name on any military action or violent tool. She used to say that if your only tool is a hammer, everything and every problem around you will be — will look like a nail, that you have to hit it. And the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have to be dealt with with different tool, and you have to be creative, and we have to be optimistic. We have to speak and to keep the dialogue going on and to compromise to find the solution, and not to keep this circle of blood going every two years. And this was her legacy, and this is what we have to march for and fight for after her death.
AMY GOODMAN: We just have a minute to go, but, Samah, what do you want to see happen now, and what do you think Vivian would be saying right now?
SAMAH SALAIME: I think Vivian, as we know her, with her sarcasm and great sense of humor, she will gather us as a group of women. She will speak, and she will break the law by organizing a demonstration against the war, and she will call for ceasefire now. She will have the courage to share photos and images from Gaza, and she will — she usually always had this unique or rich voice that nobody have around her. And she will be the voice of Palestinian families, Palestinian colleagues and Palestinian innocent people that send us all the time messages that they are very sad for her loss, and they are missing her, and they could not be at the memorial because of the war. Vivian will march around and will break the siege. She will do everything against this war. And she usually have this — I don’t know where she brings this power from, to approach people, and people will follow. And this is her energy. And we certainly — the peace movement in Israel-Palestine had a great loss today.
AMY GOODMAN: Samah Salaime, I want to thank you so much for being with us. We’ll link to your piece in +972 Magazine. I’m Amy Goodman.
November 20, 2023
IDF Attacks Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital After Forcing Al-Shifa to Shutter, U.N. Helps Evacuate Babies
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
Israeli tanks have surrounded Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital as Israel’s military continues its relentless assault on the Gaza Strip’s health infrastructure. Earlier today Israeli artillery fire killed at least 12 people inside the medical complex, where about 700 others, including medical staff and injured people, remain besieged.
Egyptian television showed ambulances carrying sick and premature babies passing through the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, after the U.N. assisted in moving 31 premature babies from Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital to Rafah on Sunday. UNICEF warned the babies’ conditions were incredibly fragile after the multiple moves in “extremely dangerous conditions.” Other babies died as medical services collapsed at Al-Shifa. Doctors say babies had to drink formula prepared with contaminated water, further endangering their survival. A World Health Organization team visited the Al-Shifa Hospital, which it called a “death zone,” and lauded the “heroic” healthcare workers sacrificing everything to treat patients.
WHO assessment crew member: “As healthcare professionals, I am absolutely humbled by the work of you and your teams, the heroic efforts that you’ve made. I mean, I have no words.”
Israel has claimed it uncovered a Hamas tunnel at the Al-Shifa Hospital. The claim was rejected by Hamas and medical workers and has not been verified by independent parties. Israel also said hostages are being held at Al-Shifa. Hamas has previously said it took several hostages to hospitals for treatment.
Israeli Airstrikes Kill Dozens of Gazans Sheltering at U.N. School as Death Toll Soars Above 13,000
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 50 Palestinian civilians at the U.N.-run al-Fakhoura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, though some estimates put the number as high as 200. A separate attack on the Tal al-Zaatar school also resulted in civilian casualties. Other parts of Jabaliya were also hit, including a large residential complex. This is a Gaza ambulance worker.
Gaza ambulance worker: “We are trying to focus on pulling out survivors. As you can see, we are working with our own two hands. There is no equipment. The only excavator is in northern Gaza, and it stopped working. The bulldozer stopped working. A large number of civil service and ambulance cars stopped working because of fuel running out.”
Israel has killed at least 13,000 Palestinians and injured another 30,000 since the start of its assault. The death toll includes at least 5,500 children, or one out of every 200 children in Gaza. Another 1,800 children are missing under the rubble, most of them presumed dead.
Families of Hostages Complete March to Jerusalem as Int’l Talks Indicate Possible Progress
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
Over the weekend, reports emerged that talks between Israel, the U.S. and Qatari mediators for Hamas were closing in on a deal to release dozens of women and children hostages and pause fighting for five days.
In Israel, thousands completed a march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem Saturday, where they demanded the government do more to release their loved ones who were taken hostage by Hamas on October 7.
Stevie Kerem: “They have to talk to the families. It’s impossible that there are 240 kidnapped people, and the government, our government, isn’t talking to them, isn’t telling them what’s going on, what’s on the table.”
Houthi Fighters Seize Israeli-Linked Japanese Ship in Red Sea
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
Yemen’s Houthi rebels say they seized a Japanese cargo ship in the Red Sea. The vessel, named Galaxy Leader, is reportedly partially owned by an Israeli businessman. Around 25 people are believed to be on board the India-bound ship, though Israel said none of their citizens are among the crew. A Houthi spokesperson warned the international community regional security is at stake unless it helps put an end to the war on Gaza.
Yahya Sarea: “The Yemeni Armed Forces confirm the continuation of carrying out military operations against the Israeli enemy until the aggression on the Gaza Strip stops and the ongoing heinous crimes against our Palestinian brothers in Gaza and the West Bank cease.”
Israeli Forces Continue Deadly Raids in West Bank; Residents of Hebron’s H2 Under Harsh Lockdown
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed at least two Palestinians during multiple raids Sunday. Israeli military and settler attacks have killed some 206 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7.
Meanwhile, Palestinians living in the West Bank’s heavily fortified and monitored H2 district in Hebron have been under one of its longest and strictest lockdowns ever since the start of the conflict. Some 39,000 Palestinians and around 900 extremist Israeli settlers live in H2. Palestinians have largely been barred from leaving their homes, except during very brief windows, with Israeli soldiers forcing them back inside at gunpoint.
President Biden warned violence against Palestinians in the West Bank could result in a visa ban against Israeli perpetrators. In a Washington Post op-ed published Saturday, Biden also continued to reject a ceasefire in Gaza and called for a two-state solution.
Protesters Disrupt Harvard-Yale Football Game to Call for Gaza Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
In New Haven, Connecticut, hundreds of students and alumni from Yale and Harvard brought a football game between the two universities to a halt for nearly two hours Saturday as they called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Protesters waved Palestinian flags and banners that read “End the Occupation; End the Genocide” and “Free Palestine.” They also demanded Yale and Harvard divest from weapons manufacturers that supply Israel’s military.
Activists Shut Down Event for California Candidates to U.S. Senate
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
Palestinian rights advocates shut down a convention organized by the California Democratic Party in Sacramento Saturday. Several protesters held a sit-in, while others marched through the convention hall chanting “Ceasefire now.” Demonstrators also disrupted speeches by U.S. Senate candidates, Congressmembers Katie Porter, Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee. Outside the convention, protesters placed 500 pairs of children’s shoes to represent the over 5,000 Palestinian children killed in Gaza.
American Public Health Association Calls for Ceasefire in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
The American Public Health Association’s governing council is calling on President Biden and Congress to press for a ceasefire in Gaza. A resolution approved last week by 90% of members also calls for the “de-escalation of the current conflict by securing the immediate release of the hostages and those detained; the restoration of water, fuel, electricity and other basic services; and the passage of adequate humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.” Recently, delegates to the American Medical Association voted against debating a similar resolution calling for a ceasefire in order to protect civilian lives and healthcare personnel. The group Healthcare Workers for Palestine said in response, “The AMA has a responsibility to uphold the well-being of healthcare workers and minimize human suffering, and it is clear that these values are not being upheld by some of the most influential physicians in the country.”
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Palestinian Death Toll in Gaza Tops 13,000 as Israel Repeatedly Strikes U.N. Schools Housing Refugees
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/20 ... transcript
Transcript
Over the weekend, at least 82 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on Jabaliya refugee camp, including multiple United Nations schools sheltering Palestinians. At least 85 incidents of Israeli bombing have impacted 67 facilities run by the United Nations relief agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) in the last two months. We speak with Tamara Alrifai, spokesperson for UNRWA, about the organization sheltering close to a million Palestinians from Israel’s assault, which has killed 104 of her colleagues since the beginning of the war — the highest number of United Nations aid workers killed in a conflict in the history of the United Nations. Alrifai says her agency is only getting half of the fuel they need to serve people in Gaza, being forced to choose between clean water, food and transport. “If UNRWA ceases to exist tomorrow, then there is a huge layer of stabilizing and stability that UNRWA usually offers in a very, very volatile area that also collapses.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Health officials in Gaza say the overall death toll from Israel’s 45-day bombardment has topped 13,000. More than 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced, with many fearing they’ll never be allowed to return home.
In Gaza City, Israeli tanks have surrounded the Indonesian Hospital. Palestinian officials say at least 12 people have already been killed in Israeli strikes on the hospital. The government of Indonesia has condemned Israel’s targeting of the hospital, saying it’s a clear violation of international humanitarian laws.
Meanwhile, 31 premature babies were evacuated from Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza City, which has been seized by the Israeli military. The babies, who are suffering from dehydration, hypothermia and sepsis, have been taken to Rafah. Some have already been moved across the border.
On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 50 Palestinian civilians at a U.N.-run school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, though some estimates put the number as high as 200. A second UNRWA school was also hit Saturday. This comes as the World Food Programme is warning residents of Gaza may soon face starvation due to a massive shortage of food.
We begin today’s show with Tamara Alrifai, spokesperson for UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees. She’s joining us from Jordan.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Tamara. If you can talk about the situation right now in Gaza? We understand U.N. workers were allowed in to help transport these premature babies from northern Gaza to southern Gaza. Some have crossed over into Egypt right now. And then you have the bombing of the UNRWA schools — you work for UNRWA — in the Jabaliya refugee camp.
TAMARA ALRIFAI: I do work for UNRWA. And sadly, the bombing of an UNRWA school in Jabaliya is the 85th incident against an UNRWA building. We have 67 UNRWA buildings. Many of them are actual shelters that have sustained damage because of strikes nearby or direct hits, killing 176 people who were displaced inside the U.N. building, under the U.N. flag, in search for safety. So nowhere is safe in Gaza. This is, in a nutshell, the situation. Especially, as you so rightly mentioned, Amy, 1.7 million Gazans, of a total population of 2.2 million — that’s roughly 77% of the Gazan population — is now displaced outside of their homes, not knowing whether they’re going to go back, especially if they have moved from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south, noting that the north has been completely sealed for the last few weeks.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what these schools did before, and now what’s happening.
TAMARA ALRIFAI: UNRWA has a system of education, schooling, where 300,000 girls and boys in Gaza receive quality education, very much focused on human rights, tolerance, conflict resolution. This is before the war. During this war, so for the last now six weeks, these schools have turned into shelters. People in Gaza, sadly, are used to wars, and they’re used to sheltering in UNRWA schools, because this is where they feel that there’s sanctity, a U.N. and a global understanding that when someone is in the protection of the U.N., that these buildings will not be targeted. Sadly, this is not the case. So, not only are three-quarters of the Gaza population now made forcibly displaced, some of them for the second or third time, but also their access to basic, basic food and humanitarian assistance is very, very restricted, given the low level of supplies that have been coming into the strip despite an agreement to get trucks in.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the children — well, I should say the infants — who were at Al-Shifa? We have all seen the pictures of them not in incubators, but huddled together, I think wrapped in aluminum to try to maintain their heat. Now U.N. workers getting in and bringing them south, and now, just as we’re broadcasting, apparently, some are being taken over the border into Egypt. What did that whole journey involve? How did the U.N. workers also get in?
TAMARA ALRIFAI: So, I think this picture of these premature infants will remain as one of the most compelling ones of this conflict. And I think it’ll come back to remind us that Gazans really hold onto life.
It took a very, very complex and elaborate U.N. operation to be able to go to Al-Shifa Hospital and remove these premature babies. The mission was led by the World Health Organization’s colleagues, actual heroes, with support from several U.N. organizations, including UNRWA.
But these kids, I’m afraid, these babies, might be joining their peers in Gaza, who before the war we had already identified that most children in Gaza suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder because of having grown up within a choking blockade on the strip, where they cannot leave the strip, and because of having survived so many conflicts at such a young age. I really, really hope that these kids’ parents are alive and that they will be taken care of, but that’s something to remember about the long-term impact on the psychology of children of all these wars.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play for you a clip. This is Mark Regev, senior adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He recently spoke on MSNBC, where he was interviewed by Mehdi Hasan.
MEHDI HASAN: I have seen lots of children with my own lying eyes being pulled from the rubble. So —
MARK REGEV: Now, because they’re the pictures Hamas wants you to see. Exactly my point, Mehdi.
MEHDI HASAN: And also because they’re dead, Mark. Also —
MARK REGEV: They’re the pictures Hamas wants — no.
MEHDI HASAN: But they’re also people your government has killed. You accept that, right? You’ve killed children? Or do you deny that?
MARK REGEV: No, I do not. I do not. I do not. First of all, you don’t know how those people died, those children.
MEHDI HASAN: Oh wow.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Mehdi Hasan saying, “Oh wow,” when Mark Regev said he did not accept that children have died in Gaza. Tamara Alrifai, your response?
TAMARA ALRIFAI: There are enough — there is enough footage, and there is enough documenting from credible sources, including the U.N., of children dying. Save the Children already a few weeks ago said that at least 4,000 children died. It is a reality. Every war in Gaza sees scores of children dead. And those who do not die, most of them have long-term impact on their psychological and mental well-being.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering if you can talk about UNRWA, your agency, that serves Palestinians, warning that you’ll have to stop life-saving operations in Gaza unless you receive more fuel.
TAMARA ALRIFAI: A couple of days ago, there was an agreement on letting fuel into the strip, after many weeks, since the beginning of the war, of not allowing fuel in. The Israeli authorities had not allowed fuel in. I want to say a word about the centrality of fuel to humanitarian operations. Trucks that bring the aid from the Rafah crossing, and electricity generators that provide electricity to water pumping and water desalination so that people can have access to clean drinking water, life-saving machines at hospitals, bakeries that run — everything needs fuel.
The agreement of two days ago is an agreement to bring in 120,000 liters of fuel to cover two days. We require that same amount every single day. So, effectively, we’re getting half of what we need for our humanitarian operations, for the bakeries, the hospitals, the trucks and the clean water, which then will force us to have to take very difficult decisions as to what do we — what do we diminish? Do we diminish access to clean drinking water at the risk of skin and gastro diseases, especially in overcrowded shelters? Do we diminish the bread and the bakeries, especially to people, I just heard you say, that World Food Programme is warning of famine? And what do we diminish? Do we diminish bringing the trucks in from the Rafah border? If we do not get the exact amount we need for a minimal humanitarian response, then we’re going to have to function halfway and only provide half of what these people need.
AMY GOODMAN: If the IDF knows the coordinates of UNRWA locations, you know, among them, schools, can you explain how at least 40 UNRWA buildings have been hit?
TAMARA ALRIFAI: Sixty-seven buildings now, that we’re speaking. I cannot explain militarily how decisions are taken, but I can reiterate that UNRWA provides very regularly, every two weeks, the GPS locations of all its installations to both parties, so to the Israeli authorities but also to the de facto Hamas authorities, so that no one can say, “We did not know.” Every one of our schools and installations and warehouses are very clearly marked, and that marking is communicated.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the UNRWA mandate, Tamara?
TAMARA ALRIFAI: The UNRWA mandate is to provide basic services, schools, health services, social protection to Palestine refugees until there is a political solution whereby 5.9 people who are the descendants of the original Palestine refugees who were expelled or fled in 1948 — there’s a solution that takes them into account so that they’re no longer refugees. These Palestine refugees are not citizens of a country, and therefore UNRWA runs services that are like public services — schools and health centers — until there’s a political solution and, hopefully, they no longer have that status in limbo of a refugee.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you respond to Republicans who — Senate Republicans who introduced a bill to block funds for UNRWA, accusing it of teaching antisemitic school curricula and harboring terrorists in its facilities, Tamara?
TAMARA ALRIFAI: I respond by reminding of the extremely thorough reviews we do of all our teaching material. Page by page is reviewed to ensure that nothing we teach in our school, over 700 schools, runs against the U.N. values and principles. But I also respond that if UNRWA ceases to exist tomorrow, then there is a huge layer of stabilizing and stability that UNRWA usually offers in a very, very, very volatile area that also collapses. It is in everyone’s interest that the UNRWA schools, the health centers, the food assistance and the protection continues, because besides its humanitarian and human rights value, it has a stabilizing impact on the region.
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you say to the Israeli military, that says they won’t allow in fuel because Hamas will take it?
TAMARA ALRIFAI: I will say that our trucks take the fuel from the borders into our depots, into our warehouses, and that we use it directly, or we deliver it directly to the bakeries and the hospitals. So there is no intermediary between the fuel and the beneficiaries. We are the only entity responsible for using that fuel.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Tamara, the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has repeatedly called for a ceasefire. That has not been accomplished at this point. There have been protests around the world demanding a ceasefire. The first Jewish American congressmember, Becca Balint of Vermont, has joined scores of other congressmembers in calling for a ceasefire. But especially around the U.N., at this point, what can it do?
TAMARA ALRIFAI: It can continue calling for a ceasefire. I want to notice that several countries have called for a ceasefire, including France, and that without a ceasefire, it’s going to be very difficult to come back from the brink or to deescalate. So, the U.N., on the political side, must — different U.N. member states must continue to push for a ceasefire. And on the humanitarian side, we must continue to advocate for more funding and for more access to different parts of the Gaza Strip, because right now the access of aid agencies is almost entirely restricted to the south. The north is completely sealed. But we have to be able to reach people where they are, and for that, we need a ceasefire.
AMY GOODMAN: We thank you so much for being with us, Tamara Alrifai, spokesperson for UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees. We’re going to break now. When we come back, we’ll talk more about what’s happening in Gaza. Stay with us.
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Israel’s Raid on Al-Shifa Questioned as IDF Fails to Present Hard Evidence Linking Hamas to Hospital
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/20 ... transcript
Transcript
We continue our coverage of Israel’s unrelenting 45-day bombardment of Gaza, where health officials say the overall death toll has topped 13,000 since October 7. Writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada joins Democracy Now! to discuss the global protests calling for a ceasefire, the ongoing hostage negotiations, and Israel’s failure to prove Hamas ran a command post underneath Al-Shifa Hospital.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
To talk more about the dire situation in Gaza, we’re joined by Muhammad Shehada, a writer and analyst from Gaza, chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor and a columnist at The Forward newspaper, a Jewish weekly in New York. He’s joining us from Copenhagen, where there have been a number of protests.
In fact, Muhammad, can you start with those protests? We are covering the protests here in the country and around the world. What’s happening in Copenhagen?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: It was actually pretty remarkable. I’ve never seen a protest of that size in Denmark for at least the last two years. There was the climate march last year in November around elections time, so every political party was very keen to show up there, including the prime minister. But the demonstration yesterday for Gaza was almost twice the size of Denmark’s climate march, and the climate is a very huge topic here. And it’s been a tremendous ongoing daily movement where people move with demonstrations every night to different locations of Denmark’s capital to make a statement about the necessity of a ceasefire and to stop the bloodshed in Gaza. So it’s been extraordinary.
AMY GOODMAN: And do people there face the same issue that they face in the United States, being accused by some that if they criticize Israel, they’re automatically antisemitic?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There’s plenty of that. Even the Danish prime minister, she laid a wreath of flowers at the Israeli Embassy, and then she was asked, “Would you do the same to Palestinian victims?” And she said, “There is no comparison whatsoever. Israel is defending itself. Hamas is a terrorist organization.” So, that was basically the sentiment. It’s the same in Danish media. So, for instance, the question of “Do you condemn Hamas?” is, again, the same question asked to any person of color whenever they want to talk about what Israel has done to them and their own families in Gaza. And the media bias is very visible, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: In the last few days — well, the Israeli military completely controls the media of international journalists in Gaza, does not let them in unless they are embedded with the Israeli military, and they review their video, unless they’re, you know, journalists, Gazan journalists, Palestinian journalists inside Gaza, of course, are there operating. So many of them, more than 30 of them, have been killed. But in the last few days, the Israeli military has brought in journalists from BBC, from CNN, and they show them a hole at Al-Shifa Hospital, where they say this goes directly down, right near Al-Shifa, into the ground and then underneath Al-Shifa. Can you talk about what we understand at this point?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yeah, absolutely. As you said, Amy, it’s very horrendous to see journalists agreeing to these humiliating conditions that basically mean anything they convey is literal propaganda, because there are three conditions. You are not allowed to speak to any Palestinian or Gazan to challenge what the IDF is spoon-feeding you. You are not allowed to go beyond the tour that the IDF has staged, so you stick to what the IDF wants to show you and where they take you. And you have to review the material with them before you publish, so that the result of that is not journalism. It’s propaganda.
But with Al-Shifa Hospital, what we’ve seen is, basically, for Gaza’s main medical complex, of giant symbolic value and of important, crucial necessity to the lives of thousands — there were about 50,000 people sheltering there — for Israel to say that it has lost its protected status, it has a huge burden of proof to show that the hospital was used to direct or engage in hostilities against it. But up until now, what we have, the facts that we know, is that not a single bullet was fired against the IDF from the hospital over the last week or they have operated in the hospital completely. Not a single bullet. Not a single footage of a Hamas rocket being fired from the hospital. And not a single incident of the sprawling — alleged sprawling command-and-control centers that Israel has published as CGI-animated footage of and claimed that they knew the precise entrance to. They have not shown any of that. And they have not shown or captured any Hamas militants in the hospital or Hamas members. So, basically, there is no satisfying proof for the hospital to lose its protected status and for what Israel has inflicted on the hospital for the last week. They starved, literally starved, everyone inside. About eight babies were suffocated to death. Twenty-two people in the ICU units were killed, and six dialysis patients were killed. The overall totality of how many people killed were there were 53 in total. So, that is very atrocious.
And as you said, the only evidence that Israel had to show for it was a hole in the ground. And I consulted with experts in Gaza, experienced engineers who are familiar with sort of different structures that were observed — for instance, Hamas tunnels — and they said that does not look like a Hamas tunnel whatsoever, because you have two very giant, very solid concrete columns on both sides of the entrance, the shaft’s entrance, and these can only be built by pouring cement down in a mold and vibrating every time you pour a little bit, and vibrate it with a concrete vibrator, and wait for it to dry. And that takes days, and it makes a huge noise. In a hospital in full view of thousands of people going in and out on a daily basis, that’s not how you build a secret tunnel. And the IDF has not allowed anyone to go inside the alleged tunnel to see what’s in it. But even if you presume that it is a tunnel, the IDF would still have a burden of proof to show that Hamas was actually using it at the time of the IDF raid to essentially legitimize their raid, or using it at all during that war. They have not shown any evidence of that.
AMY GOODMAN: I saw one Israeli military spokesperson showing a CNN reporter and saying, “We believe that at the bottom there,” where you see a metal door — they haven’t opened it, because they say they’re afraid there are explosives that are attached to it — it would make some kind of sharp turn, and that would then go under the hospital. So, they haven’t shown that the tunnel itself is under the hospital. They say what’s behind it, what they can’t see, they think, makes a turn.
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yeah, but even with that door, I know [inaudible] that Hamas and other militant groups were abiding by a very strict decision, since 2014 at least, to not have any military activities in or around hospitals, because that was previously Israel’s pretext for bombing medical facilities and schools and homes. So they say they had a strict decision not to use it. You don’t need to believe Hamas, but you take a statement that Gaza’s Ministry of Health and Hamas, as well, have made. They said that we would allow any international expedition, a group of experts, to come into Gaza and vet and scrutinize every little aspect of the hospital, without any of the patients dying. And Israel’s answer to that has been a resounding refusal.
So, if Israel had more than a week — they had eight days inside the hospital, daily operations, uninterrupted, unattacked, unimpeded, going through every single room, every single detail — and still unable to show any traces of Hamas using the hospital for military activities, the IDF propaganda becomes more or less a laughingstock than actual sort of evidence or communication. Especially when last week they went to a children’s hospital, the Rantisi Hospital, after doing the same, surrounding it, besieging it, starving people inside, forcing them out at gunpoint, and then, once they went inside, the spokesperson of the IDF, he went to the basement, and he showed a piece of paper on the wall, and he said, “This shows the names of Hamas terrorists that were guarding hostages here.” And he showed a baby nappy and a bottle of milk, and he said that’s proof — a bottle of milk in a children’s hospital, where thousands of people were taking refuge. But even with the list that he showed on the wall, it was basically a calendar with the names “Saturday,” “Sunday,” “Monday.” So, if you believe Monday is a terrorist, a legitimate target, go ahead and kill Monday. You would have my utmost sympathy.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you have any information on the latest negotiations, the deal where dozens of hostages would be released by Hamas, particularly women and children, prisoners would be released by Israel — there are thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails — and there would be some kind of ceasefire?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yeah, yeah. There’s plenty of proposals that have been put on the table, and I’ve been following them up very meticulously. So, the priority right now is to get Israeli children, women and elderly, and civilian hostages altogether, especially foreigners, released and returned to Israel. And Hamas alleges that some of them were kidnapped by other groups, once the fence collapsed, and that they still need to audit and collect these hostages and release them, which is why they’ve been asking for a temporary ceasefire for five days, to allow them to go and find the hostages held by more minor and less known groups, and with Nasser Salah al-Deen, Saraya al-Quds, Kitab ul-Mujahideen, etc. So, basically, that’s one of the reasons.
The other is, the negotiations, where it stopped is Hamas promised to release about 50 to 70 civilian hostages on stages during a five-day ceasefire, in return mainly for Israel to allow food and humanitarian aid and fuel to go to all of Gaza, especially the north, because now the northern half, Israel has not been allowing any food, water, electricity or fuel to go inside the north for the last 44 days. It has become a death zone to force people out and to defeat Hamas militarily by besieging and starving and randomly even killing everyone inside. So, basically, Hamas’s condition was that Israel allows aid to go to the north for people that are still there, tens of thousands, if not over 100,000 people, and to allow fuel to go through the United Nations to run, for instance, Gaza’s sole power plant to power water distillation facilities and water sewage treatment facilities, etc., to prevent diseases and a humanitarian catastrophe. So, that has been the demand.
There are two logistical stumbling blocks that are obstructing the talks. They say the two sides are almost in agreement, but the two major blocks is basically Hamas asking that people who fled to the south be allowed during these five days of ceasefire — they should be allowed to go back if they wanted to, or people in the north to go south. And Israel is objecting to that. And Hamas is asking the Israeli military tanks and vehicles on the ground to pull back a little bit to allow for the hostages to be taken out and to be moved to Rafah, where they would be released, and also in the south, as well. And they’re asking the Israelis to suspend their drone surveillance on top of Gaza, because they are afraid that Israel would use that moment of the hostage release to find out the hideouts of Hamas and their military infrastructure. So it’s more of a logistical militant demand than sort of a substantial block. But Israel is still refusing, as I said, the entry of humanitarian aid and fuel to the northern half, and they are refusing the return of people that were displaced south to return back to the north.
AMY GOODMAN: Muhammad Shehada, I want to thank you for being with us, writer and analyst from Gaza, chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, columnist with The Forward newspaper, a Jewish weekly here in New York, joining us from Copenhagen.
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Palestinian Activist Remembers Vivian Silver, Israeli Canadian Peace Activist Killed in Hamas Attack
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/20 ... transcript
Transcript
Israeli and Palestinian peace activists are mourning 74-year-old Canadian Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver after she was confirmed killed on October 7 during the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, where she lived. She was previously thought to be held hostage. Silver co-founded the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation, sat on the board for the human rights group B’Tselem and was an active member of Women Wage Peace. Silver’s friend and colleague Samah Salaime, a Palestinian feminist activist, says Silver would have pushed for dialogue to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. “This was her legacy, and this is what we have to march for and fight for after her death.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
We end today’s show remembering the 74-year-old Canadian Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver. She was killed October 7th during the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, where she lived. She was declared dead only last week, after Israeli authorities identified her remains. Up until last week, her family thought that she may have been taken hostage. Vivian Silver had co-founded the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment, and Cooperation and was a member of Women Wage Peace. In 2017, she joined a march of Israeli and Palestinian women to the shores of the Jordan River to call for an end to Israel’s occupation.
VIVIAN SILVER: We are organizing women from all over the country, from every side of the political spectrum, who are saying, “Enough! Maspik” — in Arabic, it’s ”makkafi” — “Enough. We’re no longer willing to do this.” We must reach a political agreement. We must change the paradigm that we have been taught for seven decades now, where we’ve been told that only war will bring peace. We don’t believe that anymore. It’s been proven that it’s not true.
AMY GOODMAN: Those were the words of Vivian Silver in 2017. On Thursday, friends and family and relatives of Vivian Silver gathered for her memorial service. During a recent BBC interview, her son Yonatan Ziegen was asked what his mother would say about what’s happening in Israel and Gaza now.
YONATAN ZIEGEN: That this is the outcome. This is the outcome of war, of not striving for peace. We’ve been — you know, Israelis have that saying, “living under a sword.” And this is what happens. You know, it’s very overwhelming, but it’s not completely surprising. We couldn’t — it’s not sustainable to live in a state of war for so long. And now it bursts. It burst.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Samah Salaime. She is a writer at +972 Magazine, a Palestinian feminist activist, her most recent piece, “A tribute to Vivian,” which went viral. In the piece, Samah writes, quote, “Nothing prepared me for yesterday’s bitter news of Vivian’s tragic end. I felt deep despair, like a bottomless sink-hole had opened under the foundations of humanity, where thousands are already buried — men, women, children, innocent Palestinians and Israelis. People who had wished for peace, and did not live to see that wish fulfilled,” Samah Salaime wrote.
Samah, welcome to Democracy Now!, under horrific circumstances. Can you tell us more about Vivian, and your response last week when you learned, no, she wasn’t a hostage, as you all and her family had hoped, but she had died at the kibbutz she lived on for decades, Be’eri?
SAMAH SALAIME: Yeah. So, thank you for the invitation. And I will use the few minutes that you give me to introduce Vivian Silver to your audience.
Vivian was a feminist, very optimistic woman. And she believed in people. She believed in humanity. And she made a difference in every room that she joined, every group or initiative or any peace process that she wished to be part of. Vivian, for five decades, put all of her — dedicated her life to make shared life possible in Israel. She truly believed of partnership between Palestinians and Israelis to end this vicious, ugly conflict that we all live in.
Vivian passed away. She was killed, and we didn’t know. We all believed — all her friends, we believed that she became a hostage like 240 hostages, because the army told her family that there is no any evidence that something bad happened to her. And they believed it. And it [inaudible]. All the friends, all the feminists and peace activists prayed for her safety. And we truly believed that she will know how to communicate with people in Gaza. She was in Gaza. She visited Gaza many times. And after the siege started, she insisted to take Palestinian kids from the checkpoint, from the border, to the hospitals inside Israel. And she combined them. We have a dream that one of these kids that she helped will find her and will communicate with her in Gaza. These images were wishful thinking for anyone and for everyone. And we had to deal with the devastating sad news that she’s gone.
And the painful thing in Israel, that there are some people who used her memory to justify the war in Gaza, something that she truly didn’t believe in force and militarism and bombs. And she really wanted and fighted for peaceful process and peaceful ending for this conflict. And, for example, one of the Israeli activists put her name on a rocket that was supposed to bomb Gaza and for her memory. And this is the quite opposite thing that Vivian teach us. The minister of security, on internal security in Israel, Ben-Gvir, he’s this extremist fascist minister in Netanyahu’s government, also posted in his — tweeted on his Twitter account saying that this is what the Palestinian do with people who believe in peace, and she paid the price.
And this kind of ugliness and harassment and incitement against peace activists, this is the atmosphere here. We were not allowed to demonstrate, and still, against the ministry, against the war. We cannot shout, as Palestinian activists inside Israel, that we need and we want ceasefire. Any gathering between Arab and Jewish is now forbidden in Israel. But what the death of or the murder of Vivian succeeds to do is to gather hundreds of people in her memorial, Arab and Jewish, Palestinian and Israelis, men and women, religious and secular, from all the aspect, all the region, came to say goodbye to this wonderful, amazing, prominent woman.
AMY GOODMAN: We had hoped to have her son Yonatan on, as well, but he is still sitting shiva right now since the funeral, still mourning his mother’s death. Is it true that someone wrote Vivian’s name on a rocket that would be used in Gaza?
SAMAH SALAIME: This is one of the photos that one of the activists showed me during the memorial, and I was shocked by this photo. Someone posted that on the social media for her memorial, which is — it’s like putting salt in our open wound. And we both cried to see this, because this is not on the memory of thing that is something that Vivian Silver will do or wish or want her name on any military action or violent tool. She used to say that if your only tool is a hammer, everything and every problem around you will be — will look like a nail, that you have to hit it. And the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have to be dealt with with different tool, and you have to be creative, and we have to be optimistic. We have to speak and to keep the dialogue going on and to compromise to find the solution, and not to keep this circle of blood going every two years. And this was her legacy, and this is what we have to march for and fight for after her death.
AMY GOODMAN: We just have a minute to go, but, Samah, what do you want to see happen now, and what do you think Vivian would be saying right now?
SAMAH SALAIME: I think Vivian, as we know her, with her sarcasm and great sense of humor, she will gather us as a group of women. She will speak, and she will break the law by organizing a demonstration against the war, and she will call for ceasefire now. She will have the courage to share photos and images from Gaza, and she will — she usually always had this unique or rich voice that nobody have around her. And she will be the voice of Palestinian families, Palestinian colleagues and Palestinian innocent people that send us all the time messages that they are very sad for her loss, and they are missing her, and they could not be at the memorial because of the war. Vivian will march around and will break the siege. She will do everything against this war. And she usually have this — I don’t know where she brings this power from, to approach people, and people will follow. And this is her energy. And we certainly — the peace movement in Israel-Palestine had a great loss today.
AMY GOODMAN: Samah Salaime, I want to thank you so much for being with us. We’ll link to your piece in +972 Magazine. I’m Amy Goodman.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Wed Nov 22, 2023 1:52 am
DemocracyNow! Headlines
November 21, 2023
WHO Says Israeli Attacks Have Taken All of Northern Gaza’s Hospitals Out of Service
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/21/headlines
The Palestinian Health Ministry says all hospitals in northern Gaza are now out of service amid repeated assaults by Israeli forces on medical centers. The World Health Organization said it was working to evacuate remaining patients from Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in the besieged Palestinian territory, along with the Indonesian and Al-Ahli hospitals. Hundreds of patients — many of them injured in Israeli strikes — remain trapped in medical centers which have effectively ceased functioning. A WHO official in Geneva said Israel’s assault is “robbing the entire population of the north of the means to seek healthcare.”
U.N. Chief Condemns Israel’s “Unparalleled and Unprecedented” Attacks on Civilians
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
There’s been no letup in Israel’s bombing campaign. In one of the latest attacks, at least 20 Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces bombed the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Palestinian officials say more than 13,300 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes — over 5,000 of them children. On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres marked World Children’s Day, the U.N.’s annual day of action for children, with a call to stop the carnage.
Secretary-General António Guterres: “What is clear is that we have had in a few weeks thousands of children killed. So this is what matters. We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict since I am secretary-general.”
Israeli Attacks Kill Palestinian Journalists in Gaza and Media Workers in Lebanon
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
The chairman of the Gaza Press House has been killed by Israel’s military. Belal Jadallah was heading to the south of the Gaza Strip when he was killed by an Israeli tank shell in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Belal Jadallah was known as the “Godfather” of Palestinian journalism. He helped train generations of reporters and welcomed foreign correspondents to the Gaza Strip.
In northern Gaza, 27-year-old digital content and podcast presenter Ayat Khaddura has reportedly been killed along with her family in an Israeli airstrike. This is one of her last video reports.
Ayat Khaddura: “We’re separated, of course. I and a few others remain at home, while the rest have evacuated, and we don’t know where they went. The situation is very scary. The situation is very terrifying. What is happening is very difficult. May God have mercy on us.”
In southern Lebanon, two journalists with the Beirut-based TV channel Al Mayadeen have been killed in an Israeli airstrike. The network says camera operator Rabih Al-Me’mari and correspondent Farah Omar were deliberately targeted by an Israeli warplane after reporting on the latest Israeli bombardment of south Lebanon. A third civilian traveling with them was also killed in the attack.
At least 50 journalists and media workers, most of them Palestinian, have been killed in the region since October 7. We’ll have more on this story after headlines.
Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha Abducted by Israeli Troops at Gaza Checkpoint
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
The Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha has been released, following his abduction by Israeli soldiers while trying to leave the Gaza Strip with his family. Abu Toha had been heading to the southern Rafah border crossing when he was seized by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint. His family had not heard from him until Tuesday. Mosab Abu Toha is an author, columnist, teacher and founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza. Click here to see our recent interview with him, and we’ll have more on his abduction later in the broadcast.
Families of Israeli Hostages Blast Bill to Impose Death Sentence on Hamas Members
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
In Jerusalem, far-right members of Israeli’s parliament on Monday got into a shouting match with family members of hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza. Lawmakers were debating a bill to impose the death penalty on “terrorists.” The bill was advanced by Israel’s ultranationalist national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was once convicted by an Israeli court of racist incitement against Palestinians and supporting a terrorist group. Family members condemned the death penalty bill, saying it endangered efforts to win the release of their abducted relatives. This is Udi Goren, whose cousin is being held captive in Gaza.
Udi Goren: “This is incredibly disappointing, because I feel that at this point, when we know that taking down Hamas, we keep hearing from them, is going to take months or years, and it’s going to take a long time; on the other hand, the other objective is time-sensitive. People are dying. We know that for sure.”
One hostage family member yelled at Ben-Gvir in the Knesset session, “You care more about killing Arabs than saving Jewish lives.”
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports Qatar-brokered talks for a deal that would see Hamas release some of its hostages in exchange for a three- to five-day pause in fighting are at a “critical and final stage.” Hamas officials said they were “close to reaching a truce agreement.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley Calls for Gaza Ceasefire: “Too Many Civilians and Children Have Died”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
The White House has pushed back after the Center for Constitutional Rights sued President Biden, accusing him of failing to prevent genocide in the Gaza Strip. On Monday, White House spokesperson John Kirby called the allegations “pretty inappropriate” and said only Hamas has genocidal intentions, not Israel’s government.
John Kirby: “Yes, there are too many civilian casualties in Gaza. Yes, the numbers are too high. Yes, too many families are grieving. And, yes, we continue to urge the Israelis to be as careful and cautious as possible. That’s not going to stop, from the president right on down. But Israel is not trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel is not trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat.”
Those remarks from the White House came as Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon became just the second senator to demand a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, joining Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin. Merkley wrote, “By waging a war that generates a shocking level of civilian carnage rather than a targeted campaign against Hamas, Israel is burning through its reserves of international support. Too many civilians and too many children have died, and we must value each and every child equally whether they are Israeli or Palestinian.”
Protesters Rally at Seattle Space Needle to Demand Gaza Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
In Seattle, hundreds of people blocked the main entrance of the Space Needle observation tower Sunday in a Jewish-led peaceful act of civil disobedience calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Protesters flew a 40-foot-tall banner that read “Ceasefire Now!” in the air buoyed by large balloons. They’re demanding Washington Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats, join growing congressional calls for a ceasefire. The action was organized by the Seattle chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace.
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A Grim Milestone: Journalist Death Toll Tops 53 as Israel Kills More Reporters in Gaza and Lebanon
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/21 ... transcript
Transcript
The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that at least 50 journalists and media workers have been killed in Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. Forty-five of the slain journalists have been Palestinian. Others have been arrested or injured. According to CPJ, this has been the deadliest period for journalists covering conflict since the media group began tracking deaths over 30 years ago. Meanwhile, journalists in Israel and the West Bank have been confronted with cyberattacks, physical assault and other forms of censorship for allegedly “harming national morale and harming national security” while reporting on Israel. It’s a “news blackout,” says CPJ’s program coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Sherif Mansour, under which the Israeli government is blocking “essential media coverage” and withholding “lifesaving information” from Gaza in order to win its Western propaganda war.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s been another devastating 24 hours in Gaza and southern Lebanon for journalists covering the 46-day Israeli bombardment. The Beirut-based TV channel Al Mayadeen has just announced two of its journalists were killed today in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon. The network says correspondent Farah Omar and camera operator Rabih Al-Me’mari were deliberately targeted by an Israeli warplane after reporting on Israel’s latest bombardment of south Lebanon.
Meanwhile, in northern Gaza, Ayat Khaddura, a 27-year-old digital content and podcast presenter, has been reportedly killed along with her family in an Israeli airstrike. This is Ayat, one of her last video reports.
AYAT KHADDURA: [translated] This may be the last video for me. Today, the occupation dropped phosphorus bombs on the Beit Lahia project area and scary sound bombs and threw evacuation notices in the area. And, of course, almost the entire area has evacuated. Everyone started running madly in the streets. No one knows neither where they’re going to or coming from. We’re separated, of course. I and a few others remain at home, while the rest have evacuated, and we don’t know where they went. The situation is very scary. The situation is very terrifying. What is happening is very difficult. May God have mercy on us.
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday, the head of the Gaza Press House was also killed by the Israeli military. Belal Jadallah was heading to southern Gaza when he was killed by an Israeli tank shell in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Belal was known as the “Godfather” of Palestinian journalism. He helped train generations of reporters and welcomed foreign correspondents and sponsored them when covering the Gaza Strip.
The Committee to Protect Journalists Monday announced a grim milestone had been reached with at least 50 journalists and media workers killed since October 7th. Forty-five of the journalists have been Palestinian. There have been three Israeli journalists killed, and there have been at least three Lebanese journalists killed. CPJ reports 11 journalists have been injured, three are reported missing, and 18 have been arrested. According to CPJ, the past month and a half has been the deadliest period of journalists covering the conflict since the media group began tracking these deaths over 30 years ago.
We go now to Philadelphia, where we’re joined by Sherif Mansour, the Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Sherif, welcome back to Democracy Now!, under horrific circumstances. The U.N. secretary-general says that the number of civilian deaths is “unparalleled and unprecedented.” Of course, journalists are civilians. As I woke up this morning, I got one text after another, first the young woman and her cameraman in southern Lebanon killed about an hour after she posted a video report. She’s standing in a field in southern Lebanon, and she’s talking about the Israeli military killing civilians. She and her cameraman are then hit and killed. And then, as I’m learning their names, another text comes in. This young reporter in northern Gaza is killed, even as she says in her report, “I fear I will die.” Can you talk about this latest news and then a man you have come to know, who worked with you on a CPJ report, the head of the Gaza journalists’ association, also killed in an airstrike?
SHERIF MANSOUR: Thank you, Amy, for having me.
I remember being on your show a little bit more of a month ago and saying, for journalists in the region, this is a deadly time. And it was the deadliest week back then. It became the deadliest month and now the deadliest six weeks on our record. I was not exaggerating. I was not speculating.
The killing of Belal Jadallah, who helped us document this deadly pattern of journalists being killed by Israeli fire over 21 years — just in May, we made a profile of 20 journalists. The majority, 18, were Palestinians. And he, Jadallah, his center have helped identify them, their families, get us their pictures. And on Sunday, he became a victim of this same deadly pattern when he was killed in his car. Jadallah has also provided crucial safety equipment for journalists in order to do their job safely. And he opened the Press House for journalists to use the electricity and internet when there was no other place.
This deadly pattern has existed before. It’s getting more deadly per day. We are investigating the three more killing today, adding to 50 as of yesterday. We’ve never seen anything like this. It’s unprecedented. And for journalists in Gaza specifically, the exponential risk is possibly the most dangerous we have seen. Journalists were killed in the very early stages at the two entry and exit points from Gaza — in the south, the Rafah crossing; in the north, the Erez crossing. And since then, they were killed everywhere in between. They were killed in the south in Rafah City, in Khan Younis, where they were told it’s going to be safe. They were killed in the middle in the Gaza Strip. And they were killed in the north in Gaza City. They have no safe haven. They have no exit.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Sherif, could you talk, as well, about the arrests of journalists in Gaza and the Occupied Territories? And also, your organization has criticized, as well, Israel for its censorship within Israel of the press in Israel. Could you talk about that, as well?
SHERIF MANSOUR: Well, we have documented separately from the casualties list, which includes journalists going missing, injured, the escalation of arrests. As of yesterday, 18 Palestinian journalists from the West Bank were arrested. Many of them were put in administrative detention, in military prosecutions. In addition, dozens of cases of censorship, direct censorship, cyberattacks, physical assaults, obstruction from coverage within the West Bank and within Israel.
In Israel, an emergency legislation has now given the government for the first time the unprecedented power of shutting down international media organization, including acting on Al Mayadeen — which two journalists were killed today in Lebanon — banning them in Israel, and allowing the government also to jail even Israeli journalists for up to a year under suspicious and these accusations of harming national morale and harming national security.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Also, here in the United States, we are getting much coverage on the commercial media of the war, of the Israeli war in Gaza, but it’s all of U.S. journalists that are basically based in Israel, and there are no U.S. journalists that I’ve seen that are actually in Gaza. And those who do go in only go in with the Israeli army and under the condition that Israel must review all of their videotape beforehand and approve it before it can go out. I’m wondering your sense of how the American people — what kind of story they’re getting as a result of these conditions?
SHERIF MANSOUR: Well, these conditions put local Palestinian photojournalists and freelancers at the most risk. They are the ones on the frontlines. We have not — we have seen a dwindling number of international media and international journalists within Gaza over the years because of the risks involved. And right now the Palestinian journalists are bearing the brunt of this risk and this heavy toll.
Of course, these casualties, the censorship is also coupled with communication blackouts for, to date, since the start of the war, that makes this more often news blackout, not just communication blackout. And, of course, that denies journalists a voice. It also denies people in the region and worldwide of essential media coverage, lifesaving information for 2 million Palestinians who are struggling to find food, clean water and shelter right now, but millions and hundreds of millions all over the world who are following this heartbreaking conflict and try to understand it, including in the U.S.
AMY GOODMAN: So, as Juan said, Sherif, you have — the Israeli military says they cannot guarantee the lives of journalists that go into Gaza. In early November — I’m just thinking back to a few weeks ago — the Palestine News Agency reported that their journalist Mohammad Abu Hattab was killed in an Israeli strike on his home in southern Gaza Strip along with 11 members of his family, including his wife, son and brother. His colleague, journalist Salman Al-Bashir, burst into tears during a live broadcast upon learning of Abu Hattab’s killing. As he spoke, Al-Bashir tore off his helmet and protective vest, labeled “press,” and threw them to the ground. And then there was a split screen, as he ripped off his gear, saying, “Why do we bother wearing this if we’re going to be killed anyway?” They showed the anchor back in the Palestine news studio as she wept as Al-Bashir tore off his helmet and protective vest. Your response to this situation and this whole issue of embedded journalism is the only way the U.S. media can get those reports inside Gaza, where their news reports are reviewed, and the Gazan journalists on the ground being killed one after another, dozens of Palestinian journalists killed?
SHERIF MANSOUR: Well, the Israeli army cannot escape or evade their responsibility under international law not to use unwarranted lethal force against journalists and against media facilities. It would constitute a possible war crime to do so. We have raised directly with Israeli officials the need for them to reform the rules of engagement, to respect press insignia and to ensure there are safeguards, checks when civilians and journalists are around. We have called for Israeli allies, including the U.S. government, European allies, to raise directly these issues, and publicly, with their Israeli counterparts. And we have called for the U.N. Security Council to include safety of journalists on the agenda in any diplomatic discussion.
Of course, the Israeli government are obliged under international law to protect journalists as civilians, but it’s also journalists’ vital role in time of war providing accurate, timely, independent information that gives them these protections under international law. And we want to make sure that the Israeli army, as well, do not continue to push false narratives and smear campaigns to try and justify the killing of those journalists.
AMY GOODMAN: Sherif Mansour, we want to thank you for being with us, Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, speaking to us from Philadelphia.
Coming up, the acclaimed Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha has been detained at an Israeli checkpoint in Gaza, his whereabouts now unknown. Back in 20 seconds.
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Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha Freed After Being Abducted in Gaza & Beaten by Israeli Forces in Jail
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/21 ... transcript
Transcript
Israeli troops detained and reportedly beat the acclaimed Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha after he was stopped at an Israeli military checkpoint Sunday while heading toward the Rafah border crossing with his family in Gaza. His whereabouts had been unknown until today, when news emerged that he had been released. According to the Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu, Abu Toha was taken to an Israeli prison in the Naqab, where he was interrogated and beaten along with more than 200 other Palestinians who remain in detention. We play excerpts from Abu Toha’s recent appearance on Democracy Now! and speak to Buttu, who says, “Mosab’s story is like that of so many Palestinians in Gaza.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Calls all growing across the globe for Israel to immediately release the acclaimed Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha, who was detained at an Israeli military checkpoint in Gaza this weekend while heading toward the Rafah border crossing with his family. His whereabouts are unknown.
His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Progressive and other publications. He founded the Edward Said Library in Gaza. His first book of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, won the American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The poetry collection was published by City Lights Books.
In a recent essay in The New Yorker magazine, Abu Toha wrote, “I sit in my temporary house in the Jabalia camp, waiting for a ceasefire. I feel like I am in a cage. I’m being killed every day with my people. The only two things I can do are panic and breathe. There is no hope here,” he wrote.
Mosab Abu Toha appeared on Democracy Now! a few weeks ago.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: I mean, where do we immigrate? We have been — we were born on this land. My parents were born on this land. My grandparents were born on this land. My great-grandparents were born here. But if you ask anyone in Israel, most of them would tell you that their grandparents were born somewhere else. And even I only have a Palestinian passport, which is really not very helpful when I leave Gaza — if I could leave Gaza. … So, where do we go? And Netanyahu, on the second day of the escalation, asked the Palestinians in Gaza to leave. He said, “Leave now.” But where do we leave, and why should we leave? We have nowhere else to go.
AMY GOODMAN: Those the words of the Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha on Democracy Now! in October. His whereabouts are now unknown, after he was taken by Israeli forces at a checkpoint in Gaza.
We’re joined now by Diana Buttu. She is a Palestinian lawyer, former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization, broke the news of Mosab Abu Toha’s kidnapping. She joins us now from Haifa.
Diana, can you talk about what you understand has happened to him?
DIANA BUTTU: Mosab’s story is like that of so many Palestinians in Gaza. He was seeking refuge in the Jabaliya refugee camp. His own home was bombed and shattered to pieces. While he was in Jabaliya refugee camp, the Israelis perpetrated a massacre in Jabaliya, which was 70 meters away from where he was. He twice escaped death.
And his son is an American-born citizen. They, along with the rest of the family, finally got clearance to be able to leave Rafah to go elsewhere. And as they were fleeing from the heavily bombed north of — northern part of the Gaza Strip, they were forced to go through a checkpoint, what was supposed to be a safe passage, on Salah al-Din Road, which is the road that leads from the north to the south. At that checkpoint, at that military area, he, along with hundreds of other people, were forced to raise their hands. He was forced to put his son down on the ground, his young son, 3 years old, raise his hands in the air. And he and hundreds of others, men and women — this has been confirmed by his wife — were then abducted. They weren’t arrested; they were abducted, kidnapped by the Israeli army, with everybody else told to continue on.
His family is not in Rafah. They are still trying to get to the south. It is near impossible to get to the south. And his family still has not heard from him. They have no idea of his whereabouts. We’ve checked everywhere with the ICRC, with representatives of Congress, with the State Department, and nobody has been able to provide us with even the simplest of answers in terms of where he is, why he’s been abducted, what conditions he’s being held under, and when it is that he will be released. And this is why so many are pushing and demanding not only for Mosab’s release, but for the release of the hundreds of Palestinians that Israel has abducted over the course of the past seven weeks.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’m wondering — you’ve commented in the past on the extent to which Israel has been disseminating false information about the war. Could you elaborate on what’s been the effects of that?
DIANA BUTTU: Well, the effect has been that we now see that commercial media are looking and examining the tiny little minutia of disinformation that Israel is putting out, but they seem to ignore the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is that Israel is bombing a 2.2 million-populated refugee camp. Half of them are children.
And we just keep hearing one piece of disinformation after another. We’ve heard them talk about the legality of bombing hospitals, when anybody who has any sense of morality or notion of what’s legal, what’s right, knows that you can’t bomb a hospital. And yet, rather than questioning that, we’ve seen instead that commercial media have been going down the path of simply accepting these truths.
We see this also when it’s come to Mosab, that there’s somehow an allegation that he has done something wrong, rather than people recognizing that this has been a pattern that Israel has been carrying out now for quite some time, for the past seven weeks. It’s been going into Gaza. It’s been abducting people, and without anybody knowing where their whereabouts are. We’ve seen this happen with Palestinian workers who happened — who had permits to be inside Israel, who were then not only abducted, but beaten, with their torture broadcast and put up on TikTok and on Instagram, and, of course, nobody even questioning the legality, the morality of doing any of those sorts of things.
So, the problem has been that they’ve gone down the path of somehow accepting the disinformation rather than questioning it and rather than questioning this big picture of the legality of Israel bombing a large refugee camp. The only reason that they’re refugees is because Israel made them into refugees in the first place.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain more about how you’re trying to get information and attention to Mosab’s case right now? I mean, word is that Israel and Hamas are close to a hostage release agreement. Does this fit into that? Why is it so difficult to deal with Israel and Palestine right now? How are you able to communicate with both?
DIANA BUTTU: In terms of communication, communication is near impossible. And it’s near impossible because the Israelis, a little over two weeks ago, imposed a blackout on telecommunications inside the Gaza Strip. And not only was there a blackout imposed, but it’s also been impossible for roaming to be working. So, of the times that I’m able to reach friends, very dear friends, who are in the Gaza Strip, it usually takes about the entire day to reach one or two friends. Communication is near impossible.
And so, in terms of getting the story of Mosab out, it’s been really just trying to connect with his family, particularly his wife, getting information, and then trying to spread it as wide as possible to friends who — people who know him, who have worked with him, his publisher, the people who have published him in the past, not just his book publisher but others, and trying to get that information going, so that people recognize that it isn’t just the story of Mosab, but it’s the story of thousands of other Palestinians, as well, and, indeed, millions of Palestinians who are now trapped inside the Gaza Strip. It has become near impossible, Amy, to reach people in Gaza, and it’s become near impossible for them to even be able to reach the most basic things, like to contact an ambulance once there is an Israeli bomb, to be able to contact people to remove the rubble, to be able to get to the hospital. All of this has been done under the cover of darkness, and the fact — and yet, at the same time, we’re watching this live. And the fact that nobody is doing anything about it speaks volumes.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to Mosab Abu Toha speaking on Democracy Now! just a few weeks ago.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Last night, my son, who is 3 years old, was sleeping, and there was bad bombing in the area. And he woke up, and he said, “Who did that?” And he said, “Let it stop.” I mean, that was the first time he was asking me to do that, as if I was responsible for the bombing. So, I have nothing to do as a father. I have nothing to do as a neighbor or as a son. We are helpless here. We have been helpless all our lives, while the United States, unfortunately, is always stepping in to support Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: The words of the Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha, speaking on Democracy Now! a few weeks ago. To see the whole interview, go to democracynow.org. I also want to thank Diana Buttu, Palestinian lawyer, former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization, speaking to us from Haifa.
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Becca Balint, First Jewish Congressmember to Back Ceasefire, Expresses Support for Rashida Tlaib
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/21 ... transcript
Transcript
Dozens of members of Congress are now calling for a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities in Israel and occupied Palestine. We speak to Democratic Congressmember Becca Balint of Vermont, the first Jewish member of Congress to join these calls. “The horrific violence has to stop. Hostages must be released. We have to end the suffering in Gaza. Palestinians and Israelis both deserve safety and security. And now more than ever, I believe that we need a true, negotiated ceasefire to get to a two-state solution,” Balint says of her position. We also discuss her friendship with fellow Democratic congressmember and the only Palestinian American in Congress, Rashida Tlaib.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We turn now to the growing calls for a ceasefire in Gaza coming from lawmakers in Washington. On Monday, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon became the second senator to demand a ceasefire, joining Dick Durbin of Illinois. According to one count, 42 members of Congress have now called for a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities in Israel and occupied Palestine.
We’re joined now by Democratic Congressmember Becca Balint of Vermont. Last week she became the first Jewish member of Congress to call for a ceasefire.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Congressmember Balint. Thanks so much for joining us. Talk about why you’ve made this decision. You’re senator from Vermont. Bernie Sanders is not there yet, but you are. Talk about why.
REP. BECCA BALINT: So, I want to be really clear, Amy, with folks who are listening and watching, that I wrote the op-ed to express to Vermonters — it was really geared towards my constituents, and I should have anticipated that it might get national attention, but I actually didn’t. So, I wrote it for Vermonters, and what I wanted to do was really give voice to all the things that I had been feeling and thinking and wrestling with since the beginning of October, and wanted to articulate clearly for Vermonters what I thought needed to happen, so, you know, wanted to just lay it out there: The horrific violence has to stop. Hostages must be released. We have to end the suffering in Gaza. Palestinians and Israelis both deserve safety and security. And now more than ever, I believe that we need a true, negotiated ceasefire to get to a two-state solution.
And as you mentioned, both my senators here in Vermont have not yet made the call. But I know, in my conversations with them, that we actually want the same things. Where we differ is just in the strategy that is needed to get us there. But we all want to find a way to stop the violence, to stop the bombing. We don’t want to continue to see innocent civilians, including so many children and babies, die. And I just felt that it was really important for me to articulate clearly for Vermonters all of the complexity I was holding. And I honestly — when we released the op-ed, I was very focused on how my constituents would feel about what I said, and I didn’t anticipate that I was the first Jewish member of Congress to call specifically for a negotiated ceasefire, because I know we’ve been saying a lot of the same things for weeks. So, what I do know is there are no exact words right now that will sum up the totality of what we are all thinking and feeling about this situation, but I do know that we have complete agreement on an immediate cessation of hostilities, pausing the violence, ending the suffering, and trying to get to a negotiated ceasefire that will hold.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Representative, you’ve said that you and Representative Rashida Tlaib have been brought together by your people’s suffering and are now friends. Could you talk about the vitriol directed toward her as the only —
REP. BECCA BALINT: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — Palestinian congresswoman?
REP. BECCA BALINT: Yes. I really appreciate the question. It’s disgusting. The Islamophobia right now is completely and totally out of control. And I was disgusted by the fact that colleagues are trying to go after the one Palestinian American member of Congress.
And as I said, you know, Rashida and I became friends early on in my tenure. We were brought together, I think, by — we both have big hearts. And she’s known a little bit like a mama bear in the caucus. She is very loving and gentle towards, you know, specifically new members, like making sure we have what we needed. I was really drawn to her because we are, as I said, two people that have people within our family that have endured suffering over a very long time. We are both parents to teenagers, and we share the struggles of that.
And actually, I don’t think it’s betraying a trust to say, you know, she sent me a message last week saying what she hopes is that in the future she and I will be able to walk together in a true democratic Palestine and in Israel, both of us together as friends, as people who understand the horrific suffering that is going on right now.
And I have really tried to use my platform, and will continue to do so, to stand up against the Islamophobia, and also the antisemitism. And we’ve discussed this, as well, that you can be critical of Israel, and you should be critical of Israel and Netanyahu and the policies — and I’ve never shied away from that — and I also am very uncomfortable in this moment by some of the outrageous antisemitism hurled at Jewish members of Congress, specifically progressive Jewish members of Congress who are trying to do the right thing in figuring out the correct strategy going forward. But, you know, Rashida will always be what I call one of my heart people.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, on the day after Rashida Tlaib was censured by the House of Representatives, we brought on Marione Ingram, 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, protesting outside the White House, calling for a ceasefire, and she condemned the censure —
REP. BECCA BALINT: Thanks.
AMY GOODMAN: — of your colleague, [Representative] Tlaib.
I want to thank you very much, Democratic Congressmember Becca Balint of Vermont. She is the first openly LGBTQ member to represent Vermont in Congress, the first congresswoman to represent Vermont, and now the first Jewish member of Congress to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. We’ll link to her op-ed in the VTDigger headlined “Cease-fire needed to stop bloodshed in Israel-Hamas conflict.”
Coming up, we go to Argentina, where the far-right political outsider Javier Milei has been elected president. He’s called “the Trump of Argentina.” The first to congratulate him was President Trump and the former Brazilian President Bolsonaro. Back in 20 seconds.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “En el país de la libertad,” “In a Country of Liberty,” by the Argentine León Gieco, who signed a letter protesting Milei’s erasure of the horrors of Argentina’s 1976 to 1983 right-wing dictatorship that killed over 30,000 Argentinians.
November 21, 2023
WHO Says Israeli Attacks Have Taken All of Northern Gaza’s Hospitals Out of Service
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/21/headlines
The Palestinian Health Ministry says all hospitals in northern Gaza are now out of service amid repeated assaults by Israeli forces on medical centers. The World Health Organization said it was working to evacuate remaining patients from Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in the besieged Palestinian territory, along with the Indonesian and Al-Ahli hospitals. Hundreds of patients — many of them injured in Israeli strikes — remain trapped in medical centers which have effectively ceased functioning. A WHO official in Geneva said Israel’s assault is “robbing the entire population of the north of the means to seek healthcare.”
U.N. Chief Condemns Israel’s “Unparalleled and Unprecedented” Attacks on Civilians
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
There’s been no letup in Israel’s bombing campaign. In one of the latest attacks, at least 20 Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces bombed the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Palestinian officials say more than 13,300 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes — over 5,000 of them children. On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres marked World Children’s Day, the U.N.’s annual day of action for children, with a call to stop the carnage.
Secretary-General António Guterres: “What is clear is that we have had in a few weeks thousands of children killed. So this is what matters. We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict since I am secretary-general.”
Israeli Attacks Kill Palestinian Journalists in Gaza and Media Workers in Lebanon
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
The chairman of the Gaza Press House has been killed by Israel’s military. Belal Jadallah was heading to the south of the Gaza Strip when he was killed by an Israeli tank shell in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Belal Jadallah was known as the “Godfather” of Palestinian journalism. He helped train generations of reporters and welcomed foreign correspondents to the Gaza Strip.
In northern Gaza, 27-year-old digital content and podcast presenter Ayat Khaddura has reportedly been killed along with her family in an Israeli airstrike. This is one of her last video reports.
Ayat Khaddura: “We’re separated, of course. I and a few others remain at home, while the rest have evacuated, and we don’t know where they went. The situation is very scary. The situation is very terrifying. What is happening is very difficult. May God have mercy on us.”
In southern Lebanon, two journalists with the Beirut-based TV channel Al Mayadeen have been killed in an Israeli airstrike. The network says camera operator Rabih Al-Me’mari and correspondent Farah Omar were deliberately targeted by an Israeli warplane after reporting on the latest Israeli bombardment of south Lebanon. A third civilian traveling with them was also killed in the attack.
At least 50 journalists and media workers, most of them Palestinian, have been killed in the region since October 7. We’ll have more on this story after headlines.
Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha Abducted by Israeli Troops at Gaza Checkpoint
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
The Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha has been released, following his abduction by Israeli soldiers while trying to leave the Gaza Strip with his family. Abu Toha had been heading to the southern Rafah border crossing when he was seized by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint. His family had not heard from him until Tuesday. Mosab Abu Toha is an author, columnist, teacher and founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza. Click here to see our recent interview with him, and we’ll have more on his abduction later in the broadcast.
Families of Israeli Hostages Blast Bill to Impose Death Sentence on Hamas Members
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
In Jerusalem, far-right members of Israeli’s parliament on Monday got into a shouting match with family members of hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza. Lawmakers were debating a bill to impose the death penalty on “terrorists.” The bill was advanced by Israel’s ultranationalist national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was once convicted by an Israeli court of racist incitement against Palestinians and supporting a terrorist group. Family members condemned the death penalty bill, saying it endangered efforts to win the release of their abducted relatives. This is Udi Goren, whose cousin is being held captive in Gaza.
Udi Goren: “This is incredibly disappointing, because I feel that at this point, when we know that taking down Hamas, we keep hearing from them, is going to take months or years, and it’s going to take a long time; on the other hand, the other objective is time-sensitive. People are dying. We know that for sure.”
One hostage family member yelled at Ben-Gvir in the Knesset session, “You care more about killing Arabs than saving Jewish lives.”
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports Qatar-brokered talks for a deal that would see Hamas release some of its hostages in exchange for a three- to five-day pause in fighting are at a “critical and final stage.” Hamas officials said they were “close to reaching a truce agreement.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley Calls for Gaza Ceasefire: “Too Many Civilians and Children Have Died”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
The White House has pushed back after the Center for Constitutional Rights sued President Biden, accusing him of failing to prevent genocide in the Gaza Strip. On Monday, White House spokesperson John Kirby called the allegations “pretty inappropriate” and said only Hamas has genocidal intentions, not Israel’s government.
John Kirby: “Yes, there are too many civilian casualties in Gaza. Yes, the numbers are too high. Yes, too many families are grieving. And, yes, we continue to urge the Israelis to be as careful and cautious as possible. That’s not going to stop, from the president right on down. But Israel is not trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel is not trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat.”
Those remarks from the White House came as Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon became just the second senator to demand a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, joining Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin. Merkley wrote, “By waging a war that generates a shocking level of civilian carnage rather than a targeted campaign against Hamas, Israel is burning through its reserves of international support. Too many civilians and too many children have died, and we must value each and every child equally whether they are Israeli or Palestinian.”
Protesters Rally at Seattle Space Needle to Demand Gaza Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
In Seattle, hundreds of people blocked the main entrance of the Space Needle observation tower Sunday in a Jewish-led peaceful act of civil disobedience calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Protesters flew a 40-foot-tall banner that read “Ceasefire Now!” in the air buoyed by large balloons. They’re demanding Washington Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats, join growing congressional calls for a ceasefire. The action was organized by the Seattle chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace.
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A Grim Milestone: Journalist Death Toll Tops 53 as Israel Kills More Reporters in Gaza and Lebanon
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/21 ... transcript
Transcript
The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that at least 50 journalists and media workers have been killed in Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. Forty-five of the slain journalists have been Palestinian. Others have been arrested or injured. According to CPJ, this has been the deadliest period for journalists covering conflict since the media group began tracking deaths over 30 years ago. Meanwhile, journalists in Israel and the West Bank have been confronted with cyberattacks, physical assault and other forms of censorship for allegedly “harming national morale and harming national security” while reporting on Israel. It’s a “news blackout,” says CPJ’s program coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Sherif Mansour, under which the Israeli government is blocking “essential media coverage” and withholding “lifesaving information” from Gaza in order to win its Western propaganda war.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s been another devastating 24 hours in Gaza and southern Lebanon for journalists covering the 46-day Israeli bombardment. The Beirut-based TV channel Al Mayadeen has just announced two of its journalists were killed today in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon. The network says correspondent Farah Omar and camera operator Rabih Al-Me’mari were deliberately targeted by an Israeli warplane after reporting on Israel’s latest bombardment of south Lebanon.
Meanwhile, in northern Gaza, Ayat Khaddura, a 27-year-old digital content and podcast presenter, has been reportedly killed along with her family in an Israeli airstrike. This is Ayat, one of her last video reports.
AYAT KHADDURA: [translated] This may be the last video for me. Today, the occupation dropped phosphorus bombs on the Beit Lahia project area and scary sound bombs and threw evacuation notices in the area. And, of course, almost the entire area has evacuated. Everyone started running madly in the streets. No one knows neither where they’re going to or coming from. We’re separated, of course. I and a few others remain at home, while the rest have evacuated, and we don’t know where they went. The situation is very scary. The situation is very terrifying. What is happening is very difficult. May God have mercy on us.
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday, the head of the Gaza Press House was also killed by the Israeli military. Belal Jadallah was heading to southern Gaza when he was killed by an Israeli tank shell in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Belal was known as the “Godfather” of Palestinian journalism. He helped train generations of reporters and welcomed foreign correspondents and sponsored them when covering the Gaza Strip.
The Committee to Protect Journalists Monday announced a grim milestone had been reached with at least 50 journalists and media workers killed since October 7th. Forty-five of the journalists have been Palestinian. There have been three Israeli journalists killed, and there have been at least three Lebanese journalists killed. CPJ reports 11 journalists have been injured, three are reported missing, and 18 have been arrested. According to CPJ, the past month and a half has been the deadliest period of journalists covering the conflict since the media group began tracking these deaths over 30 years ago.
We go now to Philadelphia, where we’re joined by Sherif Mansour, the Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Sherif, welcome back to Democracy Now!, under horrific circumstances. The U.N. secretary-general says that the number of civilian deaths is “unparalleled and unprecedented.” Of course, journalists are civilians. As I woke up this morning, I got one text after another, first the young woman and her cameraman in southern Lebanon killed about an hour after she posted a video report. She’s standing in a field in southern Lebanon, and she’s talking about the Israeli military killing civilians. She and her cameraman are then hit and killed. And then, as I’m learning their names, another text comes in. This young reporter in northern Gaza is killed, even as she says in her report, “I fear I will die.” Can you talk about this latest news and then a man you have come to know, who worked with you on a CPJ report, the head of the Gaza journalists’ association, also killed in an airstrike?
SHERIF MANSOUR: Thank you, Amy, for having me.
I remember being on your show a little bit more of a month ago and saying, for journalists in the region, this is a deadly time. And it was the deadliest week back then. It became the deadliest month and now the deadliest six weeks on our record. I was not exaggerating. I was not speculating.
The killing of Belal Jadallah, who helped us document this deadly pattern of journalists being killed by Israeli fire over 21 years — just in May, we made a profile of 20 journalists. The majority, 18, were Palestinians. And he, Jadallah, his center have helped identify them, their families, get us their pictures. And on Sunday, he became a victim of this same deadly pattern when he was killed in his car. Jadallah has also provided crucial safety equipment for journalists in order to do their job safely. And he opened the Press House for journalists to use the electricity and internet when there was no other place.
This deadly pattern has existed before. It’s getting more deadly per day. We are investigating the three more killing today, adding to 50 as of yesterday. We’ve never seen anything like this. It’s unprecedented. And for journalists in Gaza specifically, the exponential risk is possibly the most dangerous we have seen. Journalists were killed in the very early stages at the two entry and exit points from Gaza — in the south, the Rafah crossing; in the north, the Erez crossing. And since then, they were killed everywhere in between. They were killed in the south in Rafah City, in Khan Younis, where they were told it’s going to be safe. They were killed in the middle in the Gaza Strip. And they were killed in the north in Gaza City. They have no safe haven. They have no exit.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Sherif, could you talk, as well, about the arrests of journalists in Gaza and the Occupied Territories? And also, your organization has criticized, as well, Israel for its censorship within Israel of the press in Israel. Could you talk about that, as well?
SHERIF MANSOUR: Well, we have documented separately from the casualties list, which includes journalists going missing, injured, the escalation of arrests. As of yesterday, 18 Palestinian journalists from the West Bank were arrested. Many of them were put in administrative detention, in military prosecutions. In addition, dozens of cases of censorship, direct censorship, cyberattacks, physical assaults, obstruction from coverage within the West Bank and within Israel.
In Israel, an emergency legislation has now given the government for the first time the unprecedented power of shutting down international media organization, including acting on Al Mayadeen — which two journalists were killed today in Lebanon — banning them in Israel, and allowing the government also to jail even Israeli journalists for up to a year under suspicious and these accusations of harming national morale and harming national security.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Also, here in the United States, we are getting much coverage on the commercial media of the war, of the Israeli war in Gaza, but it’s all of U.S. journalists that are basically based in Israel, and there are no U.S. journalists that I’ve seen that are actually in Gaza. And those who do go in only go in with the Israeli army and under the condition that Israel must review all of their videotape beforehand and approve it before it can go out. I’m wondering your sense of how the American people — what kind of story they’re getting as a result of these conditions?
SHERIF MANSOUR: Well, these conditions put local Palestinian photojournalists and freelancers at the most risk. They are the ones on the frontlines. We have not — we have seen a dwindling number of international media and international journalists within Gaza over the years because of the risks involved. And right now the Palestinian journalists are bearing the brunt of this risk and this heavy toll.
Of course, these casualties, the censorship is also coupled with communication blackouts for, to date, since the start of the war, that makes this more often news blackout, not just communication blackout. And, of course, that denies journalists a voice. It also denies people in the region and worldwide of essential media coverage, lifesaving information for 2 million Palestinians who are struggling to find food, clean water and shelter right now, but millions and hundreds of millions all over the world who are following this heartbreaking conflict and try to understand it, including in the U.S.
AMY GOODMAN: So, as Juan said, Sherif, you have — the Israeli military says they cannot guarantee the lives of journalists that go into Gaza. In early November — I’m just thinking back to a few weeks ago — the Palestine News Agency reported that their journalist Mohammad Abu Hattab was killed in an Israeli strike on his home in southern Gaza Strip along with 11 members of his family, including his wife, son and brother. His colleague, journalist Salman Al-Bashir, burst into tears during a live broadcast upon learning of Abu Hattab’s killing. As he spoke, Al-Bashir tore off his helmet and protective vest, labeled “press,” and threw them to the ground. And then there was a split screen, as he ripped off his gear, saying, “Why do we bother wearing this if we’re going to be killed anyway?” They showed the anchor back in the Palestine news studio as she wept as Al-Bashir tore off his helmet and protective vest. Your response to this situation and this whole issue of embedded journalism is the only way the U.S. media can get those reports inside Gaza, where their news reports are reviewed, and the Gazan journalists on the ground being killed one after another, dozens of Palestinian journalists killed?
SHERIF MANSOUR: Well, the Israeli army cannot escape or evade their responsibility under international law not to use unwarranted lethal force against journalists and against media facilities. It would constitute a possible war crime to do so. We have raised directly with Israeli officials the need for them to reform the rules of engagement, to respect press insignia and to ensure there are safeguards, checks when civilians and journalists are around. We have called for Israeli allies, including the U.S. government, European allies, to raise directly these issues, and publicly, with their Israeli counterparts. And we have called for the U.N. Security Council to include safety of journalists on the agenda in any diplomatic discussion.
Of course, the Israeli government are obliged under international law to protect journalists as civilians, but it’s also journalists’ vital role in time of war providing accurate, timely, independent information that gives them these protections under international law. And we want to make sure that the Israeli army, as well, do not continue to push false narratives and smear campaigns to try and justify the killing of those journalists.
AMY GOODMAN: Sherif Mansour, we want to thank you for being with us, Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, speaking to us from Philadelphia.
Coming up, the acclaimed Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha has been detained at an Israeli checkpoint in Gaza, his whereabouts now unknown. Back in 20 seconds.
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Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha Freed After Being Abducted in Gaza & Beaten by Israeli Forces in Jail
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/21 ... transcript
Transcript
Israeli troops detained and reportedly beat the acclaimed Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha after he was stopped at an Israeli military checkpoint Sunday while heading toward the Rafah border crossing with his family in Gaza. His whereabouts had been unknown until today, when news emerged that he had been released. According to the Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu, Abu Toha was taken to an Israeli prison in the Naqab, where he was interrogated and beaten along with more than 200 other Palestinians who remain in detention. We play excerpts from Abu Toha’s recent appearance on Democracy Now! and speak to Buttu, who says, “Mosab’s story is like that of so many Palestinians in Gaza.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Calls all growing across the globe for Israel to immediately release the acclaimed Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha, who was detained at an Israeli military checkpoint in Gaza this weekend while heading toward the Rafah border crossing with his family. His whereabouts are unknown.
His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Progressive and other publications. He founded the Edward Said Library in Gaza. His first book of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, won the American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The poetry collection was published by City Lights Books.
In a recent essay in The New Yorker magazine, Abu Toha wrote, “I sit in my temporary house in the Jabalia camp, waiting for a ceasefire. I feel like I am in a cage. I’m being killed every day with my people. The only two things I can do are panic and breathe. There is no hope here,” he wrote.
Mosab Abu Toha appeared on Democracy Now! a few weeks ago.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: I mean, where do we immigrate? We have been — we were born on this land. My parents were born on this land. My grandparents were born on this land. My great-grandparents were born here. But if you ask anyone in Israel, most of them would tell you that their grandparents were born somewhere else. And even I only have a Palestinian passport, which is really not very helpful when I leave Gaza — if I could leave Gaza. … So, where do we go? And Netanyahu, on the second day of the escalation, asked the Palestinians in Gaza to leave. He said, “Leave now.” But where do we leave, and why should we leave? We have nowhere else to go.
AMY GOODMAN: Those the words of the Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha on Democracy Now! in October. His whereabouts are now unknown, after he was taken by Israeli forces at a checkpoint in Gaza.
We’re joined now by Diana Buttu. She is a Palestinian lawyer, former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization, broke the news of Mosab Abu Toha’s kidnapping. She joins us now from Haifa.
Diana, can you talk about what you understand has happened to him?
DIANA BUTTU: Mosab’s story is like that of so many Palestinians in Gaza. He was seeking refuge in the Jabaliya refugee camp. His own home was bombed and shattered to pieces. While he was in Jabaliya refugee camp, the Israelis perpetrated a massacre in Jabaliya, which was 70 meters away from where he was. He twice escaped death.
And his son is an American-born citizen. They, along with the rest of the family, finally got clearance to be able to leave Rafah to go elsewhere. And as they were fleeing from the heavily bombed north of — northern part of the Gaza Strip, they were forced to go through a checkpoint, what was supposed to be a safe passage, on Salah al-Din Road, which is the road that leads from the north to the south. At that checkpoint, at that military area, he, along with hundreds of other people, were forced to raise their hands. He was forced to put his son down on the ground, his young son, 3 years old, raise his hands in the air. And he and hundreds of others, men and women — this has been confirmed by his wife — were then abducted. They weren’t arrested; they were abducted, kidnapped by the Israeli army, with everybody else told to continue on.
His family is not in Rafah. They are still trying to get to the south. It is near impossible to get to the south. And his family still has not heard from him. They have no idea of his whereabouts. We’ve checked everywhere with the ICRC, with representatives of Congress, with the State Department, and nobody has been able to provide us with even the simplest of answers in terms of where he is, why he’s been abducted, what conditions he’s being held under, and when it is that he will be released. And this is why so many are pushing and demanding not only for Mosab’s release, but for the release of the hundreds of Palestinians that Israel has abducted over the course of the past seven weeks.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’m wondering — you’ve commented in the past on the extent to which Israel has been disseminating false information about the war. Could you elaborate on what’s been the effects of that?
DIANA BUTTU: Well, the effect has been that we now see that commercial media are looking and examining the tiny little minutia of disinformation that Israel is putting out, but they seem to ignore the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is that Israel is bombing a 2.2 million-populated refugee camp. Half of them are children.
And we just keep hearing one piece of disinformation after another. We’ve heard them talk about the legality of bombing hospitals, when anybody who has any sense of morality or notion of what’s legal, what’s right, knows that you can’t bomb a hospital. And yet, rather than questioning that, we’ve seen instead that commercial media have been going down the path of simply accepting these truths.
We see this also when it’s come to Mosab, that there’s somehow an allegation that he has done something wrong, rather than people recognizing that this has been a pattern that Israel has been carrying out now for quite some time, for the past seven weeks. It’s been going into Gaza. It’s been abducting people, and without anybody knowing where their whereabouts are. We’ve seen this happen with Palestinian workers who happened — who had permits to be inside Israel, who were then not only abducted, but beaten, with their torture broadcast and put up on TikTok and on Instagram, and, of course, nobody even questioning the legality, the morality of doing any of those sorts of things.
So, the problem has been that they’ve gone down the path of somehow accepting the disinformation rather than questioning it and rather than questioning this big picture of the legality of Israel bombing a large refugee camp. The only reason that they’re refugees is because Israel made them into refugees in the first place.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain more about how you’re trying to get information and attention to Mosab’s case right now? I mean, word is that Israel and Hamas are close to a hostage release agreement. Does this fit into that? Why is it so difficult to deal with Israel and Palestine right now? How are you able to communicate with both?
DIANA BUTTU: In terms of communication, communication is near impossible. And it’s near impossible because the Israelis, a little over two weeks ago, imposed a blackout on telecommunications inside the Gaza Strip. And not only was there a blackout imposed, but it’s also been impossible for roaming to be working. So, of the times that I’m able to reach friends, very dear friends, who are in the Gaza Strip, it usually takes about the entire day to reach one or two friends. Communication is near impossible.
And so, in terms of getting the story of Mosab out, it’s been really just trying to connect with his family, particularly his wife, getting information, and then trying to spread it as wide as possible to friends who — people who know him, who have worked with him, his publisher, the people who have published him in the past, not just his book publisher but others, and trying to get that information going, so that people recognize that it isn’t just the story of Mosab, but it’s the story of thousands of other Palestinians, as well, and, indeed, millions of Palestinians who are now trapped inside the Gaza Strip. It has become near impossible, Amy, to reach people in Gaza, and it’s become near impossible for them to even be able to reach the most basic things, like to contact an ambulance once there is an Israeli bomb, to be able to contact people to remove the rubble, to be able to get to the hospital. All of this has been done under the cover of darkness, and the fact — and yet, at the same time, we’re watching this live. And the fact that nobody is doing anything about it speaks volumes.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to Mosab Abu Toha speaking on Democracy Now! just a few weeks ago.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Last night, my son, who is 3 years old, was sleeping, and there was bad bombing in the area. And he woke up, and he said, “Who did that?” And he said, “Let it stop.” I mean, that was the first time he was asking me to do that, as if I was responsible for the bombing. So, I have nothing to do as a father. I have nothing to do as a neighbor or as a son. We are helpless here. We have been helpless all our lives, while the United States, unfortunately, is always stepping in to support Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: The words of the Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha, speaking on Democracy Now! a few weeks ago. To see the whole interview, go to democracynow.org. I also want to thank Diana Buttu, Palestinian lawyer, former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization, speaking to us from Haifa.
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Becca Balint, First Jewish Congressmember to Back Ceasefire, Expresses Support for Rashida Tlaib
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 21, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/21 ... transcript
Transcript
Dozens of members of Congress are now calling for a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities in Israel and occupied Palestine. We speak to Democratic Congressmember Becca Balint of Vermont, the first Jewish member of Congress to join these calls. “The horrific violence has to stop. Hostages must be released. We have to end the suffering in Gaza. Palestinians and Israelis both deserve safety and security. And now more than ever, I believe that we need a true, negotiated ceasefire to get to a two-state solution,” Balint says of her position. We also discuss her friendship with fellow Democratic congressmember and the only Palestinian American in Congress, Rashida Tlaib.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We turn now to the growing calls for a ceasefire in Gaza coming from lawmakers in Washington. On Monday, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon became the second senator to demand a ceasefire, joining Dick Durbin of Illinois. According to one count, 42 members of Congress have now called for a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities in Israel and occupied Palestine.
We’re joined now by Democratic Congressmember Becca Balint of Vermont. Last week she became the first Jewish member of Congress to call for a ceasefire.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Congressmember Balint. Thanks so much for joining us. Talk about why you’ve made this decision. You’re senator from Vermont. Bernie Sanders is not there yet, but you are. Talk about why.
REP. BECCA BALINT: So, I want to be really clear, Amy, with folks who are listening and watching, that I wrote the op-ed to express to Vermonters — it was really geared towards my constituents, and I should have anticipated that it might get national attention, but I actually didn’t. So, I wrote it for Vermonters, and what I wanted to do was really give voice to all the things that I had been feeling and thinking and wrestling with since the beginning of October, and wanted to articulate clearly for Vermonters what I thought needed to happen, so, you know, wanted to just lay it out there: The horrific violence has to stop. Hostages must be released. We have to end the suffering in Gaza. Palestinians and Israelis both deserve safety and security. And now more than ever, I believe that we need a true, negotiated ceasefire to get to a two-state solution.
And as you mentioned, both my senators here in Vermont have not yet made the call. But I know, in my conversations with them, that we actually want the same things. Where we differ is just in the strategy that is needed to get us there. But we all want to find a way to stop the violence, to stop the bombing. We don’t want to continue to see innocent civilians, including so many children and babies, die. And I just felt that it was really important for me to articulate clearly for Vermonters all of the complexity I was holding. And I honestly — when we released the op-ed, I was very focused on how my constituents would feel about what I said, and I didn’t anticipate that I was the first Jewish member of Congress to call specifically for a negotiated ceasefire, because I know we’ve been saying a lot of the same things for weeks. So, what I do know is there are no exact words right now that will sum up the totality of what we are all thinking and feeling about this situation, but I do know that we have complete agreement on an immediate cessation of hostilities, pausing the violence, ending the suffering, and trying to get to a negotiated ceasefire that will hold.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Representative, you’ve said that you and Representative Rashida Tlaib have been brought together by your people’s suffering and are now friends. Could you talk about the vitriol directed toward her as the only —
REP. BECCA BALINT: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — Palestinian congresswoman?
REP. BECCA BALINT: Yes. I really appreciate the question. It’s disgusting. The Islamophobia right now is completely and totally out of control. And I was disgusted by the fact that colleagues are trying to go after the one Palestinian American member of Congress.
And as I said, you know, Rashida and I became friends early on in my tenure. We were brought together, I think, by — we both have big hearts. And she’s known a little bit like a mama bear in the caucus. She is very loving and gentle towards, you know, specifically new members, like making sure we have what we needed. I was really drawn to her because we are, as I said, two people that have people within our family that have endured suffering over a very long time. We are both parents to teenagers, and we share the struggles of that.
And actually, I don’t think it’s betraying a trust to say, you know, she sent me a message last week saying what she hopes is that in the future she and I will be able to walk together in a true democratic Palestine and in Israel, both of us together as friends, as people who understand the horrific suffering that is going on right now.
And I have really tried to use my platform, and will continue to do so, to stand up against the Islamophobia, and also the antisemitism. And we’ve discussed this, as well, that you can be critical of Israel, and you should be critical of Israel and Netanyahu and the policies — and I’ve never shied away from that — and I also am very uncomfortable in this moment by some of the outrageous antisemitism hurled at Jewish members of Congress, specifically progressive Jewish members of Congress who are trying to do the right thing in figuring out the correct strategy going forward. But, you know, Rashida will always be what I call one of my heart people.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, on the day after Rashida Tlaib was censured by the House of Representatives, we brought on Marione Ingram, 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, protesting outside the White House, calling for a ceasefire, and she condemned the censure —
REP. BECCA BALINT: Thanks.
AMY GOODMAN: — of your colleague, [Representative] Tlaib.
I want to thank you very much, Democratic Congressmember Becca Balint of Vermont. She is the first openly LGBTQ member to represent Vermont in Congress, the first congresswoman to represent Vermont, and now the first Jewish member of Congress to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. We’ll link to her op-ed in the VTDigger headlined “Cease-fire needed to stop bloodshed in Israel-Hamas conflict.”
Coming up, we go to Argentina, where the far-right political outsider Javier Milei has been elected president. He’s called “the Trump of Argentina.” The first to congratulate him was President Trump and the former Brazilian President Bolsonaro. Back in 20 seconds.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “En el país de la libertad,” “In a Country of Liberty,” by the Argentine León Gieco, who signed a letter protesting Milei’s erasure of the horrors of Argentina’s 1976 to 1983 right-wing dictatorship that killed over 30,000 Argentinians.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Tue Nov 28, 2023 3:17 am
DemocracyNow! Headlines
November 22, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2023/11/22
Israel Continues Deadly Attacks as 4-Day Truce Announced, Gaza Death Toll Tops 14,100
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
Israel and Hamas have agreed to a four-day pause in fighting and to exchange 50 hostages held in Gaza for 150 Palestinian women and children in Israeli prisons. The short-term truce will also allow for the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The deal was mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the U.S. The temporary truce will start Thursday at 10 a.m. local time. The death toll in Gaza has topped 14,100 people after nearly seven weeks of nonstop Israeli attacks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it does not mean Israel will end its war on Gaza, as it continued its deadly attacks on the besieged territory, including in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. This man lost 15 members of his family, including children, in an Israeli airstrike earlier today in a residential area of Khan Younis.
Kamal Kalouseh: “This ceasefire deal won’t bring safety from Israelis. They may betray it. They may not continue with it. If there is no real ceasefire deal that ends this, it is not worthy.”
Reporter: “Aren’t you optimistic?”
Kamal Kalouseh: “No, no, I am not optimistic, but I am apprehensive that the attacks will be fiercer than before the ceasefire.”
We’ll have more on the truce deal after headlines. Separately, an Israeli drone strike killed at least five Palestinians in the Tulkarm camp in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian officials say Israeli forces also raided the emergency department of the Thabet Thabet Hospital in Tulkarm.
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Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital Under Siege; WHO Mourns Employee Killed with Family in Israeli Strike
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
Israel’s assault on Gaza’s health system continues. At least 100 Palestinians were killed overnight and this morning in attacks around hospitals and refugee camps. Israeli forces have encircled the Indonesian Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip and have ordered staff to evacuate. There are still hundreds of patients inside, including 50 in critical condition. The head of the Indonesian Hospital, Sarbini Abdul Murad, wrote an open letter to President Biden urging him to listen to his conscience and respect international norms. Murad writes, “You have destroyed the international rules of the game, insulted the authority of the UN, torn apart the sense of justice, and hurt human values, and tarnished the face of human civilization.” Israeli shelling has killed at least 12 people in the Indonesian Hospital.
The World Health Organization says it is struggling to evacuate hospitals in the north.
Christian Lindmeier: “Over 30% of the deaths and injuries are in the south of Gaza, in the so-called safe area. Over 30% of the deaths are in the south of Gaza. Then came the bombing and the attacks of the hospitals, and now no more hospital is functioning in the north. Colleagues from MSF have been reporting that they were attacked, too, one of the last resorts there. So, taking away healthcare of people is taking away the last resort, is taking away the last piece of humanity. And that’s what’s happening right now.”
The WHO announced one of the agency’s staff members was killed when Israel bombed her parents’ house in southern Gaza. Dima Alhaj was among more than 50 people killed in the strike, including her 6-month-old baby, her husband and two brothers.
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Three Doctors, Including Members of MSF, Killed in Strike on Al-Awda Hospital
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
Doctors Without Borders said two of its doctors were killed in an Israeli strike on the Al-Awda Hospital. Doctors Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and Ahmad Al Sahar were killed alongside their colleague Dr. Ziad Al-Tatari. Doctors Without Borders said it has repeatedly told Israel it is a functioning hospital, and shared its GPS coordinates with Israeli authorities one day before the deadly attack. There are still some 200 patients at Al-Awda.
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Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha and Family Released After Abduction by IDF
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
The Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha has been released, following his abduction by Israeli soldiers while trying to leave the Gaza Strip with his family. Abu Toha had been heading to the southern Rafah border crossing when he was seized by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint. He is said to be receiving medical treatment after being beaten by Israeli soldiers.
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BRICS Leaders Call for “Durable Truce”; South African Lawmakers Vote to Suspend Ties with Israel
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
Leaders at a virtual summit of BRICS nations called Tuesday for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce” in Gaza and the release of all captive civilians. The original BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — were joined by the coalition’s newest members — Egypt, Ethiopia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran — at Tuesday’s high-level meeting. In contrast to the U.S. and many European nations, the majority of BRICS countries, including China and Russia, have called for a ceasefire. The summit’s host, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, forcefully condemned Israel’s assault on Gaza.
President Cyril Ramaphosa: “The collective punishment of Palestinian civilians through the unlawful use of force by Israel is a war crime. The deliberate denial of medicine, fuel, food and water to the residents of Gaza is tantamount to genocide.”
South Africa’s Parliament voted on Tuesday to suspend diplomatic ties with Israel and close its embassy in Pretoria until a ceasefire is reached. Such actions, however, will ultimately be up to President Ramaphosa.
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Ro Khanna Joins Congressional Call for Gaza Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
California Congressmember Ro Khanna has become the 43rd Democratic lawmaker to call for a ceasefire. Activists and Khanna’s constituents have been pressuring the powerful lawmaker to sign onto a House ceasefire resolution, including occupying his office last month.
In related news, the Detroit City Council on Tuesday became the largest U.S. city to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire. Polls show some two-thirds of Americans support a ceasefire.
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Activists Protest at Missouri Boeing Plant; UTA Drops Susan Sarandon for Calling for Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
In Missouri, protesters rallied at the gates of a Boeing manufacturing plant near St. Louis Tuesday, demanding an end to the use of U.S.-made weapons in the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Protesters say the factory produces Joint Direct Attack Munitions and GBU-39 small-diameter bombs supplied to Israel’s Air Force.
In Hollywood, the United Talent Agency has stopped representing Oscar winner Susan Sarandon after she spoke at a rally in New York City last week, where she called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Sarandon has been active at antiwar protests to demand the protection of Palestinian lives.
Susan Sarandon: “You don’t have to be Palestinian to stand with the Palestinian people. You do not have to be Palestinian to understand that the slaughter of almost 5,000 children is unacceptable and a war crime.”
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Israel & Hamas Agree to 4-Day Truce & Hostage Release as Netanyahu Threatens War on Gaza Will Go On
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/22/hostages
Transcript
Under the terms of a new hostage deal, Hamas will release 50 hostages who were captured in its October 7 attack in exchange for Israel releasing 150 Palestinian women and teenagers held in Israeli prison and agreeing to a four-day pause in fighting to exchange captives and bring urgently needed humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. The four-day pause could be extended if Hamas continues to release hostages, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Israel would continue its 47-day bombardment of Gaza that has killed 14,000 Palestinians. “This is a rare glimmer of hope,” says former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy, who explains how this deal will shape Israeli politics and Netanyahu’s prospects moving forward. “The morning after this, he faces the music.”
AMY GOODMAN: Israel is continuing to attack Gaza ahead of the start of a four-day pause in fighting. Al Jazeera reports at least a hundred Palestinians were killed overnight in Gaza. The death toll from Israel’s 47-day bombardment has now topped 14,000.
As part of the truce deal, Hamas has agreed to initially release 50 hostages in exchange for the release of 150 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons. The four-day pause could be extended if Hamas agrees to keep releasing 10 hostages a day. Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza are believed to be holding about 240 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel.
According to the Palestinian group Addameer, Israel is now holding about 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners. That’s up from 5,000 before October 7th. More than 2,000 of the jailed Palestinians are being held indefinitely without charge. Palestinian news outlets have reported six Palestinians who were being detained without charge have died in recent weeks.
In Gaza, some residents welcomed the news of the four-day pause to the Israeli bombing.
ABU JIHAD ABU SHAMIEH: [translated] We hope this ceasefire will be good. We have been waiting for this ceasefire. We have been hoping for it. We pray for peace for all people so we can be done with all these challenges we are facing. We have been fleeing from one place to another. We hope the ceasefire will be good and that we will see positive solutions from this. We pray for ceasefire. We pray for people to live in peace so they can go back to their jobs and houses to have stability.
AMY GOODMAN: In Israel, families of the hostages called on the Israeli government to secure the release of everyone seized on October 7th. This is Nir Shani, whose 16-year-old son Amit is being held hostage in Gaza.
NIR SHANI: Any person will be released is good, is important. Eventually, we need them all. But if it had to be slice by slice, so be it. … We need to establish this release. The best thing is that everybody will be released at the same time, but, as I said, some can stay in that situation for a bit longer, and some will not be able to hold on, so we have to start doing the deals and get them back to us.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Daniel Levy, the president of the U.S./Middle East Project. He served as an Israeli peace negotiator under Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin. His piece for The New York Times earlier this month was headlined “The Road Back from Hell.”
We’re going to get to that in a moment, Daniel. Thanks so much for joining us again. But we want to start off with this deal that has been reached. We know a good deal about the horrific story of the hostages who are being held, that Hamas is holding or other groups in Gaza, about 240 of them. We know less about the Palestinian prisoners, the women and children. It’s going to be three to one. They will release 150 Palestinian prisoners for 50 hostage. Can you tell us about these people who are in prison? We don’t know specifically, though the Israeli government is releasing their names. But who is held in Palestinian jails? Who are these women and children?
DANIEL LEVY: Well, I think, Amy, that, first of all, let’s acknowledge this is a rare glimmer of hope. It will be very good to see those Israelis who will be coming home. It will be so important to have those four or five days without bombardment, without civilian losses in Gaza. It would be horrendous if we then return to where we have been in these past 40-plus terrible days. And [inaudible] to see those women and children coming out. I can’t speak to the names. We don’t know the names.
You mentioned the Palestinian organization Addameer. I suggest people look up that organization, which advocates on behalf of Palestinian prisoners. By the way, last government in Israel, the government of Bennett, Lapid, Gantz, super-extremists, as we’ve come to know the Netanyahu government, that organization was one of six Palestinian NGOs that was deemed criminal, terrorist by the Israeli [inaudible].
Israel has different ways of trying and convicting, or not convicting, Palestinians that it then holds in its prisons. The issue of child detention is something that Defense of the Child International has particularly drawn attention to, the number of children who end up in Israeli prisons, who go through military trials. Israel uses military courts. Women are part of the resistance, part of the struggle. Some Palestinians who [inaudible] are part of that struggle. Others are there on spurious accusations. And then Israel has a system of administrative detention, where it will hold people without trial. It will say — the security establishment will say to the courts, “This is too sensitive,” about [inaudible] information. And people can be held indefinitely under administrative detention. So, that’s the ways in which they are held.
As we’ve heard, more than 2,000 have been arrested — I think maybe two-and-a-half thousand — in the West Bank since the start, since October 7. So, we’re going to get some of those out now, the women and children. And I imagine if there are going to be further prisoner releases — if there are going to be further releases from Gaza, you will have exchanges of prisoners, of those Palestinians being held in [inaudible].
AMY GOODMAN: Daniel, we’re going to break and come back to you. We’re going to try to call you on the phone to get a better sound from your system. Daniel Levy is the president of the U.S./Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator with the Palestinians at Taba under Prime Minister Ehud Barak and at Oslo B under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. We’ll be linking with him in a moment.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “We Rise” by Batya Levine, sung at many of the Jewish resistance protests calling for a ceasefire now. This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Our guest is Daniel Levy, president of the U.S./Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator with the Palestinians. Juan?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes. Daniel, I wanted to ask you about the — just announced in the last few hours, this temporary — this truce. In an interview with The Guardian recently, you said, quote, “My sense is that the Israelis are always trying to get another day, and another day, and another day of operations before agreeing to a deal.” Because we’ve heard now of this potential truce now for two weeks, and each day we kept hearing that it was imminent, that it was imminent. But what has Israel been able to do during that time, while it finally reached and officially declared?
DANIEL LEVY: Well, Juan, unfortunately, the answer to that question is an awful lot of additional damage, civilian loss, children being killed. We’ve seen the devastation in hospitals in Gaza.
Now, I think the Israeli government was probably each day hoping it would buy the lottery ticket and capture one of the Hamas leaders, kill one of the Hamas leaders. The names Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif are the ones that spring to mind.
And — and I think this is crucial — why have they held out so long? I think that Prime Minister Netanyahu and the leadership understood that once you go into this new phase, where you’ve agreed an initial prisoner release, a few things happen. Some new dynamics come into play. On the Israeli side, internally, in the public debate inside Israel, people see that you can get people out through a negotiated deal. And I think Netanyahu is worried that that will increase the pressure on him to do further deals, to make these arrangements whereby you end the military assault. And he hasn’t wanted that because they haven’t achieved their military objectives, which are unachievable, by the way, and because he knows that the morning after this, he faces the music, and he is likely to be toast politically.
But, you know, other things will happen as a consequence of this. For instance, we may see more Western media using this lull to show us more of the devastation inside Gaza. In fact, there’s a report in Politico which says some in the administration are worried what these images may do to public opinion even more. So there’s real concern, I think, on the Israeli side that this sets in motion a dynamic which could end a war which they want to continue.
And I would say that the families have done so much of the heavy lifting inside Israel in changing the public debate and getting us to this point. I don’t think so much should be placed on their shoulders.
I think now — belatedly, because it should have happened long ago — is the time for the U.S. administration and others to step up and to desist from their opposition to a ceasefire, because it would be so cruel if after this we see a return of the kinds of assaults and bombings and losses on the Palestinian side in Gaza. And, unfortunately, in their statements that they put out recognizing this initial deal, neither President Biden nor Secretary Blinken did that, and they still actually fail to talk about Palestinian lives with empathy and to accord those lives humanity and dignity, which is such a sad thing.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you just said that you thought that the goals of Netanyahu are unachievable. Why is that?
DANIEL LEVY: Well, he has talked and talked about the elimination of Hamas. That is not a militarily achievable objective, in my mind. Hamas is a movement that has withstood this pressure, so I think there will still be — it may be somewhat residual, but a Hamas fighting capacity. But Hamas is a political movement. Hamas is an idea. I don’t want to lionize that, but I think we have to recognize that when people are met with a system of structural violence, they resist. That resistance may be in the form of Hamas. That resistance may be in the form of other armed groups. By the way, that resistance may be in the form of calling for boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel. That resistance may be in the form of pursuing legal claims in international courts and elsewhere. If you close all of those avenues, then you’re much more likely to get the kind of outburst of violence and even the scenes which were horrific on October 7th. But Hamas will still be there the morning after. And groups like Hamas will still be there as long as the occupation and the system of denial of Palestinian rights is in place. There’s no military solution.
AMY GOODMAN: Daniel Levy, we reported yesterday on Mosab Abu Toha, well-known writer and poet — right? — who was taken for four days. Apparently, he was taken with about 200 people. Now, there was such an outcry in the United States, The New Yorker magazine, The Atlantic demanding his release. No one knew what had happened to him, the U.S. — sorry, the Israeli forces taking him at a checkpoint, that he was released. But when you have examples like that, I mean, the other 199, or however many were taken, did they then become part of the Palestinian political prisoners who then Israel can use to release in exchange for Hamas prisoners, not to mention how many hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested on the West Bank in the last few weeks? They haven’t been tried, have they?
DANIEL LEVY: Some have, and some haven’t, Amy. You’ve got some being held under what’s called administrative detention, which is basically detention without trial. I mean, my takeaway from that, amongst other things, Amy, is — let’s whisper it — pressure works. OK? So, if pressure can be built to get one person out, can it be built to get more out? Can it be built to end what’s going on in Gaza?
Now, you asked about the future prisoner releases. And that is why I think we need to understand that the overwhelming likelihood, as terrible as this is, is that at the end of this round of the agreement reached, Netanyahu has committed himself to resuming the military assault. By the way, in the statement he released, the first thing he talked about was not we’re getting our people home, it was his commitment: “I am going to continue this war.” That’s the first sentence. That’s the intention. And that’s why there needs to be maximum pressure exerted to build on this, because also let’s just think about the dynamics and the geography in play here. The Palestinian population has been displaced from the north of Gaza to the south. Israel now says that it intends to move from north to south. You have more people in a smaller area. Can anyone in good conscience make the claim that, going forward, there will be a reduction in Palestinian civilian casualties, in dead children? So, if the administration continues to refuse to call for a ceasefire, it is complicit.
Now, those future agreements, which I think are still the offramp to getting a ceasefire, will involve further prisoner releases. And so, the answer to your question, Amy, is that just as we have seen women and children being released now, hopefully in the coming days, from being held in Israel and being released from Israeli prisons, in the future there will be further deals, and Hamas is not going to drive a soft bargain. Hamas has this leverage by holding these Israelis. It intends to use that leverage. When it comes to the soldiers it is holding, I imagine the release that they demand from Israeli prisons will be very significant indeed.
And there’s a proper debate inside Israel. And thankfully, you have courageous families who are getting up in the parliament, shouting at the right-wing ministers, standing outside the Ministry of Defense, standing outside the Prime Minister’s Office, meeting with the leaders, saying, “Save lives. Don’t end more lives. Prioritize” — and this is going to be the debate, whether they prioritize the release of the Israelis, and therefore, that means we’re going to a ceasefire, and we’re going to see Palestinians released, or they prioritize prosecuting their war.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Daniel, I wanted to ask you, in terms of the Netanyahu government and — the public opinion polls are showing that Netanyahu’s popularity is at an all-time low even in the midst of this war, far, far less, for instance, to the popularity of President Biden here in the United States. Is it your sense that regardless of what happens, that Netanyahu’s — with this war, that Netanyahu’s political career is coming to an end?
DANIEL LEVY: From your lips, Juan. It’s a risky thing to speculate on, because he’s such a political survivor. But I do think, this time around, the path to staying on in power for Netanyahu is almost, almost unimaginable. He is so unpopular. I think even some of the reservists who are fighting in Gaza are chomping at the bit to finish, so that they can demonstrate outside his office to get him out.
And here is the question that will follow in the coming days: Does even this pause begin to reignite politics inside Israel? Do we have to wait ’til the end of the war in order for Netanyahu to be replaced? There are open splits now, increasingly visible, inside the government. One of the most hard-right, openly racist and worst factions voted against the deal. Another intended to vote against the deal but pulled back at the last minute. We are likely to see some of the next five days, a lot of it will be filled with life-affirming images inside the Israeli media of Israelis coming home, but some of it will be now talk of what next. The opposition leader has called for Netanyahu to be replaced.
So I think we’re in a zone where that begins to come into view. But, to be honest, the most important thing is to get the ceasefire, and the politics can come when it comes. If we need to get rid of Netanyahu to get the ceasefire, then, of course, that order switches.
AMY GOODMAN: Daniel Levy, we thank you for being with us, president of the U.S./Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator with Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin. We’ll link to your recent New York Times op-ed, “The Road Back from Hell.”
Coming up, we speak with an Israeli history teacher who was jailed for four days and held in solitary confinement after criticizing the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians. Back in 20 seconds.
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Meet the Israeli History Teacher Arrested & Jailed for Facebook Posts Opposing Killing of Palestinians
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/22/meir_baruchin
Transcript
On November 9, Israeli police arrested Jerusalem history and civics teacher Meir Baruchin after he posted a message on Facebook about his opposition to the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians. Police seized his phone and two laptops before interrogating him on suspicion of committing an act of treason and intending to disrupt public order. After being in jail for four days, Baruchin was freed but lost his job as a teacher and is still facing charges. “These days Israeli citizens who are showing the slightest sentiment for the people of Gaza, opposing killing of innocent civilians, they are being politically persecuted, they go through public shaming, they lose their jobs, they are being put in jail,” says Baruchin, who says if he had been Palestinian, he would have faced more violence.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We turn now to look at how the Israeli government is cracking down on Israeli citizens who criticize their government’s bombardment of Gaza. We’re joined now by Meir Baruchin, a history and civics teacher from Jerusalem who was recently jailed for four days in solitary confinement after he posted a message on Facebook about his opposition to the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians, especially women and children.
On November 9th, Israeli police ransacked his house and arrested him. They also seized his phone and two laptops. Police interrogated him on suspicion of committing an act of treason and intending to disrupt public order. He was then jailed for four days and labeled a high-risk detainee. Baruchin has since been freed, but he has lost his job as a teacher and is still facing charges. Despite this, Meir Baruchin has refused to stay silent and is joining us now from Jerusalem.
Meir, welcome to Democracy Now! It was hard for us to get in touch with you over the last few days because your electronic devices, like your phone, were taken. Can you talk about exactly what happened to you? What did you post? And then, how did the Israeli police come to ransack your house?
MEIR BARUCHIN: First of all, thanks for having me.
When I got to the first interrogation, the interrogators presented 14 posts, most of them before October 7th. There were posts from four years ago, from two years ago. Only one or two posts were after October 7th.
What I’m trying to do in my Facebook posts is this. For most Israelis, Palestinians are really vague images. They have no names, no faces, no family, no hope, no plans. And I’m trying to give them names and faces, introduce them to Israelis, so more Israelis would be able to see Palestinians as human beings. So, that’s what I do in my Facebook. The police didn’t like it, so they arrested me.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And when you were arrested, what was the substance of the interrogation against you during that time? And how were you treated?
MEIR BARUCHIN: On November 9th, I got a call from the police to come over for interrogation on sedition. I called my lawyer, and he said that in order to interrogate an Israeli citizen for sedition, they need an approval from the general attorney. The police did ask for approval but was rejected, so they decided to interrogate me for intention to commit an act of treason and disrupt public order.
The minute I walked into the police station, they shackled my hands and legs, and they showed me a warrant to search my house. Five detectives took me to my house and ransacked the place. Then I was taken back to the police station for the first interrogation, that lasted four hours. After that, I was taken to the jailhouse. Like you said, I was categorized high-risk detainee, separated from everyone. I wasn’t allowed to bring anything with me, a book or something. I spent there four days. In order not to go crazy, I exercised every hour and a half, two hours.
On Sunday evening, November 12th, they took me for a second interrogation. And their technique was — it wasn’t really asking questions. It was more of a rhetoric. When you install the answer inside the question, you don’t really let the other person choose his own answer. For example, they said something like, “As someone who justifies and legitimizes the rapes by Hamas people on October 7th, don’t you think that…” — you know, that was their technique. Also in my second interrogation, at a certain moment they said that my Facebook posts are just like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Now, I’m history teacher, so I asked them, “Did you ever read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?” There was no comment.
I was taken back to the jailhouse. And on November 13th, I was released by the judge, and still they kept me in the jailhouse for another three-and-a-half hours.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what has been the response of fellow teachers in Israel and of the press to your arrest and detention?
MEIR BARUCHIN: Most of mainstream media embrace the statement of the police spokesman who accused me as justifying and legitimizing the rapes committed by Hamas people on October 7th.
As for my colleague teachers, hundreds of them are telling me, “Meir, I am fully behind you, but I have children to support,” “Meir, I’m with you, but I’m paying a mortgage,” “Meir, I’m with you, but my daughter is getting married,” “Meir, I’m with you, but we just started to redecorate the house.” They are afraid to speak up. They are afraid to lose their jobs. They see very clearly that these days Israeli citizens who are showing some — the slightest sentiment for the people of Gaza, opposing killing of innocent civilians, they are being politically persecuted, they go through public shaming, they lose their jobs, they are being put in jail. So they are afraid.
AMY GOODMAN: Last week, Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, published an editorial headlined “Arresting Arabs and Left-wingers: How Israel Intends to Crack Down on Domestic Dissent Over Gaza War.” In it, Haaretz wrote about your case, saying, quote, “Make no mistake: Baruchin was used as a political tool to send a political message. The motive for his arrest was deterrence — silencing any criticism or any hint of protest against Israeli policy. Baruchin paid a personal price.” So, Meir, if you can talk about the fact that you were fired from your job? You have four children, right? And also, how unusual is your arrest and being put in solitary confinement, both for Israeli Jews and for Palestinians?
MEIR BARUCHIN: Well, first, I must admit that the fact that I’m Jewish played a key role in my arrest. Had I been Palestinian, it was completely different. There would have been much more violence from the police officers and also in the jailhouse by the wardens.
I think it’s a clear message for not only to the teachers, but to all Israeli citizens. One of the newspaper men from Yedioth Ahronoth, Ben-Dror Yemini, he called me a “soldier in the service of terrorist propaganda,” in those specific words. Other newspaper — other journalists also embraced the police statement without getting my response or without even trying to challenge the police statement.
AMY GOODMAN: They took your phone and also your computer?
MEIR BARUCHIN: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you gotten it back?
MEIR BARUCHIN: They took my phone. They took two laptops. No, no, not yet. My lawyer is working on it. But the case is still not closed. I’m still facing charges. Also, the Ministry of Education suspended my license, so I cannot go back and teach anywhere in the country.
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you tell your kids? We just have 30 seconds, Meir.
MEIR BARUCHIN: My kids are proud of me, and that’s the most important thing.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us. Meir Baruchin is an Israeli history and civics high school teacher who was jailed for four days, held in solitary confinement, after criticizing the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians. His case is still open. He could still go to trial. He’s speaking to us from Jerusalem.
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Gaza in Ruins: Satellite Imagery Researchers Say Israel has Destroyed or Damaged 56,000 Buildings
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/22/radar
Transcript
Democracy Now! speaks with two researchers who lead the Decentralized Damage Mapping Group, a network of scientists using remote sensing to analyze and map the damage and destruction in the Gaza Strip since Israel’s attacks began on October 7. Radar technology shows that Israel’s bombing campaign has left about half of all buildings in northern Gaza damaged or destroyed since October 7, with at least 56,000 buildings in Gaza damaged overall. Doctoral researcher Corey Scher explains how researchers use open data to bring consistent, transparent assessments of the rapidly expanding damage in Gaza. “We’ve all been surprised at the speed of this,” says Jamon Van Den Hoek, lead of the Conflict Ecology lab.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We end today’s show looking at how Israel’s 47-day bombardment has left Gaza in ruins. Satellite images show the Israeli attacks have left about half of all buildings in northern Gaza damaged or destroyed since October 7th. Overall, researchers say at least 56,000 buildings in Gaza have been damaged.
We’re joined now by two researchers who lead the Decentralized Damage Mapping Group, a network of satellite image scientists using remote sensing to analyze and map the damage and destruction in the Gaza Strip. Corey Scher is a doctoral researcher at CUNY, the CUNY Graduate Center here in New York, and Jamon Van Den Hoek is an associate professor of geography at Oregon State University, the lead of the Conflict Ecology group.
Jamon, let’s begin with you. Explain what you found in these charts, these images that you have of Gaza, where it stands today, where it stood a month ago.
JAMON VAN DEN HOEK: Yeah. Thank you, Amy, for the invitation to speak with you today.
We’ve been charting damage using satellite radar technology since the start of the war across the entire Gaza Strip every five to six days. So we update our damage maps, we share them with journalists and humanitarian actors every five or six days, and we track what we identify as likely damage across the Gaza Strip.
What we’ve seen is a really steady and fast expansion of damage across especially northern Gaza. As you mentioned, North Gaza governorate and Gaza governorate, just last week, leading up to Saturday, we’re approaching 50% of buildings seeing likely damage. Now, there’s still much less damage in southern Gaza. Rafah, for example, is maybe somewhere between 5 and 8%. But as your earlier guests were saying, we’re expecting that to increase as the war continues.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And have you ever seen this scale of damage and destruction at such a rapid pace in any conflict in other parts of the world?
JAMON VAN DEN HOEK: It’s difficult to say. We haven’t yet used the same approach to measure, say, the rate of damage across Ukrainian cities or Syrian cities or Yemeni cities. But I think we’ve all been surprised at the speed of this. And part of that is just how compact Gaza is. If you look at the rate of progress of damage on our maps, it’s just filling up the map of Gaza, especially in the north. And that’s been consistently surprising to us.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to bring Corey Scher into the conversation. Corey, how does open access to these satellite images help understand and compare the impact of conflicts?
COREY SCHER: Thanks, Juan, for the question.
Open data helps us to maintain a consistent delivery of damage assessments. Whereas it’s been a big issue for journalists and humanitarian organizations acquiring very high-resolution satellite data from private companies, we don’t face those issues, because our work focuses on leveraging science and open data to make sure that we can provide a consistency and quality of this type of assessment across the duration of, for example, what’s going on in Gaza. Open data is a cornerstone of the work that we do, because it helps us bring transparency to this in a way that can’t be interrupted.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about how rare your work is, which may surprise some people, not reliant on commercial imagery. Semafor recently reported earlier this month that key providers of satellite photographs to news organizations and other researchers had begun to restrict imagery of Gaza after a New York Times report on Israeli tank positions based on the images. Can you talk about this? In the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, commercial satellite companies provided some of the most compelling images and insights into how the conflict was developing on the ground. And, of course, this has changed after Israel’s attacks and invasion of Gaza, Corey.
COREY SCHER: Thanks, Amy. Well, I can’t really comment on the politics or the policy of a specific company. All I can say is that leveraging open data, that we use, can guarantee that regardless of what’s happening in the private sector, open Earth Observation has the potential to at least give some type of insight into the impacts of conflict happening on the ground. So, I think that’s all we can really say.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk a little bit more about what the difference is between commercial images and the ones that you use?
COREY SCHER: Yeah. Thanks, Juan. So, what we’re doing is a scientific analysis of satellite radar data. So, I want you to imagine a camera flash, that you’re one of the — take a picture of something at nighttime. The camera flash leaves the camera, goes through space, bounces off the surfaces. Say you want to take a photo of me. So, the camera flash goes off my face and then illuminates my face, goes back to the sensor, and then you have recorded an image.
So, now we’re going 700 kilometers in altitude. There’s satellite radar. Similar to a camera flash, a burst of microwaves, radar waves, go down to the Earth. They illuminate a region, and then the echoes of these waves scatter back to the sensor, and we can make an image — the sensors make an image, regardless of day or night or cloud cover conditions. So this adds to the level of consistency where we can image a region. Every revisit of the satellite overpass, usually we have a good acquisition.
AMY GOODMAN: Ja—
COREY SCHER: Um —
AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.
COREY SCHER: Yeah, thank you. Well, what we’re doing is listening for very small changes in these echoes. So, if you imagine walking into a room where there’s no furniture, you listen to the sound of your voice echoing throughout the room, remember that echo, go back later after installing a carpet or a bookshelf, and you can hear a slight change. Scientifically, our algorithms are looking for very small variations in the radar echoes that bounce off the Earth’s surface and go back to the satellite to map indicators of damage. So this is very much different than a picture, right? We’re not looking at pictures. We’re running satellite radar data through scientific algorithms we’ve spent years developing, ultimately to resolve these signals of damage.
AMY GOODMAN: Jamon Van Den Hoek, if you can explain how open access to these satellite images helps you understand and compare conflicts, like what you see in Gaza? And how are your images different from commercial imagery, and how you get it, and comparing Gaza, for example, to Mariupol in Ukraine?
JAMON VAN DEN HOEK: Sure. As Corey was saying, we’re sensitive to different kinds of things than one could see if you looked at basically a bird’s-eye view of Gaza. We are sensitive to lateral damage, so damage to the walls, to the sides of buildings, structures, that you can’t see if you just look top down. That’s a key difference just between optical overhead imagery and side-looking radar imagery. That’s a bit technical, but that’s an important difference when we have ground invasion. Not everything is aerial bombardment. Not everything has a roof being destroyed.
The other aspect that Corey was touching on, as well, is — and you mentioned with the Semafor article — are those restrictions, where commercial providers, over many years of developing relationships with humanitarian actors — there’s become a dependency on using commercial imagery in the humanitarian space, as well as in journalism, to monitor conflict effects on communities, landscapes, farms, forests. That’s developed a kind of relationship with these commercial providers such that that’s basically the literacy, is using those kind of very high-resolution images, the kind you might see at, say, a Google-based map or an Apple-based map in Apple Maps, very clear, high detail. You can make out features. However, those images are usually very small-scale. They’re narrow strips of land. They’re acquired in a sort of ad hoc and sometimes inconsistent manner. If there’s cloud cover, you can’t see through the clouds. Working over a country as large as Ukraine, for example, it’s incredibly difficult to get, wall to wall, the entirety of Ukraine covered with commercial imagery in that way, not just because of the size of Ukraine, but because of all the atmospheric and weather effects that happen that obscure your view.
Radar doesn’t have those kind of limitations. And working with civilian spacecrafts — we’re working with the European space agency Copernicus Programme’s Sentinel-1 satellite, which is an amazing satellite that’s been in operations for about eight years now — we don’t have those restrictions. So, we can, in a sense, just as easily detect conditions, damage, whether it’s cloudy, whether it’s day or night. It doesn’t matter to us. We don’t need visible light do this.
And we can also, because we have open access to it, and everyone does — you and Juan can go right now to Sentinel help and download your own satellite images and do this. Anyone has access to this. So there’s a tremendous opportunity for democratization and transparency of the methods. We aren’t hiding behind any sort of commercial barrier or some bespoke algorithm where the inner workings are unclear. We’re trying to be incredibly transparent and be very direct with the limitations of what this approach offers, and sharing this with actors, journalists, humanitarian organizations, who can do other things with it than we can. We can map likely damage. We can make estimates of damaged structures. We cannot do all these other amazing things that so many people are working on on the ground, as well as through sort of remote journalism practices. So, it’s become a really much — very much a team effort, where, yes, we’re doing this analysis in an open way, but then what we generate, we share, and then it goes — it’s gone off, and people have made amazing products that have really told a kind of a narrative that we’ve never been able to imagine, really.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Van Den Hoek, have you been warned about what you’re doing? Have you been warned? I don’t hear you. Sorry. Go ahead.
JAMON VAN DEN HOEK: There’s nothing — no, we have not been warned. There’s nothing illegal about what we’re doing. We’re accessing open imagery. There’s no — we have not been communicated with anybody about anything of this nature.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jamon, I’d like to ask you — you worked on a report with Amnesty International looking at the 2014 Israeli attacks on Gaza, and you also analyzed satellite imagery back then. How has the science evolved over the years?
JAMON VAN DEN HOEK: It’s like night and day. Back then, we were working with also open data, but a combination of commercial imagery. This system that we’re working with now didn’t exist at that time, this radar technology that we’re using today.
Working with Amnesty International — it was also led by Forensic Architecture — we were able to combine different kinds of satellite images to monitor very specific features. So, we were able to see, say, individual trees destroyed by tanks or trucks in Rafah. But it was very localized, and it was also — Protective Edge was such a short conflict, really, very, very brief. And so, there, we just looked at kind of before and after.
That kind of before-after approach doesn’t work with a conflict that’s now — a war that’s now gone on 47 days. We’re not interested in the after. We want to know the process. We want to know the pattern of change as it’s manifest on the ground. Those concerns weren’t really there for such a short conflict, but we also didn’t really have the means to do it. And now —
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 10 seconds.
JAMON VAN DEN HOEK: Thank you. Every five days, we can update this, and we just have a much better sense of grasping the dynamics of this war than, really, any other conflict that we’ve looked at.
AMY GOODMAN: Jamon Van Den Hoek, we want to thank you so much for being with us, and Corey Scher, part of the Decentralized Damage Mapping Group, a network of satellite image scientists using remote sensing to analyze and map the damage and destruction in the Gaza Strip.
November 22, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2023/11/22
Israel Continues Deadly Attacks as 4-Day Truce Announced, Gaza Death Toll Tops 14,100
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
Israel and Hamas have agreed to a four-day pause in fighting and to exchange 50 hostages held in Gaza for 150 Palestinian women and children in Israeli prisons. The short-term truce will also allow for the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The deal was mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the U.S. The temporary truce will start Thursday at 10 a.m. local time. The death toll in Gaza has topped 14,100 people after nearly seven weeks of nonstop Israeli attacks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it does not mean Israel will end its war on Gaza, as it continued its deadly attacks on the besieged territory, including in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. This man lost 15 members of his family, including children, in an Israeli airstrike earlier today in a residential area of Khan Younis.
Kamal Kalouseh: “This ceasefire deal won’t bring safety from Israelis. They may betray it. They may not continue with it. If there is no real ceasefire deal that ends this, it is not worthy.”
Reporter: “Aren’t you optimistic?”
Kamal Kalouseh: “No, no, I am not optimistic, but I am apprehensive that the attacks will be fiercer than before the ceasefire.”
We’ll have more on the truce deal after headlines. Separately, an Israeli drone strike killed at least five Palestinians in the Tulkarm camp in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian officials say Israeli forces also raided the emergency department of the Thabet Thabet Hospital in Tulkarm.
***
Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital Under Siege; WHO Mourns Employee Killed with Family in Israeli Strike
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
Israel’s assault on Gaza’s health system continues. At least 100 Palestinians were killed overnight and this morning in attacks around hospitals and refugee camps. Israeli forces have encircled the Indonesian Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip and have ordered staff to evacuate. There are still hundreds of patients inside, including 50 in critical condition. The head of the Indonesian Hospital, Sarbini Abdul Murad, wrote an open letter to President Biden urging him to listen to his conscience and respect international norms. Murad writes, “You have destroyed the international rules of the game, insulted the authority of the UN, torn apart the sense of justice, and hurt human values, and tarnished the face of human civilization.” Israeli shelling has killed at least 12 people in the Indonesian Hospital.
The World Health Organization says it is struggling to evacuate hospitals in the north.
Christian Lindmeier: “Over 30% of the deaths and injuries are in the south of Gaza, in the so-called safe area. Over 30% of the deaths are in the south of Gaza. Then came the bombing and the attacks of the hospitals, and now no more hospital is functioning in the north. Colleagues from MSF have been reporting that they were attacked, too, one of the last resorts there. So, taking away healthcare of people is taking away the last resort, is taking away the last piece of humanity. And that’s what’s happening right now.”
The WHO announced one of the agency’s staff members was killed when Israel bombed her parents’ house in southern Gaza. Dima Alhaj was among more than 50 people killed in the strike, including her 6-month-old baby, her husband and two brothers.
***
Three Doctors, Including Members of MSF, Killed in Strike on Al-Awda Hospital
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
Doctors Without Borders said two of its doctors were killed in an Israeli strike on the Al-Awda Hospital. Doctors Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and Ahmad Al Sahar were killed alongside their colleague Dr. Ziad Al-Tatari. Doctors Without Borders said it has repeatedly told Israel it is a functioning hospital, and shared its GPS coordinates with Israeli authorities one day before the deadly attack. There are still some 200 patients at Al-Awda.
***
Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha and Family Released After Abduction by IDF
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
The Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha has been released, following his abduction by Israeli soldiers while trying to leave the Gaza Strip with his family. Abu Toha had been heading to the southern Rafah border crossing when he was seized by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint. He is said to be receiving medical treatment after being beaten by Israeli soldiers.
***
BRICS Leaders Call for “Durable Truce”; South African Lawmakers Vote to Suspend Ties with Israel
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
Leaders at a virtual summit of BRICS nations called Tuesday for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce” in Gaza and the release of all captive civilians. The original BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — were joined by the coalition’s newest members — Egypt, Ethiopia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran — at Tuesday’s high-level meeting. In contrast to the U.S. and many European nations, the majority of BRICS countries, including China and Russia, have called for a ceasefire. The summit’s host, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, forcefully condemned Israel’s assault on Gaza.
President Cyril Ramaphosa: “The collective punishment of Palestinian civilians through the unlawful use of force by Israel is a war crime. The deliberate denial of medicine, fuel, food and water to the residents of Gaza is tantamount to genocide.”
South Africa’s Parliament voted on Tuesday to suspend diplomatic ties with Israel and close its embassy in Pretoria until a ceasefire is reached. Such actions, however, will ultimately be up to President Ramaphosa.
***
Ro Khanna Joins Congressional Call for Gaza Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
California Congressmember Ro Khanna has become the 43rd Democratic lawmaker to call for a ceasefire. Activists and Khanna’s constituents have been pressuring the powerful lawmaker to sign onto a House ceasefire resolution, including occupying his office last month.
In related news, the Detroit City Council on Tuesday became the largest U.S. city to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire. Polls show some two-thirds of Americans support a ceasefire.
***
Activists Protest at Missouri Boeing Plant; UTA Drops Susan Sarandon for Calling for Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
In Missouri, protesters rallied at the gates of a Boeing manufacturing plant near St. Louis Tuesday, demanding an end to the use of U.S.-made weapons in the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Protesters say the factory produces Joint Direct Attack Munitions and GBU-39 small-diameter bombs supplied to Israel’s Air Force.
In Hollywood, the United Talent Agency has stopped representing Oscar winner Susan Sarandon after she spoke at a rally in New York City last week, where she called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Sarandon has been active at antiwar protests to demand the protection of Palestinian lives.
Susan Sarandon: “You don’t have to be Palestinian to stand with the Palestinian people. You do not have to be Palestinian to understand that the slaughter of almost 5,000 children is unacceptable and a war crime.”
****************
Israel & Hamas Agree to 4-Day Truce & Hostage Release as Netanyahu Threatens War on Gaza Will Go On
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/22/hostages
Transcript
Under the terms of a new hostage deal, Hamas will release 50 hostages who were captured in its October 7 attack in exchange for Israel releasing 150 Palestinian women and teenagers held in Israeli prison and agreeing to a four-day pause in fighting to exchange captives and bring urgently needed humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. The four-day pause could be extended if Hamas continues to release hostages, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Israel would continue its 47-day bombardment of Gaza that has killed 14,000 Palestinians. “This is a rare glimmer of hope,” says former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy, who explains how this deal will shape Israeli politics and Netanyahu’s prospects moving forward. “The morning after this, he faces the music.”
AMY GOODMAN: Israel is continuing to attack Gaza ahead of the start of a four-day pause in fighting. Al Jazeera reports at least a hundred Palestinians were killed overnight in Gaza. The death toll from Israel’s 47-day bombardment has now topped 14,000.
As part of the truce deal, Hamas has agreed to initially release 50 hostages in exchange for the release of 150 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons. The four-day pause could be extended if Hamas agrees to keep releasing 10 hostages a day. Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza are believed to be holding about 240 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel.
According to the Palestinian group Addameer, Israel is now holding about 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners. That’s up from 5,000 before October 7th. More than 2,000 of the jailed Palestinians are being held indefinitely without charge. Palestinian news outlets have reported six Palestinians who were being detained without charge have died in recent weeks.
In Gaza, some residents welcomed the news of the four-day pause to the Israeli bombing.
ABU JIHAD ABU SHAMIEH: [translated] We hope this ceasefire will be good. We have been waiting for this ceasefire. We have been hoping for it. We pray for peace for all people so we can be done with all these challenges we are facing. We have been fleeing from one place to another. We hope the ceasefire will be good and that we will see positive solutions from this. We pray for ceasefire. We pray for people to live in peace so they can go back to their jobs and houses to have stability.
AMY GOODMAN: In Israel, families of the hostages called on the Israeli government to secure the release of everyone seized on October 7th. This is Nir Shani, whose 16-year-old son Amit is being held hostage in Gaza.
NIR SHANI: Any person will be released is good, is important. Eventually, we need them all. But if it had to be slice by slice, so be it. … We need to establish this release. The best thing is that everybody will be released at the same time, but, as I said, some can stay in that situation for a bit longer, and some will not be able to hold on, so we have to start doing the deals and get them back to us.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Daniel Levy, the president of the U.S./Middle East Project. He served as an Israeli peace negotiator under Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin. His piece for The New York Times earlier this month was headlined “The Road Back from Hell.”
We’re going to get to that in a moment, Daniel. Thanks so much for joining us again. But we want to start off with this deal that has been reached. We know a good deal about the horrific story of the hostages who are being held, that Hamas is holding or other groups in Gaza, about 240 of them. We know less about the Palestinian prisoners, the women and children. It’s going to be three to one. They will release 150 Palestinian prisoners for 50 hostage. Can you tell us about these people who are in prison? We don’t know specifically, though the Israeli government is releasing their names. But who is held in Palestinian jails? Who are these women and children?
DANIEL LEVY: Well, I think, Amy, that, first of all, let’s acknowledge this is a rare glimmer of hope. It will be very good to see those Israelis who will be coming home. It will be so important to have those four or five days without bombardment, without civilian losses in Gaza. It would be horrendous if we then return to where we have been in these past 40-plus terrible days. And [inaudible] to see those women and children coming out. I can’t speak to the names. We don’t know the names.
You mentioned the Palestinian organization Addameer. I suggest people look up that organization, which advocates on behalf of Palestinian prisoners. By the way, last government in Israel, the government of Bennett, Lapid, Gantz, super-extremists, as we’ve come to know the Netanyahu government, that organization was one of six Palestinian NGOs that was deemed criminal, terrorist by the Israeli [inaudible].
Israel has different ways of trying and convicting, or not convicting, Palestinians that it then holds in its prisons. The issue of child detention is something that Defense of the Child International has particularly drawn attention to, the number of children who end up in Israeli prisons, who go through military trials. Israel uses military courts. Women are part of the resistance, part of the struggle. Some Palestinians who [inaudible] are part of that struggle. Others are there on spurious accusations. And then Israel has a system of administrative detention, where it will hold people without trial. It will say — the security establishment will say to the courts, “This is too sensitive,” about [inaudible] information. And people can be held indefinitely under administrative detention. So, that’s the ways in which they are held.
As we’ve heard, more than 2,000 have been arrested — I think maybe two-and-a-half thousand — in the West Bank since the start, since October 7. So, we’re going to get some of those out now, the women and children. And I imagine if there are going to be further prisoner releases — if there are going to be further releases from Gaza, you will have exchanges of prisoners, of those Palestinians being held in [inaudible].
AMY GOODMAN: Daniel, we’re going to break and come back to you. We’re going to try to call you on the phone to get a better sound from your system. Daniel Levy is the president of the U.S./Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator with the Palestinians at Taba under Prime Minister Ehud Barak and at Oslo B under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. We’ll be linking with him in a moment.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “We Rise” by Batya Levine, sung at many of the Jewish resistance protests calling for a ceasefire now. This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Our guest is Daniel Levy, president of the U.S./Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator with the Palestinians. Juan?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes. Daniel, I wanted to ask you about the — just announced in the last few hours, this temporary — this truce. In an interview with The Guardian recently, you said, quote, “My sense is that the Israelis are always trying to get another day, and another day, and another day of operations before agreeing to a deal.” Because we’ve heard now of this potential truce now for two weeks, and each day we kept hearing that it was imminent, that it was imminent. But what has Israel been able to do during that time, while it finally reached and officially declared?
DANIEL LEVY: Well, Juan, unfortunately, the answer to that question is an awful lot of additional damage, civilian loss, children being killed. We’ve seen the devastation in hospitals in Gaza.
Now, I think the Israeli government was probably each day hoping it would buy the lottery ticket and capture one of the Hamas leaders, kill one of the Hamas leaders. The names Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif are the ones that spring to mind.
And — and I think this is crucial — why have they held out so long? I think that Prime Minister Netanyahu and the leadership understood that once you go into this new phase, where you’ve agreed an initial prisoner release, a few things happen. Some new dynamics come into play. On the Israeli side, internally, in the public debate inside Israel, people see that you can get people out through a negotiated deal. And I think Netanyahu is worried that that will increase the pressure on him to do further deals, to make these arrangements whereby you end the military assault. And he hasn’t wanted that because they haven’t achieved their military objectives, which are unachievable, by the way, and because he knows that the morning after this, he faces the music, and he is likely to be toast politically.
But, you know, other things will happen as a consequence of this. For instance, we may see more Western media using this lull to show us more of the devastation inside Gaza. In fact, there’s a report in Politico which says some in the administration are worried what these images may do to public opinion even more. So there’s real concern, I think, on the Israeli side that this sets in motion a dynamic which could end a war which they want to continue.
And I would say that the families have done so much of the heavy lifting inside Israel in changing the public debate and getting us to this point. I don’t think so much should be placed on their shoulders.
I think now — belatedly, because it should have happened long ago — is the time for the U.S. administration and others to step up and to desist from their opposition to a ceasefire, because it would be so cruel if after this we see a return of the kinds of assaults and bombings and losses on the Palestinian side in Gaza. And, unfortunately, in their statements that they put out recognizing this initial deal, neither President Biden nor Secretary Blinken did that, and they still actually fail to talk about Palestinian lives with empathy and to accord those lives humanity and dignity, which is such a sad thing.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you just said that you thought that the goals of Netanyahu are unachievable. Why is that?
DANIEL LEVY: Well, he has talked and talked about the elimination of Hamas. That is not a militarily achievable objective, in my mind. Hamas is a movement that has withstood this pressure, so I think there will still be — it may be somewhat residual, but a Hamas fighting capacity. But Hamas is a political movement. Hamas is an idea. I don’t want to lionize that, but I think we have to recognize that when people are met with a system of structural violence, they resist. That resistance may be in the form of Hamas. That resistance may be in the form of other armed groups. By the way, that resistance may be in the form of calling for boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel. That resistance may be in the form of pursuing legal claims in international courts and elsewhere. If you close all of those avenues, then you’re much more likely to get the kind of outburst of violence and even the scenes which were horrific on October 7th. But Hamas will still be there the morning after. And groups like Hamas will still be there as long as the occupation and the system of denial of Palestinian rights is in place. There’s no military solution.
AMY GOODMAN: Daniel Levy, we reported yesterday on Mosab Abu Toha, well-known writer and poet — right? — who was taken for four days. Apparently, he was taken with about 200 people. Now, there was such an outcry in the United States, The New Yorker magazine, The Atlantic demanding his release. No one knew what had happened to him, the U.S. — sorry, the Israeli forces taking him at a checkpoint, that he was released. But when you have examples like that, I mean, the other 199, or however many were taken, did they then become part of the Palestinian political prisoners who then Israel can use to release in exchange for Hamas prisoners, not to mention how many hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested on the West Bank in the last few weeks? They haven’t been tried, have they?
DANIEL LEVY: Some have, and some haven’t, Amy. You’ve got some being held under what’s called administrative detention, which is basically detention without trial. I mean, my takeaway from that, amongst other things, Amy, is — let’s whisper it — pressure works. OK? So, if pressure can be built to get one person out, can it be built to get more out? Can it be built to end what’s going on in Gaza?
Now, you asked about the future prisoner releases. And that is why I think we need to understand that the overwhelming likelihood, as terrible as this is, is that at the end of this round of the agreement reached, Netanyahu has committed himself to resuming the military assault. By the way, in the statement he released, the first thing he talked about was not we’re getting our people home, it was his commitment: “I am going to continue this war.” That’s the first sentence. That’s the intention. And that’s why there needs to be maximum pressure exerted to build on this, because also let’s just think about the dynamics and the geography in play here. The Palestinian population has been displaced from the north of Gaza to the south. Israel now says that it intends to move from north to south. You have more people in a smaller area. Can anyone in good conscience make the claim that, going forward, there will be a reduction in Palestinian civilian casualties, in dead children? So, if the administration continues to refuse to call for a ceasefire, it is complicit.
Now, those future agreements, which I think are still the offramp to getting a ceasefire, will involve further prisoner releases. And so, the answer to your question, Amy, is that just as we have seen women and children being released now, hopefully in the coming days, from being held in Israel and being released from Israeli prisons, in the future there will be further deals, and Hamas is not going to drive a soft bargain. Hamas has this leverage by holding these Israelis. It intends to use that leverage. When it comes to the soldiers it is holding, I imagine the release that they demand from Israeli prisons will be very significant indeed.
And there’s a proper debate inside Israel. And thankfully, you have courageous families who are getting up in the parliament, shouting at the right-wing ministers, standing outside the Ministry of Defense, standing outside the Prime Minister’s Office, meeting with the leaders, saying, “Save lives. Don’t end more lives. Prioritize” — and this is going to be the debate, whether they prioritize the release of the Israelis, and therefore, that means we’re going to a ceasefire, and we’re going to see Palestinians released, or they prioritize prosecuting their war.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Daniel, I wanted to ask you, in terms of the Netanyahu government and — the public opinion polls are showing that Netanyahu’s popularity is at an all-time low even in the midst of this war, far, far less, for instance, to the popularity of President Biden here in the United States. Is it your sense that regardless of what happens, that Netanyahu’s — with this war, that Netanyahu’s political career is coming to an end?
DANIEL LEVY: From your lips, Juan. It’s a risky thing to speculate on, because he’s such a political survivor. But I do think, this time around, the path to staying on in power for Netanyahu is almost, almost unimaginable. He is so unpopular. I think even some of the reservists who are fighting in Gaza are chomping at the bit to finish, so that they can demonstrate outside his office to get him out.
And here is the question that will follow in the coming days: Does even this pause begin to reignite politics inside Israel? Do we have to wait ’til the end of the war in order for Netanyahu to be replaced? There are open splits now, increasingly visible, inside the government. One of the most hard-right, openly racist and worst factions voted against the deal. Another intended to vote against the deal but pulled back at the last minute. We are likely to see some of the next five days, a lot of it will be filled with life-affirming images inside the Israeli media of Israelis coming home, but some of it will be now talk of what next. The opposition leader has called for Netanyahu to be replaced.
So I think we’re in a zone where that begins to come into view. But, to be honest, the most important thing is to get the ceasefire, and the politics can come when it comes. If we need to get rid of Netanyahu to get the ceasefire, then, of course, that order switches.
AMY GOODMAN: Daniel Levy, we thank you for being with us, president of the U.S./Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator with Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin. We’ll link to your recent New York Times op-ed, “The Road Back from Hell.”
Coming up, we speak with an Israeli history teacher who was jailed for four days and held in solitary confinement after criticizing the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians. Back in 20 seconds.
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Meet the Israeli History Teacher Arrested & Jailed for Facebook Posts Opposing Killing of Palestinians
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/22/meir_baruchin
Transcript
On November 9, Israeli police arrested Jerusalem history and civics teacher Meir Baruchin after he posted a message on Facebook about his opposition to the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians. Police seized his phone and two laptops before interrogating him on suspicion of committing an act of treason and intending to disrupt public order. After being in jail for four days, Baruchin was freed but lost his job as a teacher and is still facing charges. “These days Israeli citizens who are showing the slightest sentiment for the people of Gaza, opposing killing of innocent civilians, they are being politically persecuted, they go through public shaming, they lose their jobs, they are being put in jail,” says Baruchin, who says if he had been Palestinian, he would have faced more violence.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We turn now to look at how the Israeli government is cracking down on Israeli citizens who criticize their government’s bombardment of Gaza. We’re joined now by Meir Baruchin, a history and civics teacher from Jerusalem who was recently jailed for four days in solitary confinement after he posted a message on Facebook about his opposition to the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians, especially women and children.
On November 9th, Israeli police ransacked his house and arrested him. They also seized his phone and two laptops. Police interrogated him on suspicion of committing an act of treason and intending to disrupt public order. He was then jailed for four days and labeled a high-risk detainee. Baruchin has since been freed, but he has lost his job as a teacher and is still facing charges. Despite this, Meir Baruchin has refused to stay silent and is joining us now from Jerusalem.
Meir, welcome to Democracy Now! It was hard for us to get in touch with you over the last few days because your electronic devices, like your phone, were taken. Can you talk about exactly what happened to you? What did you post? And then, how did the Israeli police come to ransack your house?
MEIR BARUCHIN: First of all, thanks for having me.
When I got to the first interrogation, the interrogators presented 14 posts, most of them before October 7th. There were posts from four years ago, from two years ago. Only one or two posts were after October 7th.
What I’m trying to do in my Facebook posts is this. For most Israelis, Palestinians are really vague images. They have no names, no faces, no family, no hope, no plans. And I’m trying to give them names and faces, introduce them to Israelis, so more Israelis would be able to see Palestinians as human beings. So, that’s what I do in my Facebook. The police didn’t like it, so they arrested me.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And when you were arrested, what was the substance of the interrogation against you during that time? And how were you treated?
MEIR BARUCHIN: On November 9th, I got a call from the police to come over for interrogation on sedition. I called my lawyer, and he said that in order to interrogate an Israeli citizen for sedition, they need an approval from the general attorney. The police did ask for approval but was rejected, so they decided to interrogate me for intention to commit an act of treason and disrupt public order.
The minute I walked into the police station, they shackled my hands and legs, and they showed me a warrant to search my house. Five detectives took me to my house and ransacked the place. Then I was taken back to the police station for the first interrogation, that lasted four hours. After that, I was taken to the jailhouse. Like you said, I was categorized high-risk detainee, separated from everyone. I wasn’t allowed to bring anything with me, a book or something. I spent there four days. In order not to go crazy, I exercised every hour and a half, two hours.
On Sunday evening, November 12th, they took me for a second interrogation. And their technique was — it wasn’t really asking questions. It was more of a rhetoric. When you install the answer inside the question, you don’t really let the other person choose his own answer. For example, they said something like, “As someone who justifies and legitimizes the rapes by Hamas people on October 7th, don’t you think that…” — you know, that was their technique. Also in my second interrogation, at a certain moment they said that my Facebook posts are just like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Now, I’m history teacher, so I asked them, “Did you ever read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?” There was no comment.
I was taken back to the jailhouse. And on November 13th, I was released by the judge, and still they kept me in the jailhouse for another three-and-a-half hours.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what has been the response of fellow teachers in Israel and of the press to your arrest and detention?
MEIR BARUCHIN: Most of mainstream media embrace the statement of the police spokesman who accused me as justifying and legitimizing the rapes committed by Hamas people on October 7th.
As for my colleague teachers, hundreds of them are telling me, “Meir, I am fully behind you, but I have children to support,” “Meir, I’m with you, but I’m paying a mortgage,” “Meir, I’m with you, but my daughter is getting married,” “Meir, I’m with you, but we just started to redecorate the house.” They are afraid to speak up. They are afraid to lose their jobs. They see very clearly that these days Israeli citizens who are showing some — the slightest sentiment for the people of Gaza, opposing killing of innocent civilians, they are being politically persecuted, they go through public shaming, they lose their jobs, they are being put in jail. So they are afraid.
AMY GOODMAN: Last week, Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, published an editorial headlined “Arresting Arabs and Left-wingers: How Israel Intends to Crack Down on Domestic Dissent Over Gaza War.” In it, Haaretz wrote about your case, saying, quote, “Make no mistake: Baruchin was used as a political tool to send a political message. The motive for his arrest was deterrence — silencing any criticism or any hint of protest against Israeli policy. Baruchin paid a personal price.” So, Meir, if you can talk about the fact that you were fired from your job? You have four children, right? And also, how unusual is your arrest and being put in solitary confinement, both for Israeli Jews and for Palestinians?
MEIR BARUCHIN: Well, first, I must admit that the fact that I’m Jewish played a key role in my arrest. Had I been Palestinian, it was completely different. There would have been much more violence from the police officers and also in the jailhouse by the wardens.
I think it’s a clear message for not only to the teachers, but to all Israeli citizens. One of the newspaper men from Yedioth Ahronoth, Ben-Dror Yemini, he called me a “soldier in the service of terrorist propaganda,” in those specific words. Other newspaper — other journalists also embraced the police statement without getting my response or without even trying to challenge the police statement.
AMY GOODMAN: They took your phone and also your computer?
MEIR BARUCHIN: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you gotten it back?
MEIR BARUCHIN: They took my phone. They took two laptops. No, no, not yet. My lawyer is working on it. But the case is still not closed. I’m still facing charges. Also, the Ministry of Education suspended my license, so I cannot go back and teach anywhere in the country.
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you tell your kids? We just have 30 seconds, Meir.
MEIR BARUCHIN: My kids are proud of me, and that’s the most important thing.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us. Meir Baruchin is an Israeli history and civics high school teacher who was jailed for four days, held in solitary confinement, after criticizing the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians. His case is still open. He could still go to trial. He’s speaking to us from Jerusalem.
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Gaza in Ruins: Satellite Imagery Researchers Say Israel has Destroyed or Damaged 56,000 Buildings
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 22, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/22/radar
Transcript
Democracy Now! speaks with two researchers who lead the Decentralized Damage Mapping Group, a network of scientists using remote sensing to analyze and map the damage and destruction in the Gaza Strip since Israel’s attacks began on October 7. Radar technology shows that Israel’s bombing campaign has left about half of all buildings in northern Gaza damaged or destroyed since October 7, with at least 56,000 buildings in Gaza damaged overall. Doctoral researcher Corey Scher explains how researchers use open data to bring consistent, transparent assessments of the rapidly expanding damage in Gaza. “We’ve all been surprised at the speed of this,” says Jamon Van Den Hoek, lead of the Conflict Ecology lab.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We end today’s show looking at how Israel’s 47-day bombardment has left Gaza in ruins. Satellite images show the Israeli attacks have left about half of all buildings in northern Gaza damaged or destroyed since October 7th. Overall, researchers say at least 56,000 buildings in Gaza have been damaged.
We’re joined now by two researchers who lead the Decentralized Damage Mapping Group, a network of satellite image scientists using remote sensing to analyze and map the damage and destruction in the Gaza Strip. Corey Scher is a doctoral researcher at CUNY, the CUNY Graduate Center here in New York, and Jamon Van Den Hoek is an associate professor of geography at Oregon State University, the lead of the Conflict Ecology group.
Jamon, let’s begin with you. Explain what you found in these charts, these images that you have of Gaza, where it stands today, where it stood a month ago.
JAMON VAN DEN HOEK: Yeah. Thank you, Amy, for the invitation to speak with you today.
We’ve been charting damage using satellite radar technology since the start of the war across the entire Gaza Strip every five to six days. So we update our damage maps, we share them with journalists and humanitarian actors every five or six days, and we track what we identify as likely damage across the Gaza Strip.
What we’ve seen is a really steady and fast expansion of damage across especially northern Gaza. As you mentioned, North Gaza governorate and Gaza governorate, just last week, leading up to Saturday, we’re approaching 50% of buildings seeing likely damage. Now, there’s still much less damage in southern Gaza. Rafah, for example, is maybe somewhere between 5 and 8%. But as your earlier guests were saying, we’re expecting that to increase as the war continues.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And have you ever seen this scale of damage and destruction at such a rapid pace in any conflict in other parts of the world?
JAMON VAN DEN HOEK: It’s difficult to say. We haven’t yet used the same approach to measure, say, the rate of damage across Ukrainian cities or Syrian cities or Yemeni cities. But I think we’ve all been surprised at the speed of this. And part of that is just how compact Gaza is. If you look at the rate of progress of damage on our maps, it’s just filling up the map of Gaza, especially in the north. And that’s been consistently surprising to us.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to bring Corey Scher into the conversation. Corey, how does open access to these satellite images help understand and compare the impact of conflicts?
COREY SCHER: Thanks, Juan, for the question.
Open data helps us to maintain a consistent delivery of damage assessments. Whereas it’s been a big issue for journalists and humanitarian organizations acquiring very high-resolution satellite data from private companies, we don’t face those issues, because our work focuses on leveraging science and open data to make sure that we can provide a consistency and quality of this type of assessment across the duration of, for example, what’s going on in Gaza. Open data is a cornerstone of the work that we do, because it helps us bring transparency to this in a way that can’t be interrupted.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about how rare your work is, which may surprise some people, not reliant on commercial imagery. Semafor recently reported earlier this month that key providers of satellite photographs to news organizations and other researchers had begun to restrict imagery of Gaza after a New York Times report on Israeli tank positions based on the images. Can you talk about this? In the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, commercial satellite companies provided some of the most compelling images and insights into how the conflict was developing on the ground. And, of course, this has changed after Israel’s attacks and invasion of Gaza, Corey.
COREY SCHER: Thanks, Amy. Well, I can’t really comment on the politics or the policy of a specific company. All I can say is that leveraging open data, that we use, can guarantee that regardless of what’s happening in the private sector, open Earth Observation has the potential to at least give some type of insight into the impacts of conflict happening on the ground. So, I think that’s all we can really say.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk a little bit more about what the difference is between commercial images and the ones that you use?
COREY SCHER: Yeah. Thanks, Juan. So, what we’re doing is a scientific analysis of satellite radar data. So, I want you to imagine a camera flash, that you’re one of the — take a picture of something at nighttime. The camera flash leaves the camera, goes through space, bounces off the surfaces. Say you want to take a photo of me. So, the camera flash goes off my face and then illuminates my face, goes back to the sensor, and then you have recorded an image.
So, now we’re going 700 kilometers in altitude. There’s satellite radar. Similar to a camera flash, a burst of microwaves, radar waves, go down to the Earth. They illuminate a region, and then the echoes of these waves scatter back to the sensor, and we can make an image — the sensors make an image, regardless of day or night or cloud cover conditions. So this adds to the level of consistency where we can image a region. Every revisit of the satellite overpass, usually we have a good acquisition.
AMY GOODMAN: Ja—
COREY SCHER: Um —
AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.
COREY SCHER: Yeah, thank you. Well, what we’re doing is listening for very small changes in these echoes. So, if you imagine walking into a room where there’s no furniture, you listen to the sound of your voice echoing throughout the room, remember that echo, go back later after installing a carpet or a bookshelf, and you can hear a slight change. Scientifically, our algorithms are looking for very small variations in the radar echoes that bounce off the Earth’s surface and go back to the satellite to map indicators of damage. So this is very much different than a picture, right? We’re not looking at pictures. We’re running satellite radar data through scientific algorithms we’ve spent years developing, ultimately to resolve these signals of damage.
AMY GOODMAN: Jamon Van Den Hoek, if you can explain how open access to these satellite images helps you understand and compare conflicts, like what you see in Gaza? And how are your images different from commercial imagery, and how you get it, and comparing Gaza, for example, to Mariupol in Ukraine?
JAMON VAN DEN HOEK: Sure. As Corey was saying, we’re sensitive to different kinds of things than one could see if you looked at basically a bird’s-eye view of Gaza. We are sensitive to lateral damage, so damage to the walls, to the sides of buildings, structures, that you can’t see if you just look top down. That’s a key difference just between optical overhead imagery and side-looking radar imagery. That’s a bit technical, but that’s an important difference when we have ground invasion. Not everything is aerial bombardment. Not everything has a roof being destroyed.
The other aspect that Corey was touching on, as well, is — and you mentioned with the Semafor article — are those restrictions, where commercial providers, over many years of developing relationships with humanitarian actors — there’s become a dependency on using commercial imagery in the humanitarian space, as well as in journalism, to monitor conflict effects on communities, landscapes, farms, forests. That’s developed a kind of relationship with these commercial providers such that that’s basically the literacy, is using those kind of very high-resolution images, the kind you might see at, say, a Google-based map or an Apple-based map in Apple Maps, very clear, high detail. You can make out features. However, those images are usually very small-scale. They’re narrow strips of land. They’re acquired in a sort of ad hoc and sometimes inconsistent manner. If there’s cloud cover, you can’t see through the clouds. Working over a country as large as Ukraine, for example, it’s incredibly difficult to get, wall to wall, the entirety of Ukraine covered with commercial imagery in that way, not just because of the size of Ukraine, but because of all the atmospheric and weather effects that happen that obscure your view.
Radar doesn’t have those kind of limitations. And working with civilian spacecrafts — we’re working with the European space agency Copernicus Programme’s Sentinel-1 satellite, which is an amazing satellite that’s been in operations for about eight years now — we don’t have those restrictions. So, we can, in a sense, just as easily detect conditions, damage, whether it’s cloudy, whether it’s day or night. It doesn’t matter to us. We don’t need visible light do this.
And we can also, because we have open access to it, and everyone does — you and Juan can go right now to Sentinel help and download your own satellite images and do this. Anyone has access to this. So there’s a tremendous opportunity for democratization and transparency of the methods. We aren’t hiding behind any sort of commercial barrier or some bespoke algorithm where the inner workings are unclear. We’re trying to be incredibly transparent and be very direct with the limitations of what this approach offers, and sharing this with actors, journalists, humanitarian organizations, who can do other things with it than we can. We can map likely damage. We can make estimates of damaged structures. We cannot do all these other amazing things that so many people are working on on the ground, as well as through sort of remote journalism practices. So, it’s become a really much — very much a team effort, where, yes, we’re doing this analysis in an open way, but then what we generate, we share, and then it goes — it’s gone off, and people have made amazing products that have really told a kind of a narrative that we’ve never been able to imagine, really.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Van Den Hoek, have you been warned about what you’re doing? Have you been warned? I don’t hear you. Sorry. Go ahead.
JAMON VAN DEN HOEK: There’s nothing — no, we have not been warned. There’s nothing illegal about what we’re doing. We’re accessing open imagery. There’s no — we have not been communicated with anybody about anything of this nature.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jamon, I’d like to ask you — you worked on a report with Amnesty International looking at the 2014 Israeli attacks on Gaza, and you also analyzed satellite imagery back then. How has the science evolved over the years?
JAMON VAN DEN HOEK: It’s like night and day. Back then, we were working with also open data, but a combination of commercial imagery. This system that we’re working with now didn’t exist at that time, this radar technology that we’re using today.
Working with Amnesty International — it was also led by Forensic Architecture — we were able to combine different kinds of satellite images to monitor very specific features. So, we were able to see, say, individual trees destroyed by tanks or trucks in Rafah. But it was very localized, and it was also — Protective Edge was such a short conflict, really, very, very brief. And so, there, we just looked at kind of before and after.
That kind of before-after approach doesn’t work with a conflict that’s now — a war that’s now gone on 47 days. We’re not interested in the after. We want to know the process. We want to know the pattern of change as it’s manifest on the ground. Those concerns weren’t really there for such a short conflict, but we also didn’t really have the means to do it. And now —
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 10 seconds.
JAMON VAN DEN HOEK: Thank you. Every five days, we can update this, and we just have a much better sense of grasping the dynamics of this war than, really, any other conflict that we’ve looked at.
AMY GOODMAN: Jamon Van Den Hoek, we want to thank you so much for being with us, and Corey Scher, part of the Decentralized Damage Mapping Group, a network of satellite image scientists using remote sensing to analyze and map the damage and destruction in the Gaza Strip.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
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“Text-Book Case of Genocide”: Top U.N. Official Craig Mokhiber Resigns, Denounces Israeli Assault on Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 23, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/23/dissenters
Transcript
Hear from Craig Mokhiber, a longtime international human rights lawyer, who previously served as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, on why he left his post while decrying U.N. inaction over what he calls a “text-book case of genocide” unfolding in Gaza. Mokhiber’s letter of resignation went viral last month. He spoke to Democracy Now! shortly after.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
In this holiday special, we spend the rest of the hour with the dissenters: two top officials, Craig Mokhiber at the United Nations and Josh Paul at the State Department. They both recently resigned from their jobs to protest the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
We begin with Craig Mokhiber, longtime international human rights lawyer who served as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. He had worked at the United Nations since 1992 and lived in Gaza in the 1990s. He recently resigned his post and accused the United Nations of failing to address what he calls a “text-book case of genocide” unfolding in Gaza.
In a letter addressed to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, Craig Mokhiber wrote, quote, “In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units. Across the land, Apartheid rules,” Mokhiber said.
Craig Mokhiber went on to write, “What’s more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations 'to ensure respect' for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel’s atrocities,” unquote.
I spoke to Craig Mokhiber on November 1st, a day after he stopped working at the United Nations. I asked him to talk about why he resigned.
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I originally registered my concerns in writing to the high commissioner in March, as you heard from that statement, in the wake of a wave of human rights violations on the West Bank, including the pogrom Huwara at that time. And at that time, I complained, really, about what I saw as a trepidatious response by many in the United Nations, and an effort to try to silence some of the human rights critique of U.N. officials, including myself. And I admit to feeling a great deal of frustration, and at that moment indicating that I would be resigning from the U.N., effective this month. So, of course, the situation got much worse since then, which is why I was — particularly the events in Gaza — which is why I was compelled to write this latest letter to the high commissioner, to put on record my very serious concerns about how we were failing to address the unfolding events in the Occupied Territories.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think the United Nations, the United States, the West, U.K. should be doing right now?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I think there is an obligation on the part of all member states of the United Nations, including those states in the West, to respond in accordance with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law. My central point in the most recent letter was that we had effectively left international law behind when the international community embraced the Oslo process, which sort of raised up notions of political expediency above the requirements of international law. And that was a real loss for human rights in Palestine. I think there is an obligation on the part of all states not just to respect international humanitarian law and international human rights law, but, under the Geneva Conventions, to ensure respect. And it’s clear that many states, including the United States itself, have not only — are not only in breach of their obligation to ensure respect vis-à-vis those states over which they have influence — in this case, Israel — but have been actively complicit, actively engaged in arming, in diplomatic cover, in political support, intelligence support and so on. That is a breach of international humanitarian law. We need the opposite of that. We need all states, members of the United Nations, to use whatever influence they have to ensure an end to these attacks on civilians in Gaza, to ensure as well accountability for the perpetrators, redress for the victims, protection for the vulnerable there.
It’s interesting, Amy. We have a formula at the United Nations that is applied to virtually every other conflict situation. But when it comes to the situation in Israel and Palestine, there’s a different set of rules, apparently. And that’s, I think, a big source of my frustration. Where is the transitional justice process? Where is the U.N. protection force to protect all civilians? Where is the tribunal for accountability? Where is the action on the part of the Security Council, the only mechanism in the United Nations that has enforcement to ensure protection in the Occupied Territories? Obviously, every effort in the Security Council is vetoed by the United States itself, a further indication of the kind of complicity about which I am referring.
And I think the other thing that needs to happen in the international community is that we have to abandon the failed paradigms of the past on a political level and get back to the roots, which is international law, international human rights. What has happened in the context of the so-called Oslo process, the two-state solution, the U.N. Quartet, is that they have acted effectively as a smokescreen, behind which we have seen further and worsening dispossession of Palestinians, massive atrocities, such as those as we are witnessing now, the loss of homes and land, further settlement activity. You know, it’s an open secret inside the halls of the United Nations that the so-called two-state solution is effectively impossible now — there’s nothing left for a sustainable state for the Palestinian people — and takes no account of the fundamental human rights of the Palestinian people. The new paradigm has to be one based upon equality of all people there, equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews. And that needs to be the new approach.
And I think, as well, you know, it’s interesting that this year we are commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948. That same year, the Nakba occurred in Palestine, and apartheid was adopted in South Africa. We have seen, because of a consistent international law and international human rights approach in the U.N. and the international community, that apartheid in South Africa fell. We did not take the same approach in Palestine. We’ve deferred to these political processes. And as a result, not only have we not seen an end to the oppression of the Palestinian people, we’ve seen a continuing worsening of the situation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re a longtime human rights lawyer. I want you to respond — I played this already for Yousef Hammash in Gaza right now, in Khan Younis, to respond, but I’d like you to respond to it, as well. After Israel’s attack on Jabaliya yesterday, the IDF spokesperson, Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, appeared on CNN and was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer.
WOLF BLITZER: But you know that there are a lot of refugees, a lot of innocent civilians, men, women and children, in that refugee camp, as well, right?
LT. COL. RICHARD HECHT: This is the tragedy of war, Wolf. I mean, we — as you know, we’ve been saying for days, move south. Civilians that are not involved with Hamas, please move south. We —
WOLF BLITZER: Yeah, I’m just trying to get a little bit more information. You knew there were civilians there. You knew there were refugees, all sorts of refugees. But you decided to still drop a bomb on that refugee camp attempting to kill this Hamas commander. By the way, was he killed?
LT. COL. RICHARD HECHT: I can’t confirm, yeah. There will be more updated. He, yes, we know that he was killed. About the civilians there, we’re doing everything we can to minimize.
AMY GOODMAN: So, he’s saying they’re doing everything they can to minimize. He’s talking about Ibrahim Biari, whom it identified — Israel has identified as Hamas’s commander of the Jabaliya center battalion, saying he was killed in those recent strikes. Can you respond to every aspect of what he said? They were trying to get a high-value target, as they put it, and they are not trying to kill civilians.
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I think what’s important in that interview is that is another of many indications of intent on the part of Israeli authorities, that will be very important in a court of law. He has said very openly that they knew of the concentrations of civilians there, and yet, in violation of the principle of distinction in international humanitarian law, and on the pretext of killing one combatant, wiped out the better part of an entire refugee camp, densely populated refugee camp. And I think what’s been interesting in this war is the very open statement of intents. I referred in my letter to the case for genocide which is happening now. And, you know, “genocide” is a very politicized term, often abused. But in this case, the hardest part of proving genocide has been proven for us with these very open statements of genocidal intent by Israeli officials, including the prime minister and the president and senior Cabinet ministers and military officials, who in their public statements have indicated very clearly their intention not to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and to carry out the kinds of wholesale slaughter that we are witnessing in Gaza. That is not a justification in international law, saying that there was a combatant there, for that very disproportionate use of firepower against what was a civilian target. And that’s what we’ve been seeing in all of Gaza, from the north to the south.
The other thing is this claim that, “Well, we told them to move south, and therefore we can kill everybody who didn’t move.” This is an extremely dangerous and unlawful tactic that is being used, first because we know that evacuations in Gaza in the best of times, in this densely populated small territory with 2.3 million civilians crowded in, with very limited infrastructure, is a huge challenge. But most of Gaza has been bombed into rubble. It is just not physically possible for civilians to move en masse in the ways that Israel has required them to do so. And we know, already well documented, that when they do so, they’re still subjected to bombings even in the south of the Gaza Strip. So, all of this, it seems to me, is evidence of intent and a prima facie case for violations of the laws of war.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel has called for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to resign, after he said Hamas’s October 7th attack did not happen in a vacuum. This is Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan.
GILAD ERDAN: Mr. Secretary-General, the U.N. was established to prevent atrocities, to prevent such atrocities like the barbaric atrocities that Hamas committed. But the U.N. is failing. The U.N. is failing. And you, Mr. Secretary-General, have lost all morality and impartiality, because when you say those terrible words that these heinous attacks did not happen in a vacuum, you are tolerating terrorism. And by tolerating terrorism, you are justifying terrorism.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. Craig Mokhiber, your response?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, of course, you can imagine why the ambassador would want to start the clock only in October and to ignore the decades upon decades of persecution against the Palestinian people in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, inside Israel proper. But that is not the kind of assessment that leads to peace or leads to an improved situation on the ground. The secretary-general was doing his job. He had condemned the loss of civilian life in the Hamas attack, and he also criticized not just what Israel was doing in Gaza, but all of the events that have led up to this situation.
And that’s what I mean by a need to break from the failed paradigm of the past. We really need to get into something that says that human beings are entitled to human rights under international law and that the duty of the international community is to ensure protection for all under the rule of law, but also accountability for perpetrators and redress for victims.
So, I am not surprised at that statement. We’ve seen a lot of extreme statements from that particular ambassador, a lot of theater, as well. I don’t think we should allow it to distract us to what’s happening on the ground, which is the wholesale loss of life of innocent civilians in their thousands, including thousands of children in the Gaza Strip, and the need to get to an immediate ceasefire and then to shift into a new approach that will prevent this from happening again and again and again.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering about the role of Karim Khan, the lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. I think he was in Rafah just a few days ago. We see the world’s response, or the West’s response, when it came to Russia invading Ukraine and occupying Ukraine. Karim Khan, very soon after, opened a whole investigation into crimes against humanity that Putin was committing in Ukraine. Can you respond to the difference in approach to Russia and Ukraine and Israel and the Occupied Territories, officially, international law, the OPT, the Occupied Palestinian Territories?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, there has been a stunning inconsistency with the rapidity with which the court was able to move and the prosecutor was able to move with regard to Ukraine and the years upon years in which it has dragged its feet with regard to Palestine. This is just one of many critiques of the court, including the fact that it does not have a very strong record of holding Northern countries — Israel, the United States and others — to account for their crimes under international criminal law, and yet is very anxious to move forward on cases in the Global South.
Now, that is not to condemn the court. The court is a young institution. It needs to be strengthened. It needs to insulate itself from the kinds of political pressure that have led to its inaction in the case of Palestine. But our hope, ultimately, is the peaceful resolution of disputes through the use of international law. And if that’s going to happen, we need a robust and fair International Criminal Court that doesn’t provide for exceptionalism for powerful countries of the North, like Israel, for example, but that holds all perpetrators of international crimes to account. The court has a long way to go before it’s going to have the reputation that will bring confidence globally that it’s meeting its mandate under the Rome Statute.
AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre compared pro-Palestinian protesters to the white supremacists who took part in the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. She made the comment in response to a question from Fox News’s Peter Doocy.
PETER DOOCY: Does President Biden think the anti-Israel protesters in this country are extremists?
PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: What I can say is what we’ve been very clear about this: When it comes to antisemitism, there is no place. We have to make sure that we speak against it very loud and be — and be very clear about that. Remember, what the president decided to — when the president decided to run for president is what he saw in Charlottesville in 2017, when we — he saw neo-Nazis marching down the streets of Charlottesville with vile, antisemitic just hatred. And he was very clear then, and he’s very clear now. He’s taken actions against this over the past two years. And he’s continued to be clear: There is no place — no place — for this type of vile and despite — this kind of rhetoric.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s President Biden’s spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre. Craig Mokhiber, your response?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I think one of the most disturbing aspects of this current situation in the North, in countries like the U.S. and in Europe, has been this rather unprecedented crackdown on human rights defenders speaking up to defend the human rights of people in Gaza during this situation. And that has come from official statements that try to critique in that way people who are defending human rights, and to compare them with far-right neofascist protesters, for example. I mean, it’s an outrageous comparison to make. And it doesn’t stop there. We have also seen very strong efforts on the part of government institutions, including local governments and state governments and the federal government, and universities and employers and others to punish people for daring to speak up, criticizing the human rights violations that are happening, or criticizing the U.S. role in these violations.
But I think what is most hopeful, Amy, and where there is a glimmer of hope, which has, I have to say, moved me very much, it’s that people are not allowing themselves to be intimidated by these tactics. We have seen massive demonstrations, in all parts of the country and in Europe, from people many times risking arrest, risking police beatings, risking other consequences, because they refuse to allow this to go forward and to have the human rights claim be silenced. And I think most encouraging, we have seen — you know, just a few blocks from here a few days ago, we saw a large group, organized by Jewish Voices for Peace, IfNotNow, of Jewish protesters standing up and saying, “Not in our name,” and taking over Grand Central Station, and in one move stripping away the Israeli propaganda point that they are somehow acting in the defense of Jews. Jewish people are not represented by Israel. These protesters have made that perfectly clear. Israel pushes an old antisemitic trope that it somehow represents Jewish people around the world. Not only is that not factual, but it’s very dangerous. And everyone needs to know that Israel is a state that’s responsible for its own crimes, and that responsibility does not extend to our Jewish brothers and sisters, many of whom are standing up alongside Muslim and Christian and others in demonstrations across this country and across Europe, saying that this must end.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get your response to a comment in The Guardian by Anne Bayefsky, who directs Touro College’s Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust in New York, who accused you of overt antisemitism, saying you used U.N. letterhead to call for wiping Israel off the map. Craig Mokhiber, if you could respond?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, Anne Bayefsky is a well-known entity amongst human rights defenders. She has made a career of attacking anyone who dares to criticize Israeli human rights violations, in particular. I have responded to this idea of wiping Israel off the map by saying I’m not looking for an end to Israel, I’m looking for an end to apartheid. And it’s very telling, what Anne Bayefsky tweeted in her attack on me. She accused me of antisemitism, and the quote that she took from my letter to prove that was my call for equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews. I had to reply to her tweet by saying that she had become a parody of herself, because if calling for equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews is a new form of antisemitism, then there’s no conversation to be had.
But I don’t think people are falling for these smears anymore. They are almost automatic. But the point needs to be made again and again that criticism of Israeli human rights violations is not antisemitic, just as criticism of Saudi violations is not Islamophobic, criticism of Myanmar violations is not anti-Buddhist, criticism of Indian violations is not anti-Hindu. If any of those are true, then there is no international human rights framework. And if only the case of Israel is true, well, that’s a racist proposition that only Palestinians can’t have their human rights defended in this globe. So, I don’t think anyone listens too much to those kinds of smears anymore. And luckily, people are speaking up louder, not lowering their voices, to demand human rights in the Occupied Territories.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what do you go off to do, Craig Mokhiber? I mean, you have been at the United Nations for decades. Talk about your plans now. Today is your first day that you’re not working at the U.N.
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I intend to remain involved in the cause of international human rights, in which I’ve been involved since 1980, in fact. There’s no question about that. I will do it under my own name, unconstrained by diplomatic protocol and the constraints of the U.N. I will continue to support my colleagues. I don’t want to leave the impression that I’m criticizing the whole U.N. You know, U.N. humanitarian workers, U.N. human rights workers, the UNRWA colleagues in Gaza, dozens of whom have lost their life just in the last couple of weeks under Israeli bombs, are doing absolutely heroic work all around the world. But I want to try to influence the political side of the house to take up a more realistic and principled approach to this particular conflict, one based in international human rights, one based in international humanitarian law, and one based in achievable goals, if not in the immediate term, of a paradigm based upon equality, an end to apartheid, and, as I said, equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get your final response to the protesters just yesterday in Washington, D.C., in the Senate, repeatedly disrupting Secretary of State Antony Blinken while he was testifying before the Senate on President Biden’s request for $106 billion for Ukraine, Israel and militarizing the U.S.-Mexico border. A group of protesters with members of Muslims for Just Futures and Detention Watch Network, sitting behind Blinken, held up their hands covered in fake blood. He was also interrupted by members of CodePink, including the former State Department official Ann Wright, who resigned over the Iraq War. This is what she said.
ANN WRIGHT: I say no more money for war! We’ve got to have a ceasefire. Wait a minute. Got a [inaudible]. No more money for war! No more money for war! No more money for killing 8,300 people in Gaza. Three thousand five hundred kids dead. Come on. I’m an Army colonel. I’m a former diplomat. I resigned on that War in Iraq that you talked about. That was a terrible thing. And what you’re doing right now in supporting Israel’s genocide of Gaza is a terrible thing, too. Stop the war! Ceasefire now!
AMY GOODMAN: She was holding a sign as she was taken out by security, “Ceasefire in Gaza.” Craig Mokhiber, your final comments?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: This is where I find the most hope, Amy. I have lost confidence in official institutions of government after all these years in the international human rights movement. I am losing hope in international — important parts of international institutions. Where there is hope, it is in civil society. It is in those ordinary people, here in the United States and elsewhere, who are willing to stand up and demand respect for human life and for human rights.
AMY GOODMAN: International human rights lawyer Craig Mokhiber, who recently resigned from his post as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
When we come back, we speak with another dissenter, Josh Paul, who resigned from the State Department to protest the Biden administration’s push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst its siege on Gaza.
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State Department Official Resigns, Says Israel Is Using U.S. Arms to Massacre Civilians in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 23, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/23/dissenters_2
Transcript
We speak with Josh Paul, a former State Department official, about his decision to resign from his position in protest of U.S. arms sales to Israel amid its recent bombardment of Gaza. Paul tells Democracy Now!, “I decided to resign for three reasons, the first and most pressing of which is the very, I believe, uncontroversial fact that U.S.-provided arms should not be used to massacre civilians, should not be used to result in massive civilian casualties.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We end this special with Josh Paul. In October, he resigned from the State Department to protest the Biden administration’s push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst its siege on Gaza, calling it “shortsighted,” “destructive” and “contradictory.” Paul had served as director of congressional and public affairs for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in the State Department, which oversees arms transfers to Israel and other nations.
In his resignation letter, he wrote, quote, “We cannot be both against occupation, and for it. We cannot be both for freedom, and against it. And we cannot be for a better world, while contributing to one that is materially worse. … I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people — and is not in the long term American interest,” he wrote.
I asked Josh Paul to talk about why he resigned from the State Department.
JOSH PAUL: Yes, thank you. I decided to resign for three reasons, the first and most pressing of which is the very, I believe, uncontroversial fact that U.S.-provided arms should not be used to massacre civilians, should not be used to result in massive civilian casualties. And that is what we are seeing in Gaza and what we were seeing, you know, very soon after the October 7th horrific attack by Hamas. I do not believe arms should be — U.S.-provided arms should be used to kill civilians. It is that simple.
Secondly, I also believe that, you know, as your previous guest identified, there is no military solution here. And we are providing arms to Israel on a path that has not led to peace, has not led to security, neither for Palestinians nor for Israelis. It is a moribund process and a dead-end policy.
And yet, when I tried to raise both of these concerns with State Department leadership, there was no appetite for discussion, no opportunity to look at any of the potential arms sales and raise concerns about them, simply a directive to move forward as quickly as possible. And so I felt I had to resign.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk more about that. Talk more about what kind of dialogue goes on at the State Department and if you, for example, have met with Tony Blinken, the secretary of state, not to mention President Biden, to voice your concerns. And what about other veteran State Department officials?
JOSH PAUL: So, typically, there is a very robust policy process in the State Department for arms transfers. And there are a lot of those, right? So, we’re talking about about 20,000 arms sale cases a year that the State Department processes, which could be anything from bullets to radios to fighter jets. And for each of those, there is a lengthy process, sometimes, that looks at, you know, what are the pros and cons of the sale, what are its human rights implications. That has not happened in this context for Israel. And as I say, when I raised those concerns against the existing laws, against the existing policies, there was no appetite for that discussion.
I have not personally spoken to Secretary Blinken about this, nor, certainly, to President Biden. But I know that in the time since I left, there has been increasing discussion within the State Department, but has not led to any change of policies. In fact, as you heard earlier on your show, Vice President Harris was just saying yesterday that we will not place any conditions whatsoever on our arms to Israel. And that is unlike any arms transfer decision I’ve ever been a part of. There’s always discussion about should we condition this to address human rights issues.
AMY GOODMAN: So, who is leading this, Josh Paul? Who is preventing this? Who is suppressing all of this discussion within the State Department?
JOSH PAUL: I honestly think, in some ways, that it’s coming from the very top of the U.S. government and from the Biden White House. You know, there are many in the State Department, and across government, who have reached out to me in recent weeks, since I left, to express their support, but also to say how difficult and how horrific they are finding U.S. policy, and yet are being told, when they try to raise these concerns, “Look, you can get emotional support if you’re finding this difficult. We’ll find you something else to work on. But don’t question the policy, because it’s coming from the top.”
AMY GOODMAN: The HuffPost has this new piece that reports, “A task force on preventing atrocities did not meet until two weeks into the war, and officials say department leaders are telling them their expertise won’t affect policy.” Explain what goes on.
JOSH PAUL: So, whenever there is a crisis, as there is right now in Israel and Gaza, the department sets up a task forces or multiple task forces that are uniquely shaped to address that crisis. So, for example, in the context of an earthquake, they might bring in experts on refugee issues, on weather issues, on disease issues, you know, that sort of broad swath of people.
In the context of Gaza, they have set up a task force to look at this problem, but, according to the report you cite, it does not include the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, who are responsible for U.S. support to refugee issues. So, it is either a stunning oversight, or it is an intentional disregard for the humanity of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: At a meeting on October 26th, a State Department source told you they recalled a top official advising staff to shift their focus away from Israel-Palestine and seek to make a difference in other parts of the world?
JOSH PAUL: So, I don’t believe that that was a conversation that I had with someone, but that is in the same report in The Huffington Post that you cite, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So, they’re directing them not even to make comments on this, just stop talking about Israel-Palestine.
JOSH PAUL: Yes, that’s right. And I think, look, I mean, that reflects a tension or a censorship — right? — that we are seeing not only in the U.S. government. I think what’s interesting here is this censorship that has existed and expanded to colleges and universities, where you talked about the doxing. I’ve also heard from many people across the American private sector, both from the Arab American community but also more broadly, from all sorts of diverse communities, who have said, “We are afraid to speak up on this, because we are in fear of our jobs.” It’s the same climate in government. And that is just not American.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to ask you about this In These Times report that the White House has requested an unprecedented loophole in arms spending to allow it to be able to conduct arms deals with Israel in complete secrecy, without oversight from Congress or the public.
JOSH PAUL: Yeah. So, we provide Israel with $3.3 billion a year in foreign military financing, which is the State Department and U.S. government’s primary functional — primary mechanism for funding the sale of arms to other countries. Of note, you know, we typically provide — setting aside Ukraine — about $6 billion a year in foreign military financing around the world. So Israel already gets more than half of that.
The language in the supplemental request that the Biden administration set up — sent up would remove the requirement to notify Congress of any arms sales conducted under that funding. Typically, there is a process where, for any major defense sale, Congress is notified of it. And there’s actually a process prior to the formal notification where Congress gets to ask questions, poke, prod, delay, and then, if it wishes to oppose the sale, can raise a joint resolution of disapproval on the floor. What this proposal would do is, essentially, destroy all of that, remove all of that, remove that congressional oversight, remove that congressional ability to object. It is unprecedented. I have never seen anything like it. And I cannot imagine that the committees of jurisdiction are viewing it very favorably, because it is just such a damaging approach that also sets horrible precedent for other countries with whom future administrations may decide they don’t want Congress to be involved.
AMY GOODMAN: Since you were in charge of arms sales, what does this $14 billion that — well, it looks like both houses want to send it to Israel.
JOSH PAUL: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s just that the House one is controversial because they want to take that $14 billion from the IRS, and also they want to sever the funding for Israel from the funding for Ukraine. And Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, says he won’t consider this bill. But it sounds like there is enough support in both houses for that extra — not the $3.8 billion or $3.3 billion yearly aid to Israel, but an extra $14 billion. You’re the expert on arms sales. What would it be used for?
JOSH PAUL: Yeah, and let me just say, I think there is, you know, almost or near-unanimous congressional support for this further military assistance to Israel. And I think what’s fascinating about that is also there’s a massive disconnect between where Congress is on these issues and where, I think, if you look at the polling, the American public are. And I think the current crisis is really crystallizing that difference. I don’t think it will make any difference in terms of the passage of this package, but it may do down the line.
With regards to this package specifically, it includes $3.5 billion in foreign military financing. Israel can draw on that to purchase essentially what it wants. And what’s unusual about this, as well, in addition to the removal of the notification, is that Israel would be entitled, under the proposal sent to Congress, to spend all of this money within its own defense industry. Israel is, of course, a top 10 exporter of arms around the world, often competing with the United States. And the idea that we will be providing funding to subsidize that competition is really unimaginable.
But on top of that, the package also provides further funding from the Defense Department side for air and missile defense for Israel, for Iron Dome. And let me be clear: My concern here is on lethal assistance to Israel. When it comes to protecting civilians from rocket attacks, I believe that they should be. I don’t believe anyone should have to live in fear of their homes — in their homes from rockets raining down on them, although I believe that’s the case whether they are in Israel under the Iron Dome or whether they are in Gaza, for example. And, of course, we never ask that question.
The funding, finally, would also include research and development funding for equipment, such as there is an experimental laser project called Iron Beam, which the U.S. and Israel are working together on, an air and missile defense system. If this is an emergency request, why are we looking at research and development for projects that have not even materialized yet? That doesn’t sound like an emergency to me. So, as with the arms transfers I saw when I was departing from the department, I think there is just a rush to push everything they can while they feel there is a window of political opportunity here where there will be no significant opposition.
AMY GOODMAN: What kind of response was there to your resignation?
JOSH PAUL: So, to my resignation, I would say there has been an overwhelming response that I have heard from folks or from colleagues inside not only in the State Department, but across the U.S. government, actually, on the Hill, in the Defense Department, in the uniformed military services, including in combatant commands around the world. People have reached out to me to say, you know, “We fully agree with you.” You know, obviously, everyone has their own personal circumstances. You know, I think if we had universal healthcare, it would make it a bit easier for people to stand up on principle. I myself am, you know, trying to figure out what I do next on healthcare. But the point is that so many people have reached out to say, “We hear you. We agree with you.”
And I think, you know, one of the things I found is that a lot of people can be in individual offices and say, “There is no — I can’t speak up, because I will lose my job. I will put my career in jeopardy. And there’s no one else here I can talk to.” And yet I’m hearing from someone else just a few desks over who is saying the same thing. So I think there really is a communications crisis, a transparency crisis within the U.S. government, and a policy crisis, because when you can’t talk about foreign policy, when you can’t debate, when you can’t criticize, you don’t end up with good policy.
AMY GOODMAN: Josh Paul, why was this the last straw for you? I mean, for example, if you were in charge of weapons sales, presumably you were dealing with Saudi Arabia, notoriously authoritarian. U.S. agencies concluded, even in just one case, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for this. You oversaw arms sales to them, presumably. Why Israel?
JOSH PAUL: So, let me just be clear: I was one of multiple people involved in the arms sales process. Arms sales themselves are a presidential authority that is delegated to the secretary of state, and then, through the secretary of state, to the undersecretary, who is actually responsible for approving them, for the most part. But you’re right. And as I said in my resignation letter, in my time in the department, I dealt with many morally challenging, controversial arms sales.
I think what made the difference for me here is that for all of those previous instances, even under the Trump administration, mind you, there was always room for discussion and debate and the ability to mitigate some of the worst possible outcomes, to delay sales until crises had passed, so that they weren’t contributing immediately into a humanitarian crisis, to work with Congress and be confident that once the policy debate had ended in the State Department, there would be a congressional piece to it, too. And Congress generally has stood up in the past repeatedly on matters of human rights and arms sales. What was different here was that there was none of that. There was no debate. There was no space for debate. And there was also no congressional appetite or willingness to have debate.
AMY GOODMAN: There’s going to be a major march in Washington tomorrow. Three hundred fifty people were arrested in Philly. We’re going to play some clips of a major protest in Boston that happened last night. How much does grassroots protest like this, the thousands of people who are protesting around the country, the shutdown of Grand Central by Jewish groups just last Friday night, have on the State Department, on the White House?
JOSH PAUL: So, I don’t think it has much impact on the State Department. And that’s OK, because I think policy processes are meant to happen within a policy framework, [inaudible] and the problem is they’re not happening.
I think it does have an impact on the White House. I think we’ve seen a significant change in tone in the last few weeks, not because there is a sudden deep care, frankly, for Palestinian civilian casualties on their own merits, but because there is a sense that there is a political crisis here developing for the Biden administration, that many people are saying, you know, “We’re just going to sit out the next election. We have lost faith in this White House, in this administration.” So, I think that does have an impact.
And let me also say I have found it incredibly moving, as well, to watch these protests. You know, I was up on the Hill for meetings this week and last week and came across, in one office, a sit-in that was happening, where there was a group of Jewish students singing peace songs and holding up signs that said “Save Gaza.” I found that incredibly moving. And I think it also tells Congress and it tells this administration that they are not in line with much of American public opinion. I think it’s a much-needed message.
AMY GOODMAN: Josh Paul, veteran State Department official who worked on arms deals and resigned in October in protest of a push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst the attack on Gaza. Visit democracynow.org to see all of our coverage on Gaza and Israel.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 23, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/23/dissenters
Transcript
Hear from Craig Mokhiber, a longtime international human rights lawyer, who previously served as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, on why he left his post while decrying U.N. inaction over what he calls a “text-book case of genocide” unfolding in Gaza. Mokhiber’s letter of resignation went viral last month. He spoke to Democracy Now! shortly after.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
In this holiday special, we spend the rest of the hour with the dissenters: two top officials, Craig Mokhiber at the United Nations and Josh Paul at the State Department. They both recently resigned from their jobs to protest the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
We begin with Craig Mokhiber, longtime international human rights lawyer who served as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. He had worked at the United Nations since 1992 and lived in Gaza in the 1990s. He recently resigned his post and accused the United Nations of failing to address what he calls a “text-book case of genocide” unfolding in Gaza.
In a letter addressed to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, Craig Mokhiber wrote, quote, “In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units. Across the land, Apartheid rules,” Mokhiber said.
Craig Mokhiber went on to write, “What’s more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations 'to ensure respect' for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel’s atrocities,” unquote.
I spoke to Craig Mokhiber on November 1st, a day after he stopped working at the United Nations. I asked him to talk about why he resigned.
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I originally registered my concerns in writing to the high commissioner in March, as you heard from that statement, in the wake of a wave of human rights violations on the West Bank, including the pogrom Huwara at that time. And at that time, I complained, really, about what I saw as a trepidatious response by many in the United Nations, and an effort to try to silence some of the human rights critique of U.N. officials, including myself. And I admit to feeling a great deal of frustration, and at that moment indicating that I would be resigning from the U.N., effective this month. So, of course, the situation got much worse since then, which is why I was — particularly the events in Gaza — which is why I was compelled to write this latest letter to the high commissioner, to put on record my very serious concerns about how we were failing to address the unfolding events in the Occupied Territories.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think the United Nations, the United States, the West, U.K. should be doing right now?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I think there is an obligation on the part of all member states of the United Nations, including those states in the West, to respond in accordance with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law. My central point in the most recent letter was that we had effectively left international law behind when the international community embraced the Oslo process, which sort of raised up notions of political expediency above the requirements of international law. And that was a real loss for human rights in Palestine. I think there is an obligation on the part of all states not just to respect international humanitarian law and international human rights law, but, under the Geneva Conventions, to ensure respect. And it’s clear that many states, including the United States itself, have not only — are not only in breach of their obligation to ensure respect vis-à-vis those states over which they have influence — in this case, Israel — but have been actively complicit, actively engaged in arming, in diplomatic cover, in political support, intelligence support and so on. That is a breach of international humanitarian law. We need the opposite of that. We need all states, members of the United Nations, to use whatever influence they have to ensure an end to these attacks on civilians in Gaza, to ensure as well accountability for the perpetrators, redress for the victims, protection for the vulnerable there.
It’s interesting, Amy. We have a formula at the United Nations that is applied to virtually every other conflict situation. But when it comes to the situation in Israel and Palestine, there’s a different set of rules, apparently. And that’s, I think, a big source of my frustration. Where is the transitional justice process? Where is the U.N. protection force to protect all civilians? Where is the tribunal for accountability? Where is the action on the part of the Security Council, the only mechanism in the United Nations that has enforcement to ensure protection in the Occupied Territories? Obviously, every effort in the Security Council is vetoed by the United States itself, a further indication of the kind of complicity about which I am referring.
And I think the other thing that needs to happen in the international community is that we have to abandon the failed paradigms of the past on a political level and get back to the roots, which is international law, international human rights. What has happened in the context of the so-called Oslo process, the two-state solution, the U.N. Quartet, is that they have acted effectively as a smokescreen, behind which we have seen further and worsening dispossession of Palestinians, massive atrocities, such as those as we are witnessing now, the loss of homes and land, further settlement activity. You know, it’s an open secret inside the halls of the United Nations that the so-called two-state solution is effectively impossible now — there’s nothing left for a sustainable state for the Palestinian people — and takes no account of the fundamental human rights of the Palestinian people. The new paradigm has to be one based upon equality of all people there, equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews. And that needs to be the new approach.
And I think, as well, you know, it’s interesting that this year we are commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948. That same year, the Nakba occurred in Palestine, and apartheid was adopted in South Africa. We have seen, because of a consistent international law and international human rights approach in the U.N. and the international community, that apartheid in South Africa fell. We did not take the same approach in Palestine. We’ve deferred to these political processes. And as a result, not only have we not seen an end to the oppression of the Palestinian people, we’ve seen a continuing worsening of the situation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re a longtime human rights lawyer. I want you to respond — I played this already for Yousef Hammash in Gaza right now, in Khan Younis, to respond, but I’d like you to respond to it, as well. After Israel’s attack on Jabaliya yesterday, the IDF spokesperson, Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, appeared on CNN and was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer.
WOLF BLITZER: But you know that there are a lot of refugees, a lot of innocent civilians, men, women and children, in that refugee camp, as well, right?
LT. COL. RICHARD HECHT: This is the tragedy of war, Wolf. I mean, we — as you know, we’ve been saying for days, move south. Civilians that are not involved with Hamas, please move south. We —
WOLF BLITZER: Yeah, I’m just trying to get a little bit more information. You knew there were civilians there. You knew there were refugees, all sorts of refugees. But you decided to still drop a bomb on that refugee camp attempting to kill this Hamas commander. By the way, was he killed?
LT. COL. RICHARD HECHT: I can’t confirm, yeah. There will be more updated. He, yes, we know that he was killed. About the civilians there, we’re doing everything we can to minimize.
AMY GOODMAN: So, he’s saying they’re doing everything they can to minimize. He’s talking about Ibrahim Biari, whom it identified — Israel has identified as Hamas’s commander of the Jabaliya center battalion, saying he was killed in those recent strikes. Can you respond to every aspect of what he said? They were trying to get a high-value target, as they put it, and they are not trying to kill civilians.
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I think what’s important in that interview is that is another of many indications of intent on the part of Israeli authorities, that will be very important in a court of law. He has said very openly that they knew of the concentrations of civilians there, and yet, in violation of the principle of distinction in international humanitarian law, and on the pretext of killing one combatant, wiped out the better part of an entire refugee camp, densely populated refugee camp. And I think what’s been interesting in this war is the very open statement of intents. I referred in my letter to the case for genocide which is happening now. And, you know, “genocide” is a very politicized term, often abused. But in this case, the hardest part of proving genocide has been proven for us with these very open statements of genocidal intent by Israeli officials, including the prime minister and the president and senior Cabinet ministers and military officials, who in their public statements have indicated very clearly their intention not to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and to carry out the kinds of wholesale slaughter that we are witnessing in Gaza. That is not a justification in international law, saying that there was a combatant there, for that very disproportionate use of firepower against what was a civilian target. And that’s what we’ve been seeing in all of Gaza, from the north to the south.
The other thing is this claim that, “Well, we told them to move south, and therefore we can kill everybody who didn’t move.” This is an extremely dangerous and unlawful tactic that is being used, first because we know that evacuations in Gaza in the best of times, in this densely populated small territory with 2.3 million civilians crowded in, with very limited infrastructure, is a huge challenge. But most of Gaza has been bombed into rubble. It is just not physically possible for civilians to move en masse in the ways that Israel has required them to do so. And we know, already well documented, that when they do so, they’re still subjected to bombings even in the south of the Gaza Strip. So, all of this, it seems to me, is evidence of intent and a prima facie case for violations of the laws of war.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel has called for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to resign, after he said Hamas’s October 7th attack did not happen in a vacuum. This is Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan.
GILAD ERDAN: Mr. Secretary-General, the U.N. was established to prevent atrocities, to prevent such atrocities like the barbaric atrocities that Hamas committed. But the U.N. is failing. The U.N. is failing. And you, Mr. Secretary-General, have lost all morality and impartiality, because when you say those terrible words that these heinous attacks did not happen in a vacuum, you are tolerating terrorism. And by tolerating terrorism, you are justifying terrorism.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. Craig Mokhiber, your response?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, of course, you can imagine why the ambassador would want to start the clock only in October and to ignore the decades upon decades of persecution against the Palestinian people in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, inside Israel proper. But that is not the kind of assessment that leads to peace or leads to an improved situation on the ground. The secretary-general was doing his job. He had condemned the loss of civilian life in the Hamas attack, and he also criticized not just what Israel was doing in Gaza, but all of the events that have led up to this situation.
And that’s what I mean by a need to break from the failed paradigm of the past. We really need to get into something that says that human beings are entitled to human rights under international law and that the duty of the international community is to ensure protection for all under the rule of law, but also accountability for perpetrators and redress for victims.
So, I am not surprised at that statement. We’ve seen a lot of extreme statements from that particular ambassador, a lot of theater, as well. I don’t think we should allow it to distract us to what’s happening on the ground, which is the wholesale loss of life of innocent civilians in their thousands, including thousands of children in the Gaza Strip, and the need to get to an immediate ceasefire and then to shift into a new approach that will prevent this from happening again and again and again.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering about the role of Karim Khan, the lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. I think he was in Rafah just a few days ago. We see the world’s response, or the West’s response, when it came to Russia invading Ukraine and occupying Ukraine. Karim Khan, very soon after, opened a whole investigation into crimes against humanity that Putin was committing in Ukraine. Can you respond to the difference in approach to Russia and Ukraine and Israel and the Occupied Territories, officially, international law, the OPT, the Occupied Palestinian Territories?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, there has been a stunning inconsistency with the rapidity with which the court was able to move and the prosecutor was able to move with regard to Ukraine and the years upon years in which it has dragged its feet with regard to Palestine. This is just one of many critiques of the court, including the fact that it does not have a very strong record of holding Northern countries — Israel, the United States and others — to account for their crimes under international criminal law, and yet is very anxious to move forward on cases in the Global South.
Now, that is not to condemn the court. The court is a young institution. It needs to be strengthened. It needs to insulate itself from the kinds of political pressure that have led to its inaction in the case of Palestine. But our hope, ultimately, is the peaceful resolution of disputes through the use of international law. And if that’s going to happen, we need a robust and fair International Criminal Court that doesn’t provide for exceptionalism for powerful countries of the North, like Israel, for example, but that holds all perpetrators of international crimes to account. The court has a long way to go before it’s going to have the reputation that will bring confidence globally that it’s meeting its mandate under the Rome Statute.
AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre compared pro-Palestinian protesters to the white supremacists who took part in the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. She made the comment in response to a question from Fox News’s Peter Doocy.
PETER DOOCY: Does President Biden think the anti-Israel protesters in this country are extremists?
PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: What I can say is what we’ve been very clear about this: When it comes to antisemitism, there is no place. We have to make sure that we speak against it very loud and be — and be very clear about that. Remember, what the president decided to — when the president decided to run for president is what he saw in Charlottesville in 2017, when we — he saw neo-Nazis marching down the streets of Charlottesville with vile, antisemitic just hatred. And he was very clear then, and he’s very clear now. He’s taken actions against this over the past two years. And he’s continued to be clear: There is no place — no place — for this type of vile and despite — this kind of rhetoric.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s President Biden’s spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre. Craig Mokhiber, your response?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I think one of the most disturbing aspects of this current situation in the North, in countries like the U.S. and in Europe, has been this rather unprecedented crackdown on human rights defenders speaking up to defend the human rights of people in Gaza during this situation. And that has come from official statements that try to critique in that way people who are defending human rights, and to compare them with far-right neofascist protesters, for example. I mean, it’s an outrageous comparison to make. And it doesn’t stop there. We have also seen very strong efforts on the part of government institutions, including local governments and state governments and the federal government, and universities and employers and others to punish people for daring to speak up, criticizing the human rights violations that are happening, or criticizing the U.S. role in these violations.
But I think what is most hopeful, Amy, and where there is a glimmer of hope, which has, I have to say, moved me very much, it’s that people are not allowing themselves to be intimidated by these tactics. We have seen massive demonstrations, in all parts of the country and in Europe, from people many times risking arrest, risking police beatings, risking other consequences, because they refuse to allow this to go forward and to have the human rights claim be silenced. And I think most encouraging, we have seen — you know, just a few blocks from here a few days ago, we saw a large group, organized by Jewish Voices for Peace, IfNotNow, of Jewish protesters standing up and saying, “Not in our name,” and taking over Grand Central Station, and in one move stripping away the Israeli propaganda point that they are somehow acting in the defense of Jews. Jewish people are not represented by Israel. These protesters have made that perfectly clear. Israel pushes an old antisemitic trope that it somehow represents Jewish people around the world. Not only is that not factual, but it’s very dangerous. And everyone needs to know that Israel is a state that’s responsible for its own crimes, and that responsibility does not extend to our Jewish brothers and sisters, many of whom are standing up alongside Muslim and Christian and others in demonstrations across this country and across Europe, saying that this must end.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get your response to a comment in The Guardian by Anne Bayefsky, who directs Touro College’s Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust in New York, who accused you of overt antisemitism, saying you used U.N. letterhead to call for wiping Israel off the map. Craig Mokhiber, if you could respond?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, Anne Bayefsky is a well-known entity amongst human rights defenders. She has made a career of attacking anyone who dares to criticize Israeli human rights violations, in particular. I have responded to this idea of wiping Israel off the map by saying I’m not looking for an end to Israel, I’m looking for an end to apartheid. And it’s very telling, what Anne Bayefsky tweeted in her attack on me. She accused me of antisemitism, and the quote that she took from my letter to prove that was my call for equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews. I had to reply to her tweet by saying that she had become a parody of herself, because if calling for equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews is a new form of antisemitism, then there’s no conversation to be had.
But I don’t think people are falling for these smears anymore. They are almost automatic. But the point needs to be made again and again that criticism of Israeli human rights violations is not antisemitic, just as criticism of Saudi violations is not Islamophobic, criticism of Myanmar violations is not anti-Buddhist, criticism of Indian violations is not anti-Hindu. If any of those are true, then there is no international human rights framework. And if only the case of Israel is true, well, that’s a racist proposition that only Palestinians can’t have their human rights defended in this globe. So, I don’t think anyone listens too much to those kinds of smears anymore. And luckily, people are speaking up louder, not lowering their voices, to demand human rights in the Occupied Territories.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what do you go off to do, Craig Mokhiber? I mean, you have been at the United Nations for decades. Talk about your plans now. Today is your first day that you’re not working at the U.N.
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I intend to remain involved in the cause of international human rights, in which I’ve been involved since 1980, in fact. There’s no question about that. I will do it under my own name, unconstrained by diplomatic protocol and the constraints of the U.N. I will continue to support my colleagues. I don’t want to leave the impression that I’m criticizing the whole U.N. You know, U.N. humanitarian workers, U.N. human rights workers, the UNRWA colleagues in Gaza, dozens of whom have lost their life just in the last couple of weeks under Israeli bombs, are doing absolutely heroic work all around the world. But I want to try to influence the political side of the house to take up a more realistic and principled approach to this particular conflict, one based in international human rights, one based in international humanitarian law, and one based in achievable goals, if not in the immediate term, of a paradigm based upon equality, an end to apartheid, and, as I said, equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get your final response to the protesters just yesterday in Washington, D.C., in the Senate, repeatedly disrupting Secretary of State Antony Blinken while he was testifying before the Senate on President Biden’s request for $106 billion for Ukraine, Israel and militarizing the U.S.-Mexico border. A group of protesters with members of Muslims for Just Futures and Detention Watch Network, sitting behind Blinken, held up their hands covered in fake blood. He was also interrupted by members of CodePink, including the former State Department official Ann Wright, who resigned over the Iraq War. This is what she said.
ANN WRIGHT: I say no more money for war! We’ve got to have a ceasefire. Wait a minute. Got a [inaudible]. No more money for war! No more money for war! No more money for killing 8,300 people in Gaza. Three thousand five hundred kids dead. Come on. I’m an Army colonel. I’m a former diplomat. I resigned on that War in Iraq that you talked about. That was a terrible thing. And what you’re doing right now in supporting Israel’s genocide of Gaza is a terrible thing, too. Stop the war! Ceasefire now!
AMY GOODMAN: She was holding a sign as she was taken out by security, “Ceasefire in Gaza.” Craig Mokhiber, your final comments?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: This is where I find the most hope, Amy. I have lost confidence in official institutions of government after all these years in the international human rights movement. I am losing hope in international — important parts of international institutions. Where there is hope, it is in civil society. It is in those ordinary people, here in the United States and elsewhere, who are willing to stand up and demand respect for human life and for human rights.
AMY GOODMAN: International human rights lawyer Craig Mokhiber, who recently resigned from his post as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
When we come back, we speak with another dissenter, Josh Paul, who resigned from the State Department to protest the Biden administration’s push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst its siege on Gaza.
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State Department Official Resigns, Says Israel Is Using U.S. Arms to Massacre Civilians in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 23, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/23/dissenters_2
Transcript
We speak with Josh Paul, a former State Department official, about his decision to resign from his position in protest of U.S. arms sales to Israel amid its recent bombardment of Gaza. Paul tells Democracy Now!, “I decided to resign for three reasons, the first and most pressing of which is the very, I believe, uncontroversial fact that U.S.-provided arms should not be used to massacre civilians, should not be used to result in massive civilian casualties.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We end this special with Josh Paul. In October, he resigned from the State Department to protest the Biden administration’s push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst its siege on Gaza, calling it “shortsighted,” “destructive” and “contradictory.” Paul had served as director of congressional and public affairs for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in the State Department, which oversees arms transfers to Israel and other nations.
In his resignation letter, he wrote, quote, “We cannot be both against occupation, and for it. We cannot be both for freedom, and against it. And we cannot be for a better world, while contributing to one that is materially worse. … I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people — and is not in the long term American interest,” he wrote.
I asked Josh Paul to talk about why he resigned from the State Department.
JOSH PAUL: Yes, thank you. I decided to resign for three reasons, the first and most pressing of which is the very, I believe, uncontroversial fact that U.S.-provided arms should not be used to massacre civilians, should not be used to result in massive civilian casualties. And that is what we are seeing in Gaza and what we were seeing, you know, very soon after the October 7th horrific attack by Hamas. I do not believe arms should be — U.S.-provided arms should be used to kill civilians. It is that simple.
Secondly, I also believe that, you know, as your previous guest identified, there is no military solution here. And we are providing arms to Israel on a path that has not led to peace, has not led to security, neither for Palestinians nor for Israelis. It is a moribund process and a dead-end policy.
And yet, when I tried to raise both of these concerns with State Department leadership, there was no appetite for discussion, no opportunity to look at any of the potential arms sales and raise concerns about them, simply a directive to move forward as quickly as possible. And so I felt I had to resign.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk more about that. Talk more about what kind of dialogue goes on at the State Department and if you, for example, have met with Tony Blinken, the secretary of state, not to mention President Biden, to voice your concerns. And what about other veteran State Department officials?
JOSH PAUL: So, typically, there is a very robust policy process in the State Department for arms transfers. And there are a lot of those, right? So, we’re talking about about 20,000 arms sale cases a year that the State Department processes, which could be anything from bullets to radios to fighter jets. And for each of those, there is a lengthy process, sometimes, that looks at, you know, what are the pros and cons of the sale, what are its human rights implications. That has not happened in this context for Israel. And as I say, when I raised those concerns against the existing laws, against the existing policies, there was no appetite for that discussion.
I have not personally spoken to Secretary Blinken about this, nor, certainly, to President Biden. But I know that in the time since I left, there has been increasing discussion within the State Department, but has not led to any change of policies. In fact, as you heard earlier on your show, Vice President Harris was just saying yesterday that we will not place any conditions whatsoever on our arms to Israel. And that is unlike any arms transfer decision I’ve ever been a part of. There’s always discussion about should we condition this to address human rights issues.
AMY GOODMAN: So, who is leading this, Josh Paul? Who is preventing this? Who is suppressing all of this discussion within the State Department?
JOSH PAUL: I honestly think, in some ways, that it’s coming from the very top of the U.S. government and from the Biden White House. You know, there are many in the State Department, and across government, who have reached out to me in recent weeks, since I left, to express their support, but also to say how difficult and how horrific they are finding U.S. policy, and yet are being told, when they try to raise these concerns, “Look, you can get emotional support if you’re finding this difficult. We’ll find you something else to work on. But don’t question the policy, because it’s coming from the top.”
AMY GOODMAN: The HuffPost has this new piece that reports, “A task force on preventing atrocities did not meet until two weeks into the war, and officials say department leaders are telling them their expertise won’t affect policy.” Explain what goes on.
JOSH PAUL: So, whenever there is a crisis, as there is right now in Israel and Gaza, the department sets up a task forces or multiple task forces that are uniquely shaped to address that crisis. So, for example, in the context of an earthquake, they might bring in experts on refugee issues, on weather issues, on disease issues, you know, that sort of broad swath of people.
In the context of Gaza, they have set up a task force to look at this problem, but, according to the report you cite, it does not include the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, who are responsible for U.S. support to refugee issues. So, it is either a stunning oversight, or it is an intentional disregard for the humanity of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: At a meeting on October 26th, a State Department source told you they recalled a top official advising staff to shift their focus away from Israel-Palestine and seek to make a difference in other parts of the world?
JOSH PAUL: So, I don’t believe that that was a conversation that I had with someone, but that is in the same report in The Huffington Post that you cite, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So, they’re directing them not even to make comments on this, just stop talking about Israel-Palestine.
JOSH PAUL: Yes, that’s right. And I think, look, I mean, that reflects a tension or a censorship — right? — that we are seeing not only in the U.S. government. I think what’s interesting here is this censorship that has existed and expanded to colleges and universities, where you talked about the doxing. I’ve also heard from many people across the American private sector, both from the Arab American community but also more broadly, from all sorts of diverse communities, who have said, “We are afraid to speak up on this, because we are in fear of our jobs.” It’s the same climate in government. And that is just not American.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to ask you about this In These Times report that the White House has requested an unprecedented loophole in arms spending to allow it to be able to conduct arms deals with Israel in complete secrecy, without oversight from Congress or the public.
JOSH PAUL: Yeah. So, we provide Israel with $3.3 billion a year in foreign military financing, which is the State Department and U.S. government’s primary functional — primary mechanism for funding the sale of arms to other countries. Of note, you know, we typically provide — setting aside Ukraine — about $6 billion a year in foreign military financing around the world. So Israel already gets more than half of that.
The language in the supplemental request that the Biden administration set up — sent up would remove the requirement to notify Congress of any arms sales conducted under that funding. Typically, there is a process where, for any major defense sale, Congress is notified of it. And there’s actually a process prior to the formal notification where Congress gets to ask questions, poke, prod, delay, and then, if it wishes to oppose the sale, can raise a joint resolution of disapproval on the floor. What this proposal would do is, essentially, destroy all of that, remove all of that, remove that congressional oversight, remove that congressional ability to object. It is unprecedented. I have never seen anything like it. And I cannot imagine that the committees of jurisdiction are viewing it very favorably, because it is just such a damaging approach that also sets horrible precedent for other countries with whom future administrations may decide they don’t want Congress to be involved.
AMY GOODMAN: Since you were in charge of arms sales, what does this $14 billion that — well, it looks like both houses want to send it to Israel.
JOSH PAUL: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s just that the House one is controversial because they want to take that $14 billion from the IRS, and also they want to sever the funding for Israel from the funding for Ukraine. And Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, says he won’t consider this bill. But it sounds like there is enough support in both houses for that extra — not the $3.8 billion or $3.3 billion yearly aid to Israel, but an extra $14 billion. You’re the expert on arms sales. What would it be used for?
JOSH PAUL: Yeah, and let me just say, I think there is, you know, almost or near-unanimous congressional support for this further military assistance to Israel. And I think what’s fascinating about that is also there’s a massive disconnect between where Congress is on these issues and where, I think, if you look at the polling, the American public are. And I think the current crisis is really crystallizing that difference. I don’t think it will make any difference in terms of the passage of this package, but it may do down the line.
With regards to this package specifically, it includes $3.5 billion in foreign military financing. Israel can draw on that to purchase essentially what it wants. And what’s unusual about this, as well, in addition to the removal of the notification, is that Israel would be entitled, under the proposal sent to Congress, to spend all of this money within its own defense industry. Israel is, of course, a top 10 exporter of arms around the world, often competing with the United States. And the idea that we will be providing funding to subsidize that competition is really unimaginable.
But on top of that, the package also provides further funding from the Defense Department side for air and missile defense for Israel, for Iron Dome. And let me be clear: My concern here is on lethal assistance to Israel. When it comes to protecting civilians from rocket attacks, I believe that they should be. I don’t believe anyone should have to live in fear of their homes — in their homes from rockets raining down on them, although I believe that’s the case whether they are in Israel under the Iron Dome or whether they are in Gaza, for example. And, of course, we never ask that question.
The funding, finally, would also include research and development funding for equipment, such as there is an experimental laser project called Iron Beam, which the U.S. and Israel are working together on, an air and missile defense system. If this is an emergency request, why are we looking at research and development for projects that have not even materialized yet? That doesn’t sound like an emergency to me. So, as with the arms transfers I saw when I was departing from the department, I think there is just a rush to push everything they can while they feel there is a window of political opportunity here where there will be no significant opposition.
AMY GOODMAN: What kind of response was there to your resignation?
JOSH PAUL: So, to my resignation, I would say there has been an overwhelming response that I have heard from folks or from colleagues inside not only in the State Department, but across the U.S. government, actually, on the Hill, in the Defense Department, in the uniformed military services, including in combatant commands around the world. People have reached out to me to say, you know, “We fully agree with you.” You know, obviously, everyone has their own personal circumstances. You know, I think if we had universal healthcare, it would make it a bit easier for people to stand up on principle. I myself am, you know, trying to figure out what I do next on healthcare. But the point is that so many people have reached out to say, “We hear you. We agree with you.”
And I think, you know, one of the things I found is that a lot of people can be in individual offices and say, “There is no — I can’t speak up, because I will lose my job. I will put my career in jeopardy. And there’s no one else here I can talk to.” And yet I’m hearing from someone else just a few desks over who is saying the same thing. So I think there really is a communications crisis, a transparency crisis within the U.S. government, and a policy crisis, because when you can’t talk about foreign policy, when you can’t debate, when you can’t criticize, you don’t end up with good policy.
AMY GOODMAN: Josh Paul, why was this the last straw for you? I mean, for example, if you were in charge of weapons sales, presumably you were dealing with Saudi Arabia, notoriously authoritarian. U.S. agencies concluded, even in just one case, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for this. You oversaw arms sales to them, presumably. Why Israel?
JOSH PAUL: So, let me just be clear: I was one of multiple people involved in the arms sales process. Arms sales themselves are a presidential authority that is delegated to the secretary of state, and then, through the secretary of state, to the undersecretary, who is actually responsible for approving them, for the most part. But you’re right. And as I said in my resignation letter, in my time in the department, I dealt with many morally challenging, controversial arms sales.
I think what made the difference for me here is that for all of those previous instances, even under the Trump administration, mind you, there was always room for discussion and debate and the ability to mitigate some of the worst possible outcomes, to delay sales until crises had passed, so that they weren’t contributing immediately into a humanitarian crisis, to work with Congress and be confident that once the policy debate had ended in the State Department, there would be a congressional piece to it, too. And Congress generally has stood up in the past repeatedly on matters of human rights and arms sales. What was different here was that there was none of that. There was no debate. There was no space for debate. And there was also no congressional appetite or willingness to have debate.
AMY GOODMAN: There’s going to be a major march in Washington tomorrow. Three hundred fifty people were arrested in Philly. We’re going to play some clips of a major protest in Boston that happened last night. How much does grassroots protest like this, the thousands of people who are protesting around the country, the shutdown of Grand Central by Jewish groups just last Friday night, have on the State Department, on the White House?
JOSH PAUL: So, I don’t think it has much impact on the State Department. And that’s OK, because I think policy processes are meant to happen within a policy framework, [inaudible] and the problem is they’re not happening.
I think it does have an impact on the White House. I think we’ve seen a significant change in tone in the last few weeks, not because there is a sudden deep care, frankly, for Palestinian civilian casualties on their own merits, but because there is a sense that there is a political crisis here developing for the Biden administration, that many people are saying, you know, “We’re just going to sit out the next election. We have lost faith in this White House, in this administration.” So, I think that does have an impact.
And let me also say I have found it incredibly moving, as well, to watch these protests. You know, I was up on the Hill for meetings this week and last week and came across, in one office, a sit-in that was happening, where there was a group of Jewish students singing peace songs and holding up signs that said “Save Gaza.” I found that incredibly moving. And I think it also tells Congress and it tells this administration that they are not in line with much of American public opinion. I think it’s a much-needed message.
AMY GOODMAN: Josh Paul, veteran State Department official who worked on arms deals and resigned in October in protest of a push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst the attack on Gaza. Visit democracynow.org to see all of our coverage on Gaza and Israel.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Tue Nov 28, 2023 3:20 am
“The Mandates of Conscience”: Michelle Alexander on Israel, Gaza, MLK & Speaking Out in a Time of War
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 24, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/24 ... _alexander
Transcript
“But We Must Speak: On Palestine and the Mandates of Conscience.” That was the name of a recent event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature here in New York, where leading writers and academics came together to speak out against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Speakers included Yasmin El-Rifae of PalFest and the civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
AMY GOODMAN: Today, a special broadcast: “But We Must Speak: On Palestine and the Mandates of Conscience.” That was the name of a November 1st event here in New York where leading writers and academics came together to speak out against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. The event was held at the Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan. But it almost didn’t happen. Four other venues refused to host the gathering.
Over the next hour, we’ll hear the words of the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, who won the National Book Award for his book Between the World and Me. He was in conversation with the Palestinian American historian Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. His books include The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. Their discussion was moderated by Michelle Alexander, the renowned civil rights attorney and author. We begin with Yasmin El-Rifae, author, writer and producer of the Palestine Festival of Literature.
YASMIN EL-RIFAE: Since 2008, PalFest has been bringing writers and artists from around the world to Palestine for a weeklong festival, staging free public events in multiple cities across Palestine. Some of you have been our guests, participants and advisers.
As we come together in this beautiful sanctuary tonight, churches, mosques, hospitals and refugee camps in Gaza are being bombed by Israel. Our PalFest colleagues, friends and partners in the West Bank are living in terror for their safety and the safety of their families. The young writers in Gaza who organized a night of poetry in the besieged strip ahead of the opening of PalFest in Ramallah last May have stopped replying to their messages. Mohammed al-Qudwa, who contributed a poem to that evening last May, is still occasionally replying to messages and posting on Instagram. With no food, water and power in Gaza and amidst constant bombardment, he writes that when his phone lights up, the internet feels like a miracle. Some of the writers and activists in the West Bank whose homes PalFest visited just last May and in years prior are having their photographs and addresses circulated on chat groups among armed Israeli settlers calling for their murder. Some of the publishers and editors who have worked with these writers and artists and activists are in this room today.
In response to this disaster, we are holding this event as an urgent intervention by writers, scholars and poets who have worked at the unavoidable intersection of art and politics, who have thought deeply about land, segregation, colonization, history and liberation. We thank the Union Theological Seminary for taking us in at a time when events in this city are being canceled and censored. This is the fifth space we approached to host us this evening. The difficulty is not because of availability.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Yasmin El-Rifae of the Palestine Festival of Literature speaking at an event at the Union Theological Seminary here in New York. It was titled “But We Must Speak: On Palestine and the Mandates of Conscience.” This is civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander, renowned author of the book _The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” About five years ago, Alexander wrote a widely read op-ed piece for The New York Times headlined “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine.”
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: The fact that so many people are here tonight, so many, from all different religions, races, genders, is itself a testament of hope. I know that so many of us are carrying a great deal of grief, fear, anger, internal conflict and despair into this room. I hope that we can breathe together, now that we have arrived, exhale, open our hearts to one another and listen deeply to each other. We are here. We are many. We are not alone.
On behalf of Serene Jones, the president of Union Theological Seminary, I want to welcome you to James Chapel. Serene could not join us tonight because she has a commitment in Washington, D.C., but she wishes she could be here, and she extends a very warm welcome to all of you.
It’s no secret that many people are closing their doors to these kinds of vital conversations right now, fearful of what others might say, think or do in response. And so I am enormously grateful that Serene said yes when I asked her if the Palestine Literary Festival could come to Union and use this sacred space. She said yes, knowing that her decision might invite criticism or rebuke. But she also knew that James Chapel has been a site of many, many difficult, courageous conversations, dialogues that are essential to our collective liberation and the creation of beloved community.
In fact, it was in this very space that Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was originally scheduled to deliver his 1967 speech condemning the Vietnam War. The event was ultimately relocated to Riverside Church across the street due to the overwhelming number of people who wanted to hear what he had to say and our space limitations here.
At Riverside, Dr. King stepped to the podium and said, quote, “I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. A time comes when silence is betrayal. And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.”
Dr. King acknowledged how difficult it can be for people to speak out against their own government, especially in times of war, and that the temptations of conformity may lead us toward a paralyzed apathy. He did not deny that the issues present in Vietnam were complex with long histories. And he recognized that there were ambiguities and that North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front were not paragons of virtue. But he said that he was morally obligated to speak for the suffering and helpless and outcast children of Vietnam. He said, quote, “This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation’s self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls 'enemy,' for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers,” end-quote.
He condemned the Vietnam War in unsparing terms. He decried the moral bankruptcy of a nation that does not hesitate to invest in bombs and warfare around the world but can never seem to find the dollars to eradicate poverty at home. He called for a radical revolution of values. He said, quote, “We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered,” end-quote.
Dr. King was condemned by virtually every major media outlet in America for taking this stand. And even within the civil rights community, many imagined that he was a traitor to the cause. And yet we now know — deep within us we know — that he was right. He is right. He is right today as he was back then about the corrupting forces of capitalism, militarism and racism and how they lead inexorably toward war.
And he was right that our conscience must leave us no other choice: We must speak. When the oppressed, the poor, the weak are under attack, when their homes are stolen or demolished, when they are forced to migrate and to live in unspeakable conditions, in open-air prisons, concentration camps, perpetually as refugees under occupation, we must speak. We must speak when Jewish children are brutally killed in the name of liberation, when antisemitism and Islamophobia slip in through the back door of supposedly progressive spaces. When Palestinian children in refugee camps are bombed and killed, when schools and hospitals and entire neighborhoods are laid waste, we must speak. When international law is treated like a naive suggestion, we must speak. Yes, it may be difficult. Yes, we will make mistakes. We are human. And yes, we may be afraid. But we must speak. Countless lives and the liberation of all of us depend on us breaking our silences.
And what’s required in these times, as I see it, is not only activism and politics, but also deeply personal spiritual work. As Grace Lee Boggs once said, quote, “These are the times to grow our souls.”
All of us have a conscience that whispers to us, sometimes in the dark. The mandates of conscience that arise within each of us arise not out of loyalty to abstract principles or doctrines, but from a place of deep knowing, a deep knowing that we owe something to each other as human beings, that we belong to each other, and that our freedom and liberation depends on one another. If I do not stand and speak up when the bombs are raining down on you, then who will speak up for me, for my loved ones, when the tables are turned? As James Baldwin wrote to Angela Davis more than 50 years ago when she sat in a prison cell “For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.”
AMY GOODMAN: Civil rights attorney and author Michelle Alexander, speaking at a November 1st event at the Union Theological Seminary here in New York organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature. Coming up, Michelle Alexander moderates a discussion by the renowned author Ta-Nehisi Coates and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. Stay with us.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates and Rashid Khalidi on Israeli Occupation, Apartheid & the 100-Year War on Palestine
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 24, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/24 ... id_khalidi
Transcript
In this special broadcast, we air excerpts from a recent event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature at the Union Theological Seminary here in New York. The event featured a discussion between the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. Coates won the National Book Award for his book Between the World and Me. Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia. His books include The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. Their conversation was moderated by civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. In this special broadcast, we’re airing excerpts of a recent event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature at the Union Theological Seminary here in New York. It featured a discussion between the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. Coates won the National Book Award for his book Between the World and Me. His other books, We Were Eight Years in Power, The Beautiful Struggle and the novel The Water Dancer. Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. His books include The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. Their conversation was moderated by the civil rights attorney and author Michelle Alexander, who asked about personal connections to Palestine. This is professor Rashid Khalidi.
RASHID KHALIDI: I’m honored to be here, and I’m extremely pleased that it was possible to put this together. This is the second Palestine Festival of Literature event that has been canceled and canceled again, and the heroic organizers managed to pull it together. They did the same thing in London, where I was supposed to speak last Friday. And it was canceled and canceled again in London. They sent the anti-terrorism police to the Royal Geographic Society and told them they could not hold the event, but they held it anyway.
My connection to Palestine is obviously a personal one. My family is from there. I have family there now. My niece’s family is actually in Gaza. They live in Nu’man, which is a neighborhood of Gaza right near the sea, or not far from the sea. They fled from their home under bombardment to the southern part of Gaza. They were being bombarded there. And so they went back to the shelter of their home. And then, just two days — just yesterday, because they were warned that the neighborhood would be bombed, they moved to the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, which is, like all hospitals in Gaza, threatened by the Israeli military with being bombed. So that’s part of my connection. And I have family in other places there.
I was there last in March, and it was obvious that the situation was on the point of exploding. One has to be there to see exactly how awful occupation and dispossession and decades of living as people have had to live, whether in refugee camps or in other parts of occupied Palestine, whether they’re Palestinian citizens living as fifth-class citizens in Israel, whether they’re in the Gaza Strip, whether they’re in the West Bank, whether they’re in Jerusalem. I should say that my wish is that every single one of you has a chance to go there. People who have been there have found it a transformative experience. You actually cannot believe what settler colonialism is like, you cannot believe that in the 21st century this is being done to an entire people, unless you see it. You can read about it, you can understand it theoretically, but you have to see it. And I urge those of you who have the opportunity to please try and go there.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, I want to pick up on wherever she left off. I went with PalFest. Yasmin, Omar and all the organizers of PalFest hosted me. And I was there for five days in the Occupied Territories, in Jerusalem, and then I stayed another five days after that.
And I had this degree of anxiety about going, because I knew I was going to see something, something I couldn’t quite name. And I knew, because of my upbringing, because of my mother, because of my father, because of my wife, because my son, because of my community, that after I saw the thing, I would have to come back and talk about it, that there was no option in which I did not talk about it.
And I thought I was going to another country, but, in fact, what amazed me was I actually felt that I was in the same country, but I was in a different time. I was in the time of my parents and my grandparents.
I can think back to all of the articles I’ve read, all the things I’ve seen said about how complicated and how complex the situation is and the occupation is. It’s complex, it’s complicated. And it’s made to sound as though you need a degree in Middle Eastern studies or some such, a Ph.D., to really understand what’s happening. But I understood the first day.
We went to East Jerusalem to try to visit in the way that Muslims visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque. And I can remember being there, and there were four IDF guards, biggest guns I’d ever seen in my life. And they checked our IDs, and they gave us our IDs back. And then they did nothing. They just made us wait. And we waited. And we waited. And we waited. There was no list. There was no protocol. There was no anything. They were just making us wait because they could. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I was like, “I know what this is. I know exactly what this is.”
The second day, we went to Hebron. And I can remember walking down streets with a Palestinian guide. And we would get to certain streets, and he would say, “I can’t walk down this street with you. You can walk. I cannot, because I’m Palestinian.” And I thought, “I know what that is.”
As we drove through the Occupied Territories and I would look out and I would see roads that Palestinians could use and roads that only Israeli Jews could use, I said, “I know what this is.” As I saw different colored license plates for different classes of people, I said, “I know what this is.” As I saw communities that I can only describe as segregated, I said, “This is Chicago. It’s Baltimore. It’s Philadelphia.”
And I don’t mean to center the whole world on America. We have a tendency to do that. But my lens is my lens. This is all I have. And what I felt was a tremendous weight. I felt the obvious thing that I think all of us feel, that our tax dollars are effectively subsidizing apartheid, are subsidizing a segregationist order, a Jim Crow regime. But I also felt that, as an African American who was reared on the fight against Jim Crow, against white supremacy, against apartheid, I felt tremendous shame. How could I not know? How could I not know that the only democracy in the Middle East, as it bills itself, is segregated? How did I know that?
And what I came to, Michelle, was that Israel is a democracy, the only democracy in the Middle East, in the exact same way that America is the oldest democracy in the world. So, the relationship was quite clear. It was quite clear. It was palpable. It was felt. And the responsibility was clear after that.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yeah. So, let’s take a step back and talk a little bit about the history. Both of you have written a lot about the importance of understanding history in order to engage meaningfully with our present. Both of you have talked about history as ongoing processes rather than as complete, finished and in the past. And you’ve written that there was no isolated event, the Nakba that began and ended in 1948, but rather a hundred years’ war on Palestine. And so I’m wondering if you could share with us what you think people need to know, need to understand about the history of Palestine in order to act in meaningful and courageous ways now. And also, what do they need to know about the history of Palestinian resistance, since it is so often portrayed in the media in such an ahistorical fashion, as though Palestinian resistance is driven by hate rather than by a natural, unquenchable yearning to be free? And so, share with us what we need to know, in your view.
RASHID KHALIDI: Thanks, Michelle. What we need to know, all of us, is more about the history. What we need to know is, I think, summed up in the title of the book that you just mentioned. This is part of a hundred years’ war on Palestine. It’s not a war in Palestine. It’s a war to implant a settler colonial presence at the expense of an Indigenous people, which is being pushed out slowly but surely. And when we say the Nakba, the disaster, we start by talking about what happened in 1948, but that’s part of a much longer process.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Can you explain what happened in 1948?
RASHID KHALIDI: I will. In 1948, 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes, starting months before the state of Israel was created, including 70,000 people in Jaffa, 70,000 in Haifa — two of the largest Arab cities in Palestine — 30,000 people in Jerusalem, all of this before Israel was even created. And then, once Israel was created, once the war between Israel and the Arab states started, hundreds of thousands of more were driven out.
That was not a result of war. That was part of a settler colonial process which dictates that you must eliminate, reduce, push out the Indigenous population in order to replace it with settlers. That is what Israel is. Israel is a national fact, but it is also a settler colonial fact. It is a fact very similar to the facts that were created in Ireland by settlers sent over by England to push the Indigenous population to the west of Ireland, settlers brought to this country to push the Indigenous population west and out of the land that white colonists wanted to settle. It’s different, but it’s exactly — it’s different in its specifics, but it’s exactly the same process.
And the war is not one between equals. It is a war between a Indigenous population and a externally supported powerful movement rooted always in Western Europe and the United States. This is the metropole for that project. This is where that project gets its money, its guns, its vetoes in the Security Council. Without that, we wouldn’t be where we are, without the Balfour Declaration, without the British, without the British and the French, without the United States.
And I think it’s really, really important to understand all of these facts, that it is a — this has been a process which is driven by a demographic imperative, to create a Jewish majority in a country which until 1948 had an overwhelming Arab majority, to create a Jewish state, which was the objective of Zionism. In an overwhelmingly Arab land, you had to reduce the Arab population. And in order to do that, you had ultimately to use force. That’s what the Nakba starts with: force. Hundreds of thousands more are pushed out after the 1967 War. And in the interim, there’s constant pressure on Palestinians to leave. Permits are revoked, residencies are revoked, you’re not allowed to enter, you’re not allowed to retain this citizenship or to live here — all of it designed to squeeze the population either out of the country or into smaller and smaller spaces. You can call them Area A, Area B, Area C. You can call them Bantustans. You can call them Native American reservations. It’s the same thing. It’s the same process. It’s the same logic. It’s the same racism.
And I guess the last thing I’d say about the history is that in this unequal struggle, which involves unremitting violence, one of the first leaders of the Zionist movement, a man named Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the spiritual father of every government since Yitzhak Shamir’s government, he said — he said it: We need an iron wall, we need force, or we cannot do this. Every Native population resists its dispossession. That’s not me. That’s Jabotinsky. And he said it again and again and again. And that is what has produced Palestinian resistance, unremitting violence. You cannot have dispossession, you cannot have people’s homes and property taken away, without the use of violence. You cannot force 750,000 people from their homes without violence. And that is what the Palestinians have suffered in this war.
And they have resisted. Sometimes they’ve been successful. Sometimes they’ve been unsuccessful. Sometimes that resistance was political or nonviolent. Quite frequently it was violent. Violence inevitably breeds violence. And every time the Palestinians have tried to resist nonviolently, the response was almost even — almost more ferocious than violent resistance. Why? Because if Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions or action before the International Criminal Court or the Great March of Return in Gaza a couple of years ago, when Israeli snipers shot down hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of unarmed demonstrators — if those things can succeed, then Israel is naked, in a way that it’s not when the resistance is violent. So, when you ask, “Why do you have violent resistance?” you have violent resistance both because in order to impose this settler colonial reality on this people, unremitting, unceasing violence has been applied to them, and because, finally, people can only take so much. People can only take so much.
And so, I think that in order to understand this and in order to advocate effectively for this cause, it’s really necessary for us to understand all of these things, to understand the legal aspects, the kind of things that Noura Erakat has written about, to understand details about the politics, the kinds of things that many other people have written about, and to understand the history. This has been portrayed by a movement that is political, that is national — I’m talking about Zionism — that is economic, that is military, but is also a public relations project. It has sold a picture — what you were talking about, Ta-Nehisi — which people have swallowed with their mother’s milk. And it is necessary to deconstruct that, and the only way to do that is to know better than they do the reality of what has been happening in Palestine for more than a hundred years.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: But, Ta-Nehisi, can you — well, you can respond to that. But also, I’m especially interested in your thoughts about the history of Black solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and kind of the extent to which you think it’s vital for Black people to be in solidarity with Palestine and the struggle to free Palestine today.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah. Well, I’ll say a couple things. I think it’s really important to acknowledge something. And that is that, you know, I’m a relative latecomer to this. It’s not something that I had a real knowledge of. I had an intuition for it. I had an awareness of the tradition. But it really was not until I went there that I had a tactile feeling for it.
One of the things I will probably be making amends for until the day they put me in the ground, if I’m honest, is in one of my most celebrated works of journalism, when I had to demonstrate tangibly how a reparations program could be done. I looked to Israel. And, you know, like, I think about that. And one of my golden rules about writing is that, you know, you only write after you’ve reported, you only write after. And I wrote without going. I wrote without going. And so, while there is this long tradition of solidarity, for me, personally, there’s a thing of making amends. And it is terribly, ferociously important to me. I think about that.
And I think about how gracious people were when I was over there. I think about how they took me into their homes. I think about how they fed me. And I think about how their only request was: When you go back, don’t lose your voice. That was all they asked. That was all they asked. And so, for me, I am obviously aware of the tradition. But this is like personal. You know what I mean? Like, I have some debts to pay, you know? And I think, like, it’s really, really important to me that I be clear about that.
AMY GOODMAN: We’ll return to this conversation between the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi in a minute. They were speaking at a November 1st event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature at Union Theological Seminary here in New York, the discussion moderated by the civil rights attorney and author Michelle Alexander. Back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. As we continue to look at Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, we return to a recent conversation between the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. They spoke at a November 1st event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature at Union Theological Seminary here in New York, the discussion moderated by the civil rights attorney and author Michelle Alexander.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: I feel like I came late to my awareness, as well. I had heard things, including one time from a friend, a good friend, who is not prone to hyperbole, who went to Palestine, returned and said, “You know, I was active in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and had been to South Africa many times.” He says, “But what I saw in Israel and Palestine was worse than what I had seen there.” And I remember filing that fact away somewhere, what he said, but imagined that the work that I was doing at home was what was most deserving of my attention.
And it wasn’t until the Ferguson uprisings, when I began to hear that activists on the street who were facing tear gas and tanks, they were getting advice from Palestinians halfway across the globe, tweeting to them about how to deal with militaristic occupation and attacks. And following the experience that those activists had in Ferguson, many of them went to Palestine and came back with stories and deep knowledge of the history. And as I began to learn more, I also came to learn that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was staunchly in support of the Palestinian cause, that Muhammad Ali had identified himself as strongly in support of the Palestinian cause, that there was a long tradition of, you know, Black activists standing in solidarity with Palestinians.
And I have to give a shoutout to my sister’s new book. She’s a historian. She just published a book called Fear of a Black Republic. It’s about Haiti and the rise and the birth of Black internationalism in the United States. But it is that long history of Black people understanding that their struggle for liberation crosses boundaries, and that solidarity is necessary across those boundaries, I think, is calling to us now. And the fact that Palestinians were supporting folks in the street of Ferguson, and who also, I have heard, were showing their support for people in Flint, Michigan, giving advice about how to survive when your water is shut off, and so it’s encouraging to me to hear about that kind of international solidarity in this time.
But let’s turn to some political realities in the United States right now. The United States’ support, as we all know, for Israel has been absolutely unwavering for decades, even among supposedly progressive politicians and elected officials. Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick have written an excellent book called Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics. And I’d love to hear from both of you a little bit about these political realities in the United States right now. We are witnessing in real time exactly how unshakable support is for Israel, as the Biden administration refuses to draw any lines in the sand or place any limitations at all on the billions of dollars of aid that we send to Israel every year, even as it commits horrific war crimes broadcast around the globe. Why is our government not only tolerating this, but sending billions more dollars to Israel?
And before you answer, I want to note that I think a clue can be found in a speech that a young U.S. senator named Joe Biden delivered on the Senate floor in June 1986. It’s available on YouTube. He said defiantly, quote, “If we look at the Middle East, I think it’s about time we stop apologizing for our support for Israel. There is no apology to be made. None. It is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect our interests in the region. The United States would have to go out and invent an Israel,” end-quote. So, what was Biden saying exactly? What do we need to understand about U.S. support for Israel?
RASHID KHALIDI: Hot potato, eh?
I think we need to understand a bunch of things. We need to understand that there’s a strategic thing there, serves American imperial interests, has always done. That’s why the British started this project. They did not do it for the brown eyes of the Jewish people. They did it because it was in the strategic interests of the British Empire. And that’s one reason the United States does it. We do not give $3.8 billion a year, plus the $10 billion that Biden has asked for additionally this year, for anything to do with sentiment. It has to do with strategy. It has to do with oil, has to do with interests, imperial interests.
It has to do with a couple other things. It does have to do with the evangelical right. That’s one of the things that moved Britain to support the Balfour Declaration, to support a Jewish national home in an almost entirely Arab country. And it’s one of the things that moves American politicians, the votes, the money, the concentrated political power of the evangelical right.
It has to do with money. Our politicians are whores. They’re bought and sold. That needs to be said. And the bigger — the bigger the donor, the more services they get. And that’s part of the — that’s part of it.
And if we ask, “Why is it that our media is so complicit?” well, it’s partly because our media is a echo chamber for the people in power in Washington. I read The New York Times some mornings, and I say ”The New York Pravda Times.” And I read The Washington Post, I read ”The Washington Izvestia Post.” They are like the Soviet press during the Cold War. They are — whether it’s the Ukraine war or whether it’s this war, they echo power.
But they also echo money. Who owns The Washington Post? Jeff Bezos. Who owns MSNBC, NBCUniversal — well, MSNBC, NBCUniversal? Who owns those institutions, those institutions of the press? The same people who own the politicians. The same people who own our universities. Who runs our universities? Who runs our universities? Not the presidents and the deans and the department chairmans — chairmen and women. It’s the board of trustees. What is the board of trustees? It’s the same people who finance the politicians, same people who own the media.
So, if we see a compliant media with a government that is supportive of Israel, because of votes, because of the evangelical right, because of imperial strategic objectives, it’s very simple. When we see university administrations kowtowing to one narrative on Palestine, as they have done right across the country, it’s for the same reason that our media does it and the same reason that our government does it. It’s money. It’s power. It’s very, very, very simple. I can give you a more sophisticated explanation, but I think that that really sums it up, frankly.
TA-NEHISI COATES: I don’t have a better answer than that.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yeah, you know, it’s interesting, because I reflect on the fact that —
RASHID KHALIDI: Can I say something? I hope I did not insult sex workers. I did not mean to do that. I did not mean to do that. I’m very sorry.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Appreciated.
RASHID KHALIDI: They’re far above politicians. Sorry, I had to say that.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Well, I think we should probably spend a minute talking about censorship, fear and censorship. I know that both of you have significant experience with censorship, having your work censored. I do, too. And we have seen in recent years the censorship of books labeled critical race theory — that’s turned out to be a very broad category — books about LGBTQ people and issues. Kind of the scope of censorship keeps broadening. But we are seeing now kind of new forms, or very old forms being born again, of censorship in this kind of war context. And I do worry about the possibility of us entering into another McCarthyite era. The challenges of finding a site just for this conversation, I think, speak to the real risk of that.
And I wonder if both of you — and I’ll start with you — could say a little bit about where you think we are right now in terms of censorship. And as was mentioned earlier, people have real fears, fears that are grounded, you know, in reality, the possibility of losing jobs, of retaliation, and even being attacked violently or killed as a result of expressing their views. Where are we now in terms of censorship? What do you fear? And how do you think people ought to respond in this moment in time?
TA-NEHISI COATES: You know, oddly enough, I think we’re in a great place. And I don’t say that blithely. I say that, as you mentioned, having some very, very direct experience with my own work being banned in schools and libraries, and then, this week, helping where I could, and, ultimately, you know, as you, Michelle, but trying to, you know, figure out where we could hold this event, seeing, you know, Yasmin and go through all of the hoops. So, what I’ve gleaned from that is, when people start resorting to instruments as blunt and direct as book bans or not allowing discussions, they’re threatened. It’s the weapon of a weak and a decaying order.
You know, I have to say a little something. I’ll never forget. I came back, right? I come back from Palestine. This is like, you know, late May, and I’m going crazy. Like, I’m going to sleep, and I’m dreaming about Palestine. And I’m waking up, and I got that glassy-eyed look in my face. And my wife is worried about me, and everybody’s worried about me. And I emailed a friend, and I said, “Do you have a contact with Rashid Khalidi at all?” And he said, “Yeah, I do.” And he connected us. And I wrote a message: “You don’t know me from Adam, but I got to talk to somebody about what I saw.” And he said, “It’s OK.” He said, “Look, I’m having a dinner this weekend. Why don’t you and your wife come?” And I came, and we sat in community, and it was the thing that I needed. And among the many things Rashid said that night, he said, “I have been fighting this fight for a long time, and I’ve never seen our side this strong. I’ve never seen the students in university so galvanized. I’ve never…”
And you can confuse the ferociousness of the pushback with strength. You know what I mean? But the fact of the matter is, in African American history, for instance, here in our struggle, the struggle is the most violent when people are the most threatened. The original and the oldest and the most lethal form of domestic terrorism was pioneered after the Civil War, and what it was was in response to the fact that suddenly you had multiple states throughout this country with Black majorities. You had a majority-Black Legislature in South Carolina. The pushback had to be ferocious. It had to be violent. It needed to be, because of the sheer strength of the threat. That’s generally been our history.
And so, now in this moment, when I look out and I see, you know, not just my work banned, but I see the work of my colleagues banned, I see, as you mentioned, LGBTQ authors banned, when I situate myself within the history of Black writing, and I understand the fact that there was never any safe moment for Black writing in this country’s history, when I understand that — when Frederick Douglass publishes his Narrative, and he goes and he talks about it, he has a price on his head. He can be dragged back into slavery at any moment. When I’ve seen that Ida B. Wells was driven out of Memphis, Tennessee, for reporting on the lynching and the murder of her friends, and she continued to report on it nonetheless, when I understand that Elijah Lovejoy was shot to death and his press was shoved into the river, you have to be realistic about this moment.
What happened to you, man? You had to find another location for your talk tonight. That was it, actually quite simple compared to the long history of things. My wife was kind enough to send me an article about this district where they had banned Between the World and Me, right? And there had been — and this is a deep red district, and there had been this whole fight about it. And they went and they interviewed the librarian. And the librarian said, “This is the most checked-out book we’ve ever had.” That’s not because of me. That’s because of the ban. You understand what I’m saying?
And so, like, the very fact that you guys are here, the very unfortunate fact that some of you who are watching this couldn’t get in — you know what I mean? — the fact that we had to struggle to find a venue for this event, doesn’t say anything about the strength of this movement here. It doesn’t say anything about our strength. Says a lot about the threat and what people feel and the weakness. So, I don’t know. I, like — anybody that knows me knows that I am not one known for my optimism. But I feel it in this moment. I really do.
RASHID KHALIDI: I mean, I don’t have much to say after that. But I am completely convinced that Ta-Nehisi is right.
The first thing is, this idea that the international community supports what Israel is doing acts as if the United States, Western Europe and a few white settler colonies in Japan are the international community. They aren’t. They’re a pimple on the backside of humanity. The international community is India and China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Congo, Nigeria, Brazil — I could go on. Those are the people who voted in the United Nations for a ceasefire, 120 countries. There were 14 — there were 14 that voted against: six island nations, the United States, Israel and a bunch of hangers-on. That’s not the world. The world is actually with us, indeed in this country. The press? No. The politicians? No. The universities? Certainly no. And by that, I mean the administrations.
But look at the campus that I teach on. Five years ago, Columbia students voted overwhelmingly in support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of companies that support the occupation. Overwhelmingly. Same thing happened at Brown. Same thing happened at Barnard. Same thing happened at Michigan. Same thing happened at almost every university where the thing was put to a vote. The students are with us. By a vote, we know that.
I was on the television the other day, for my sins. It’s a terrible thing to go on television, I promise you. Don’t do it if you don’t have to. And I mentioned that young people are with us. And, God bless her, the interviewer said to me, “Yeah, there’s a poll here that says, on Biden’s handling of the Gaza situation, in the age group from 18 to 35, he has 10% support.” Ten percent. I could give you — I could give you — I could give you more polls. They are terrified of us. That’s why. That’s why we’re getting censorship.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: We’ve got to close now. And, you know, I think as we sit here in the center of the most powerful empire in the world, we need to think about what our responsibility is, as King said in his speech, to those who have been defined as our enemy, and consider not just, like, what we must say, but what we must do. And I’m wondering if you have thoughts that you want to share.
RASHID KHALIDI: I do. Thank you. One of the things that I argue in this book, that you mentioned, is this is not a war on the Palestinians waged by the Zionist movement or Israel alone. It’s a war waged on the Palestinian people by Israel and the United States. Those are our weapons. Those are American F-35s, American F-15s, American F-16s, American 175-millimeter guns, American 155-millimeter guns. They fire shells of a hundred pounds each. I could tell you their kill radius. I could tell you how large the diameter of a 2,000-pound bomb dropped from an American plane is. That’s us, our tax dollars, our votes.
We must oppose, with action, with words, not just weapons that we send to Israel to kill people with being used in that way — and, incidentally, in violation of U.S. law. U.S. law mandates that weapons can only be used for defensive purposes. Why do you think they keep saying in every one of their statements that Israel has a right to defend itself? Because, otherwise, they would be in violation of U.S. law in sending those weapons to Israel. If killing children in Jabaliya camp is a defensive purpose, then it’s legal. And if it’s not, they’re in violation of the law. We must oppose that.
And we must oppose the possibility of the United States being complicit in ethnic cleansing. We must oppose it as strongly as we can. Otherwise, we are the ethnic cleansers, and we are the killers. We may not be the ones pulling the trigger. We may not be the people forcing people out into Egypt or into Jordan, but we are responsible. Our government has just said that it’s willing to fund that. Now, maybe they’ll pull back on it, but they’ll only pull back on it if we make them stop. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi in conversation with the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates at a November 1st event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature at Union Theological Seminary here in New York. The discussion was moderated by the civil rights attorney and author Michelle Alexander.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 24, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/24 ... _alexander
Transcript
“But We Must Speak: On Palestine and the Mandates of Conscience.” That was the name of a recent event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature here in New York, where leading writers and academics came together to speak out against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Speakers included Yasmin El-Rifae of PalFest and the civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
AMY GOODMAN: Today, a special broadcast: “But We Must Speak: On Palestine and the Mandates of Conscience.” That was the name of a November 1st event here in New York where leading writers and academics came together to speak out against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. The event was held at the Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan. But it almost didn’t happen. Four other venues refused to host the gathering.
Over the next hour, we’ll hear the words of the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, who won the National Book Award for his book Between the World and Me. He was in conversation with the Palestinian American historian Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. His books include The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. Their discussion was moderated by Michelle Alexander, the renowned civil rights attorney and author. We begin with Yasmin El-Rifae, author, writer and producer of the Palestine Festival of Literature.
YASMIN EL-RIFAE: Since 2008, PalFest has been bringing writers and artists from around the world to Palestine for a weeklong festival, staging free public events in multiple cities across Palestine. Some of you have been our guests, participants and advisers.
As we come together in this beautiful sanctuary tonight, churches, mosques, hospitals and refugee camps in Gaza are being bombed by Israel. Our PalFest colleagues, friends and partners in the West Bank are living in terror for their safety and the safety of their families. The young writers in Gaza who organized a night of poetry in the besieged strip ahead of the opening of PalFest in Ramallah last May have stopped replying to their messages. Mohammed al-Qudwa, who contributed a poem to that evening last May, is still occasionally replying to messages and posting on Instagram. With no food, water and power in Gaza and amidst constant bombardment, he writes that when his phone lights up, the internet feels like a miracle. Some of the writers and activists in the West Bank whose homes PalFest visited just last May and in years prior are having their photographs and addresses circulated on chat groups among armed Israeli settlers calling for their murder. Some of the publishers and editors who have worked with these writers and artists and activists are in this room today.
In response to this disaster, we are holding this event as an urgent intervention by writers, scholars and poets who have worked at the unavoidable intersection of art and politics, who have thought deeply about land, segregation, colonization, history and liberation. We thank the Union Theological Seminary for taking us in at a time when events in this city are being canceled and censored. This is the fifth space we approached to host us this evening. The difficulty is not because of availability.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Yasmin El-Rifae of the Palestine Festival of Literature speaking at an event at the Union Theological Seminary here in New York. It was titled “But We Must Speak: On Palestine and the Mandates of Conscience.” This is civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander, renowned author of the book _The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” About five years ago, Alexander wrote a widely read op-ed piece for The New York Times headlined “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine.”
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: The fact that so many people are here tonight, so many, from all different religions, races, genders, is itself a testament of hope. I know that so many of us are carrying a great deal of grief, fear, anger, internal conflict and despair into this room. I hope that we can breathe together, now that we have arrived, exhale, open our hearts to one another and listen deeply to each other. We are here. We are many. We are not alone.
On behalf of Serene Jones, the president of Union Theological Seminary, I want to welcome you to James Chapel. Serene could not join us tonight because she has a commitment in Washington, D.C., but she wishes she could be here, and she extends a very warm welcome to all of you.
It’s no secret that many people are closing their doors to these kinds of vital conversations right now, fearful of what others might say, think or do in response. And so I am enormously grateful that Serene said yes when I asked her if the Palestine Literary Festival could come to Union and use this sacred space. She said yes, knowing that her decision might invite criticism or rebuke. But she also knew that James Chapel has been a site of many, many difficult, courageous conversations, dialogues that are essential to our collective liberation and the creation of beloved community.
In fact, it was in this very space that Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was originally scheduled to deliver his 1967 speech condemning the Vietnam War. The event was ultimately relocated to Riverside Church across the street due to the overwhelming number of people who wanted to hear what he had to say and our space limitations here.
At Riverside, Dr. King stepped to the podium and said, quote, “I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. A time comes when silence is betrayal. And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.”
Dr. King acknowledged how difficult it can be for people to speak out against their own government, especially in times of war, and that the temptations of conformity may lead us toward a paralyzed apathy. He did not deny that the issues present in Vietnam were complex with long histories. And he recognized that there were ambiguities and that North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front were not paragons of virtue. But he said that he was morally obligated to speak for the suffering and helpless and outcast children of Vietnam. He said, quote, “This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation’s self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls 'enemy,' for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers,” end-quote.
He condemned the Vietnam War in unsparing terms. He decried the moral bankruptcy of a nation that does not hesitate to invest in bombs and warfare around the world but can never seem to find the dollars to eradicate poverty at home. He called for a radical revolution of values. He said, quote, “We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered,” end-quote.
Dr. King was condemned by virtually every major media outlet in America for taking this stand. And even within the civil rights community, many imagined that he was a traitor to the cause. And yet we now know — deep within us we know — that he was right. He is right. He is right today as he was back then about the corrupting forces of capitalism, militarism and racism and how they lead inexorably toward war.
And he was right that our conscience must leave us no other choice: We must speak. When the oppressed, the poor, the weak are under attack, when their homes are stolen or demolished, when they are forced to migrate and to live in unspeakable conditions, in open-air prisons, concentration camps, perpetually as refugees under occupation, we must speak. We must speak when Jewish children are brutally killed in the name of liberation, when antisemitism and Islamophobia slip in through the back door of supposedly progressive spaces. When Palestinian children in refugee camps are bombed and killed, when schools and hospitals and entire neighborhoods are laid waste, we must speak. When international law is treated like a naive suggestion, we must speak. Yes, it may be difficult. Yes, we will make mistakes. We are human. And yes, we may be afraid. But we must speak. Countless lives and the liberation of all of us depend on us breaking our silences.
And what’s required in these times, as I see it, is not only activism and politics, but also deeply personal spiritual work. As Grace Lee Boggs once said, quote, “These are the times to grow our souls.”
All of us have a conscience that whispers to us, sometimes in the dark. The mandates of conscience that arise within each of us arise not out of loyalty to abstract principles or doctrines, but from a place of deep knowing, a deep knowing that we owe something to each other as human beings, that we belong to each other, and that our freedom and liberation depends on one another. If I do not stand and speak up when the bombs are raining down on you, then who will speak up for me, for my loved ones, when the tables are turned? As James Baldwin wrote to Angela Davis more than 50 years ago when she sat in a prison cell “For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.”
AMY GOODMAN: Civil rights attorney and author Michelle Alexander, speaking at a November 1st event at the Union Theological Seminary here in New York organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature. Coming up, Michelle Alexander moderates a discussion by the renowned author Ta-Nehisi Coates and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. Stay with us.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates and Rashid Khalidi on Israeli Occupation, Apartheid & the 100-Year War on Palestine
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 24, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/24 ... id_khalidi
Transcript
In this special broadcast, we air excerpts from a recent event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature at the Union Theological Seminary here in New York. The event featured a discussion between the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. Coates won the National Book Award for his book Between the World and Me. Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia. His books include The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. Their conversation was moderated by civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. In this special broadcast, we’re airing excerpts of a recent event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature at the Union Theological Seminary here in New York. It featured a discussion between the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. Coates won the National Book Award for his book Between the World and Me. His other books, We Were Eight Years in Power, The Beautiful Struggle and the novel The Water Dancer. Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. His books include The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. Their conversation was moderated by the civil rights attorney and author Michelle Alexander, who asked about personal connections to Palestine. This is professor Rashid Khalidi.
RASHID KHALIDI: I’m honored to be here, and I’m extremely pleased that it was possible to put this together. This is the second Palestine Festival of Literature event that has been canceled and canceled again, and the heroic organizers managed to pull it together. They did the same thing in London, where I was supposed to speak last Friday. And it was canceled and canceled again in London. They sent the anti-terrorism police to the Royal Geographic Society and told them they could not hold the event, but they held it anyway.
My connection to Palestine is obviously a personal one. My family is from there. I have family there now. My niece’s family is actually in Gaza. They live in Nu’man, which is a neighborhood of Gaza right near the sea, or not far from the sea. They fled from their home under bombardment to the southern part of Gaza. They were being bombarded there. And so they went back to the shelter of their home. And then, just two days — just yesterday, because they were warned that the neighborhood would be bombed, they moved to the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, which is, like all hospitals in Gaza, threatened by the Israeli military with being bombed. So that’s part of my connection. And I have family in other places there.
I was there last in March, and it was obvious that the situation was on the point of exploding. One has to be there to see exactly how awful occupation and dispossession and decades of living as people have had to live, whether in refugee camps or in other parts of occupied Palestine, whether they’re Palestinian citizens living as fifth-class citizens in Israel, whether they’re in the Gaza Strip, whether they’re in the West Bank, whether they’re in Jerusalem. I should say that my wish is that every single one of you has a chance to go there. People who have been there have found it a transformative experience. You actually cannot believe what settler colonialism is like, you cannot believe that in the 21st century this is being done to an entire people, unless you see it. You can read about it, you can understand it theoretically, but you have to see it. And I urge those of you who have the opportunity to please try and go there.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, I want to pick up on wherever she left off. I went with PalFest. Yasmin, Omar and all the organizers of PalFest hosted me. And I was there for five days in the Occupied Territories, in Jerusalem, and then I stayed another five days after that.
And I had this degree of anxiety about going, because I knew I was going to see something, something I couldn’t quite name. And I knew, because of my upbringing, because of my mother, because of my father, because of my wife, because my son, because of my community, that after I saw the thing, I would have to come back and talk about it, that there was no option in which I did not talk about it.
And I thought I was going to another country, but, in fact, what amazed me was I actually felt that I was in the same country, but I was in a different time. I was in the time of my parents and my grandparents.
I can think back to all of the articles I’ve read, all the things I’ve seen said about how complicated and how complex the situation is and the occupation is. It’s complex, it’s complicated. And it’s made to sound as though you need a degree in Middle Eastern studies or some such, a Ph.D., to really understand what’s happening. But I understood the first day.
We went to East Jerusalem to try to visit in the way that Muslims visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque. And I can remember being there, and there were four IDF guards, biggest guns I’d ever seen in my life. And they checked our IDs, and they gave us our IDs back. And then they did nothing. They just made us wait. And we waited. And we waited. And we waited. There was no list. There was no protocol. There was no anything. They were just making us wait because they could. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I was like, “I know what this is. I know exactly what this is.”
The second day, we went to Hebron. And I can remember walking down streets with a Palestinian guide. And we would get to certain streets, and he would say, “I can’t walk down this street with you. You can walk. I cannot, because I’m Palestinian.” And I thought, “I know what that is.”
As we drove through the Occupied Territories and I would look out and I would see roads that Palestinians could use and roads that only Israeli Jews could use, I said, “I know what this is.” As I saw different colored license plates for different classes of people, I said, “I know what this is.” As I saw communities that I can only describe as segregated, I said, “This is Chicago. It’s Baltimore. It’s Philadelphia.”
And I don’t mean to center the whole world on America. We have a tendency to do that. But my lens is my lens. This is all I have. And what I felt was a tremendous weight. I felt the obvious thing that I think all of us feel, that our tax dollars are effectively subsidizing apartheid, are subsidizing a segregationist order, a Jim Crow regime. But I also felt that, as an African American who was reared on the fight against Jim Crow, against white supremacy, against apartheid, I felt tremendous shame. How could I not know? How could I not know that the only democracy in the Middle East, as it bills itself, is segregated? How did I know that?
And what I came to, Michelle, was that Israel is a democracy, the only democracy in the Middle East, in the exact same way that America is the oldest democracy in the world. So, the relationship was quite clear. It was quite clear. It was palpable. It was felt. And the responsibility was clear after that.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yeah. So, let’s take a step back and talk a little bit about the history. Both of you have written a lot about the importance of understanding history in order to engage meaningfully with our present. Both of you have talked about history as ongoing processes rather than as complete, finished and in the past. And you’ve written that there was no isolated event, the Nakba that began and ended in 1948, but rather a hundred years’ war on Palestine. And so I’m wondering if you could share with us what you think people need to know, need to understand about the history of Palestine in order to act in meaningful and courageous ways now. And also, what do they need to know about the history of Palestinian resistance, since it is so often portrayed in the media in such an ahistorical fashion, as though Palestinian resistance is driven by hate rather than by a natural, unquenchable yearning to be free? And so, share with us what we need to know, in your view.
RASHID KHALIDI: Thanks, Michelle. What we need to know, all of us, is more about the history. What we need to know is, I think, summed up in the title of the book that you just mentioned. This is part of a hundred years’ war on Palestine. It’s not a war in Palestine. It’s a war to implant a settler colonial presence at the expense of an Indigenous people, which is being pushed out slowly but surely. And when we say the Nakba, the disaster, we start by talking about what happened in 1948, but that’s part of a much longer process.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Can you explain what happened in 1948?
RASHID KHALIDI: I will. In 1948, 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes, starting months before the state of Israel was created, including 70,000 people in Jaffa, 70,000 in Haifa — two of the largest Arab cities in Palestine — 30,000 people in Jerusalem, all of this before Israel was even created. And then, once Israel was created, once the war between Israel and the Arab states started, hundreds of thousands of more were driven out.
That was not a result of war. That was part of a settler colonial process which dictates that you must eliminate, reduce, push out the Indigenous population in order to replace it with settlers. That is what Israel is. Israel is a national fact, but it is also a settler colonial fact. It is a fact very similar to the facts that were created in Ireland by settlers sent over by England to push the Indigenous population to the west of Ireland, settlers brought to this country to push the Indigenous population west and out of the land that white colonists wanted to settle. It’s different, but it’s exactly — it’s different in its specifics, but it’s exactly the same process.
And the war is not one between equals. It is a war between a Indigenous population and a externally supported powerful movement rooted always in Western Europe and the United States. This is the metropole for that project. This is where that project gets its money, its guns, its vetoes in the Security Council. Without that, we wouldn’t be where we are, without the Balfour Declaration, without the British, without the British and the French, without the United States.
And I think it’s really, really important to understand all of these facts, that it is a — this has been a process which is driven by a demographic imperative, to create a Jewish majority in a country which until 1948 had an overwhelming Arab majority, to create a Jewish state, which was the objective of Zionism. In an overwhelmingly Arab land, you had to reduce the Arab population. And in order to do that, you had ultimately to use force. That’s what the Nakba starts with: force. Hundreds of thousands more are pushed out after the 1967 War. And in the interim, there’s constant pressure on Palestinians to leave. Permits are revoked, residencies are revoked, you’re not allowed to enter, you’re not allowed to retain this citizenship or to live here — all of it designed to squeeze the population either out of the country or into smaller and smaller spaces. You can call them Area A, Area B, Area C. You can call them Bantustans. You can call them Native American reservations. It’s the same thing. It’s the same process. It’s the same logic. It’s the same racism.
And I guess the last thing I’d say about the history is that in this unequal struggle, which involves unremitting violence, one of the first leaders of the Zionist movement, a man named Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the spiritual father of every government since Yitzhak Shamir’s government, he said — he said it: We need an iron wall, we need force, or we cannot do this. Every Native population resists its dispossession. That’s not me. That’s Jabotinsky. And he said it again and again and again. And that is what has produced Palestinian resistance, unremitting violence. You cannot have dispossession, you cannot have people’s homes and property taken away, without the use of violence. You cannot force 750,000 people from their homes without violence. And that is what the Palestinians have suffered in this war.
And they have resisted. Sometimes they’ve been successful. Sometimes they’ve been unsuccessful. Sometimes that resistance was political or nonviolent. Quite frequently it was violent. Violence inevitably breeds violence. And every time the Palestinians have tried to resist nonviolently, the response was almost even — almost more ferocious than violent resistance. Why? Because if Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions or action before the International Criminal Court or the Great March of Return in Gaza a couple of years ago, when Israeli snipers shot down hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of unarmed demonstrators — if those things can succeed, then Israel is naked, in a way that it’s not when the resistance is violent. So, when you ask, “Why do you have violent resistance?” you have violent resistance both because in order to impose this settler colonial reality on this people, unremitting, unceasing violence has been applied to them, and because, finally, people can only take so much. People can only take so much.
And so, I think that in order to understand this and in order to advocate effectively for this cause, it’s really necessary for us to understand all of these things, to understand the legal aspects, the kind of things that Noura Erakat has written about, to understand details about the politics, the kinds of things that many other people have written about, and to understand the history. This has been portrayed by a movement that is political, that is national — I’m talking about Zionism — that is economic, that is military, but is also a public relations project. It has sold a picture — what you were talking about, Ta-Nehisi — which people have swallowed with their mother’s milk. And it is necessary to deconstruct that, and the only way to do that is to know better than they do the reality of what has been happening in Palestine for more than a hundred years.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: But, Ta-Nehisi, can you — well, you can respond to that. But also, I’m especially interested in your thoughts about the history of Black solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and kind of the extent to which you think it’s vital for Black people to be in solidarity with Palestine and the struggle to free Palestine today.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah. Well, I’ll say a couple things. I think it’s really important to acknowledge something. And that is that, you know, I’m a relative latecomer to this. It’s not something that I had a real knowledge of. I had an intuition for it. I had an awareness of the tradition. But it really was not until I went there that I had a tactile feeling for it.
One of the things I will probably be making amends for until the day they put me in the ground, if I’m honest, is in one of my most celebrated works of journalism, when I had to demonstrate tangibly how a reparations program could be done. I looked to Israel. And, you know, like, I think about that. And one of my golden rules about writing is that, you know, you only write after you’ve reported, you only write after. And I wrote without going. I wrote without going. And so, while there is this long tradition of solidarity, for me, personally, there’s a thing of making amends. And it is terribly, ferociously important to me. I think about that.
And I think about how gracious people were when I was over there. I think about how they took me into their homes. I think about how they fed me. And I think about how their only request was: When you go back, don’t lose your voice. That was all they asked. That was all they asked. And so, for me, I am obviously aware of the tradition. But this is like personal. You know what I mean? Like, I have some debts to pay, you know? And I think, like, it’s really, really important to me that I be clear about that.
AMY GOODMAN: We’ll return to this conversation between the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi in a minute. They were speaking at a November 1st event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature at Union Theological Seminary here in New York, the discussion moderated by the civil rights attorney and author Michelle Alexander. Back in a minute.
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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. As we continue to look at Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, we return to a recent conversation between the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. They spoke at a November 1st event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature at Union Theological Seminary here in New York, the discussion moderated by the civil rights attorney and author Michelle Alexander.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: I feel like I came late to my awareness, as well. I had heard things, including one time from a friend, a good friend, who is not prone to hyperbole, who went to Palestine, returned and said, “You know, I was active in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and had been to South Africa many times.” He says, “But what I saw in Israel and Palestine was worse than what I had seen there.” And I remember filing that fact away somewhere, what he said, but imagined that the work that I was doing at home was what was most deserving of my attention.
And it wasn’t until the Ferguson uprisings, when I began to hear that activists on the street who were facing tear gas and tanks, they were getting advice from Palestinians halfway across the globe, tweeting to them about how to deal with militaristic occupation and attacks. And following the experience that those activists had in Ferguson, many of them went to Palestine and came back with stories and deep knowledge of the history. And as I began to learn more, I also came to learn that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was staunchly in support of the Palestinian cause, that Muhammad Ali had identified himself as strongly in support of the Palestinian cause, that there was a long tradition of, you know, Black activists standing in solidarity with Palestinians.
And I have to give a shoutout to my sister’s new book. She’s a historian. She just published a book called Fear of a Black Republic. It’s about Haiti and the rise and the birth of Black internationalism in the United States. But it is that long history of Black people understanding that their struggle for liberation crosses boundaries, and that solidarity is necessary across those boundaries, I think, is calling to us now. And the fact that Palestinians were supporting folks in the street of Ferguson, and who also, I have heard, were showing their support for people in Flint, Michigan, giving advice about how to survive when your water is shut off, and so it’s encouraging to me to hear about that kind of international solidarity in this time.
But let’s turn to some political realities in the United States right now. The United States’ support, as we all know, for Israel has been absolutely unwavering for decades, even among supposedly progressive politicians and elected officials. Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick have written an excellent book called Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics. And I’d love to hear from both of you a little bit about these political realities in the United States right now. We are witnessing in real time exactly how unshakable support is for Israel, as the Biden administration refuses to draw any lines in the sand or place any limitations at all on the billions of dollars of aid that we send to Israel every year, even as it commits horrific war crimes broadcast around the globe. Why is our government not only tolerating this, but sending billions more dollars to Israel?
And before you answer, I want to note that I think a clue can be found in a speech that a young U.S. senator named Joe Biden delivered on the Senate floor in June 1986. It’s available on YouTube. He said defiantly, quote, “If we look at the Middle East, I think it’s about time we stop apologizing for our support for Israel. There is no apology to be made. None. It is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect our interests in the region. The United States would have to go out and invent an Israel,” end-quote. So, what was Biden saying exactly? What do we need to understand about U.S. support for Israel?
RASHID KHALIDI: Hot potato, eh?
I think we need to understand a bunch of things. We need to understand that there’s a strategic thing there, serves American imperial interests, has always done. That’s why the British started this project. They did not do it for the brown eyes of the Jewish people. They did it because it was in the strategic interests of the British Empire. And that’s one reason the United States does it. We do not give $3.8 billion a year, plus the $10 billion that Biden has asked for additionally this year, for anything to do with sentiment. It has to do with strategy. It has to do with oil, has to do with interests, imperial interests.
It has to do with a couple other things. It does have to do with the evangelical right. That’s one of the things that moved Britain to support the Balfour Declaration, to support a Jewish national home in an almost entirely Arab country. And it’s one of the things that moves American politicians, the votes, the money, the concentrated political power of the evangelical right.
It has to do with money. Our politicians are whores. They’re bought and sold. That needs to be said. And the bigger — the bigger the donor, the more services they get. And that’s part of the — that’s part of it.
And if we ask, “Why is it that our media is so complicit?” well, it’s partly because our media is a echo chamber for the people in power in Washington. I read The New York Times some mornings, and I say ”The New York Pravda Times.” And I read The Washington Post, I read ”The Washington Izvestia Post.” They are like the Soviet press during the Cold War. They are — whether it’s the Ukraine war or whether it’s this war, they echo power.
But they also echo money. Who owns The Washington Post? Jeff Bezos. Who owns MSNBC, NBCUniversal — well, MSNBC, NBCUniversal? Who owns those institutions, those institutions of the press? The same people who own the politicians. The same people who own our universities. Who runs our universities? Who runs our universities? Not the presidents and the deans and the department chairmans — chairmen and women. It’s the board of trustees. What is the board of trustees? It’s the same people who finance the politicians, same people who own the media.
So, if we see a compliant media with a government that is supportive of Israel, because of votes, because of the evangelical right, because of imperial strategic objectives, it’s very simple. When we see university administrations kowtowing to one narrative on Palestine, as they have done right across the country, it’s for the same reason that our media does it and the same reason that our government does it. It’s money. It’s power. It’s very, very, very simple. I can give you a more sophisticated explanation, but I think that that really sums it up, frankly.
TA-NEHISI COATES: I don’t have a better answer than that.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yeah, you know, it’s interesting, because I reflect on the fact that —
RASHID KHALIDI: Can I say something? I hope I did not insult sex workers. I did not mean to do that. I did not mean to do that. I’m very sorry.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Appreciated.
RASHID KHALIDI: They’re far above politicians. Sorry, I had to say that.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Well, I think we should probably spend a minute talking about censorship, fear and censorship. I know that both of you have significant experience with censorship, having your work censored. I do, too. And we have seen in recent years the censorship of books labeled critical race theory — that’s turned out to be a very broad category — books about LGBTQ people and issues. Kind of the scope of censorship keeps broadening. But we are seeing now kind of new forms, or very old forms being born again, of censorship in this kind of war context. And I do worry about the possibility of us entering into another McCarthyite era. The challenges of finding a site just for this conversation, I think, speak to the real risk of that.
And I wonder if both of you — and I’ll start with you — could say a little bit about where you think we are right now in terms of censorship. And as was mentioned earlier, people have real fears, fears that are grounded, you know, in reality, the possibility of losing jobs, of retaliation, and even being attacked violently or killed as a result of expressing their views. Where are we now in terms of censorship? What do you fear? And how do you think people ought to respond in this moment in time?
TA-NEHISI COATES: You know, oddly enough, I think we’re in a great place. And I don’t say that blithely. I say that, as you mentioned, having some very, very direct experience with my own work being banned in schools and libraries, and then, this week, helping where I could, and, ultimately, you know, as you, Michelle, but trying to, you know, figure out where we could hold this event, seeing, you know, Yasmin and go through all of the hoops. So, what I’ve gleaned from that is, when people start resorting to instruments as blunt and direct as book bans or not allowing discussions, they’re threatened. It’s the weapon of a weak and a decaying order.
You know, I have to say a little something. I’ll never forget. I came back, right? I come back from Palestine. This is like, you know, late May, and I’m going crazy. Like, I’m going to sleep, and I’m dreaming about Palestine. And I’m waking up, and I got that glassy-eyed look in my face. And my wife is worried about me, and everybody’s worried about me. And I emailed a friend, and I said, “Do you have a contact with Rashid Khalidi at all?” And he said, “Yeah, I do.” And he connected us. And I wrote a message: “You don’t know me from Adam, but I got to talk to somebody about what I saw.” And he said, “It’s OK.” He said, “Look, I’m having a dinner this weekend. Why don’t you and your wife come?” And I came, and we sat in community, and it was the thing that I needed. And among the many things Rashid said that night, he said, “I have been fighting this fight for a long time, and I’ve never seen our side this strong. I’ve never seen the students in university so galvanized. I’ve never…”
And you can confuse the ferociousness of the pushback with strength. You know what I mean? But the fact of the matter is, in African American history, for instance, here in our struggle, the struggle is the most violent when people are the most threatened. The original and the oldest and the most lethal form of domestic terrorism was pioneered after the Civil War, and what it was was in response to the fact that suddenly you had multiple states throughout this country with Black majorities. You had a majority-Black Legislature in South Carolina. The pushback had to be ferocious. It had to be violent. It needed to be, because of the sheer strength of the threat. That’s generally been our history.
And so, now in this moment, when I look out and I see, you know, not just my work banned, but I see the work of my colleagues banned, I see, as you mentioned, LGBTQ authors banned, when I situate myself within the history of Black writing, and I understand the fact that there was never any safe moment for Black writing in this country’s history, when I understand that — when Frederick Douglass publishes his Narrative, and he goes and he talks about it, he has a price on his head. He can be dragged back into slavery at any moment. When I’ve seen that Ida B. Wells was driven out of Memphis, Tennessee, for reporting on the lynching and the murder of her friends, and she continued to report on it nonetheless, when I understand that Elijah Lovejoy was shot to death and his press was shoved into the river, you have to be realistic about this moment.
What happened to you, man? You had to find another location for your talk tonight. That was it, actually quite simple compared to the long history of things. My wife was kind enough to send me an article about this district where they had banned Between the World and Me, right? And there had been — and this is a deep red district, and there had been this whole fight about it. And they went and they interviewed the librarian. And the librarian said, “This is the most checked-out book we’ve ever had.” That’s not because of me. That’s because of the ban. You understand what I’m saying?
And so, like, the very fact that you guys are here, the very unfortunate fact that some of you who are watching this couldn’t get in — you know what I mean? — the fact that we had to struggle to find a venue for this event, doesn’t say anything about the strength of this movement here. It doesn’t say anything about our strength. Says a lot about the threat and what people feel and the weakness. So, I don’t know. I, like — anybody that knows me knows that I am not one known for my optimism. But I feel it in this moment. I really do.
RASHID KHALIDI: I mean, I don’t have much to say after that. But I am completely convinced that Ta-Nehisi is right.
The first thing is, this idea that the international community supports what Israel is doing acts as if the United States, Western Europe and a few white settler colonies in Japan are the international community. They aren’t. They’re a pimple on the backside of humanity. The international community is India and China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Congo, Nigeria, Brazil — I could go on. Those are the people who voted in the United Nations for a ceasefire, 120 countries. There were 14 — there were 14 that voted against: six island nations, the United States, Israel and a bunch of hangers-on. That’s not the world. The world is actually with us, indeed in this country. The press? No. The politicians? No. The universities? Certainly no. And by that, I mean the administrations.
But look at the campus that I teach on. Five years ago, Columbia students voted overwhelmingly in support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of companies that support the occupation. Overwhelmingly. Same thing happened at Brown. Same thing happened at Barnard. Same thing happened at Michigan. Same thing happened at almost every university where the thing was put to a vote. The students are with us. By a vote, we know that.
I was on the television the other day, for my sins. It’s a terrible thing to go on television, I promise you. Don’t do it if you don’t have to. And I mentioned that young people are with us. And, God bless her, the interviewer said to me, “Yeah, there’s a poll here that says, on Biden’s handling of the Gaza situation, in the age group from 18 to 35, he has 10% support.” Ten percent. I could give you — I could give you — I could give you more polls. They are terrified of us. That’s why. That’s why we’re getting censorship.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: We’ve got to close now. And, you know, I think as we sit here in the center of the most powerful empire in the world, we need to think about what our responsibility is, as King said in his speech, to those who have been defined as our enemy, and consider not just, like, what we must say, but what we must do. And I’m wondering if you have thoughts that you want to share.
RASHID KHALIDI: I do. Thank you. One of the things that I argue in this book, that you mentioned, is this is not a war on the Palestinians waged by the Zionist movement or Israel alone. It’s a war waged on the Palestinian people by Israel and the United States. Those are our weapons. Those are American F-35s, American F-15s, American F-16s, American 175-millimeter guns, American 155-millimeter guns. They fire shells of a hundred pounds each. I could tell you their kill radius. I could tell you how large the diameter of a 2,000-pound bomb dropped from an American plane is. That’s us, our tax dollars, our votes.
We must oppose, with action, with words, not just weapons that we send to Israel to kill people with being used in that way — and, incidentally, in violation of U.S. law. U.S. law mandates that weapons can only be used for defensive purposes. Why do you think they keep saying in every one of their statements that Israel has a right to defend itself? Because, otherwise, they would be in violation of U.S. law in sending those weapons to Israel. If killing children in Jabaliya camp is a defensive purpose, then it’s legal. And if it’s not, they’re in violation of the law. We must oppose that.
And we must oppose the possibility of the United States being complicit in ethnic cleansing. We must oppose it as strongly as we can. Otherwise, we are the ethnic cleansers, and we are the killers. We may not be the ones pulling the trigger. We may not be the people forcing people out into Egypt or into Jordan, but we are responsible. Our government has just said that it’s willing to fund that. Now, maybe they’ll pull back on it, but they’ll only pull back on it if we make them stop. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi in conversation with the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates at a November 1st event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature at Union Theological Seminary here in New York. The discussion was moderated by the civil rights attorney and author Michelle Alexander.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Tue Nov 28, 2023 3:20 am
Israel-Hamas Hostage Deal Highlights Plight of Palestinian Prisoners, Many of Them Children
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 27, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/27 ... transcript
Transcript
With a four-day truce between Israel and Hamas set to expire after Monday, we look at who has been released and the growing pressure to extend the pause in fighting that has given Gaza residents small respite from Israel’s relentless bombardment and allowed humanitarian aid to reach people inside the territory. The pause began Friday to allow for the release of Israelis and foreign nationals kept hostage by militants in Gaza in exchange for the freedom of some of the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails, many of whom are minors and women. “We are talking about over 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners inside Israeli prisons right now. More than 2,500 are being held under administrative detention … without a charge and without a trial,” says Tala Nasir, a lawyer with Addameer, a group that advocates for Palestinian prisoners. We also speak with Israeli journalist Orly Noy, who says the sheer number of Palestinian prisoners shows “how central the tool of incarceration is in the Israeli project” of occupying and oppressing Palestinians. “The same system that allows every Jewish settler, citizen or soldier or policeman to walk away after killing Palestinians under the most outrageous circumstances is the same system that treats a 12-year-old who threw stones as a dangerous terrorist,” says Noy.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
The four-day truce in Gaza has entered its final day, but negotiations are underway to extend it. So far, Hamas has released a total of 58 hostages who had been held captive for the seven weeks. Thirty-nine of the freed hostages have been Israeli citizens. Hamas also released 17 Thai workers, a Filipino worker and an Israeli Russian. Since the truce began, Israel has released 117 Palestinian prisoners, mostly women and children, including many who had been held without charge.
One of the first hostages released was the 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Yaffa Adar. She was captured from her home in the kibbutz Nir Oz. Her granddaughter, Adva Adar, spoke Sunday.
ADVA ADAR: I can say that she’s deaf, and I can say that she said that she was thinking about the family a lot and that it helped her survive that she could hear the voices of the great-grandchildren calling her and that it gives her a lot of power, and that she’s now trying to realize what’s happening here and about a lot of friends and neighbors that are either dead or kidnapped from the kibbutz and about Tamir, her oldest grandson, that is also a hostage, and that she has no house to return.
AMY GOODMAN: In the occupied West Bank, crowds gathered to celebrate the release of Palestinians held in prison. This is Nasrallah Alawar, one of the Palestinian teenagers released.
NASRALLAH ALAWAR: [translated] Prison guards made us starve. They used to bring us two patches of bread for each cell, which is not enough. There were also children, 11 and 12 years old, with us, and there wasn’t enough food for them. God only knows how bad the situation was.
AMY GOODMAN: Health officials in Gaza now say the death toll from Israel’s bombardment has reached nearly 15,000. The New York Times is reporting the rate of civilians killed in Gaza by Israel has been far higher than in recent wars in Ukraine, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. The New York Times reports more than twice as many women and children have already been reported killed in Gaza in the last seven weeks than have been confirmed killed in Ukraine since Russia launched its attack nearly two years, though the exact death tolls in both conflicts are unknown.
Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Israeli troops in Gaza and told them, “Israel will continue until the end. Nothing will stop us.”
We’re joined now by two guests. We go to Jerusalem, where we’re joined by Orly Noy, Israeli political activist and editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call. She’s also the chair of B’Tselem’s executive board. Her new piece for +972 Magazine is “What Israelis won’t be asking about the Palestinians released for hostages.” Tala Nasir is also with us, a lawyer with the Palestinian prisoner and human rights organization Addameer.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Orly Noy. If you can talk about this temporary truce, that could end today or possibly will continue, Israel says, for each day that Hamas releases at least 10 hostages, what this four-day respite has meant, who has been released, Orly?
ORLY NOY: Thank you, Amy, so much for having me.
As soon as the exchange of prisoners deal was agreed upon, Israel came up with a list of 300 Palestinian prisoners, almost all of them minors, with a few women included, that would be the pool to be released throughout the ceasefire. When you look thoroughly at the names and the charges, as you said, first off, many of them were never charged with anything. I mean, the numbers are incredible. The latest data from the beginning of November talk about more than 6,800 Palestinians, political prisoners, what Israel refers to as “security” prisoners, more than 2,000 of them through administrative detention. It means that not only they have never been convicted with anything, they’ve never been charged with anything, so never had the opportunity to defend themselves.
You look at minor Palestinian teenagers who have been arrested for throwing stones at police jeeps or army jeeps. One of the names in that list is in prison just simply for calling, with a group of his friends, “Allahu Akbar” — yes, “God is great.” Another Palestinian woman has been sitting in jail for allegedly intending to carry out an attack, not even doing anything in practice. Others have been charged with attempts to carry out stabbing attacks, or did — even did so, but mildly injured policemen and women. So you see that the charges are incredibly minor, but what this list really gives, allows is the sense of how central the tool of incarceration is in the Israeli project of the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about the Israeli hostages, and others. Thai, a Filipino hostage, a Russian Israeli hostage was released.
ORLY NOY: So, of course, I mean, these past three days with the release of the hostages have been really a sort of national celebration, after — in what are maybe the darkest days that Israelis can remember. I mean, there was a very anxious anticipation for their return, especially the children, whom the Israeli entire society became to know by name each of the children that have been held as hostages. So there’s been a lot of anxiety in anticipation for their return.
They’ve been greeted with a national embrace. And they, of course, went immediately to receive medical treatment, those who needed, but a medical checkup for all of them. And they have — I mean, but this is just the beginning of their journey back to life, because many of them don’t know what happened since they went to captivity. Many of them lost immediate family members, and they are just now learning about it. So it’s a very bittersweet moment for them and for the Israeli society as a whole.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, from the beginning, it was said that Americans or Israeli Americans would be released. It was only yesterday that the little 4-year-old, Abigail Edan, was released. Both her parents were murdered. She ran, as a 3-year-old — it’s astounding; she turned 4 in captivity — to her neighbor’s house, and there Abigail was captured along with the mom and her three kids — I think her oldest daughter and the husband were murdered — and then they were all taken into captivity. She is the first American to be released, and some are speculating that Hamas is holding off on Americans so that Biden will put pressure on Netanyahu to continue the ceasefire.
ORLY NOY: Yeah, we are being told so. And it actually makes some sense, because, I mean, it is almost ironic that while Israel is incarcerating Palestinian children for throwing stones, at the same time, the only lesson that it teaches the Palestinians is that the only way to actually release Palestinian prisoners is through such heinous crimes, such as the one that Hamas carried out on October 7th. I mean, really, the amount of Palestinian children, women, minors and others in the prisons, without any due process, without the ability to really honestly protect themselves from, is such that right now it seems that their only hope is through such actions — again, horrible, violent, heinous actions taken by the Hamas — but Israel just doesn’t show any other way for Palestinians to be able to resist the occupation, which they have the right to, without spending the rest of their lives in the Israeli prisons.
AMY GOODMAN: Tala Nasir, I want to ask you about what’s happening on the streets right now. I want to go back to what Ben-Gvir, the far-right Cabinet minister, said. On Thursday, the Israeli minister of national security, Ben-Gvir, instructed police to use an iron fist against attempts to celebrate prisoner releases, and said, quote, “My instructions are clear: There are to be no expressions of joy. Expressions of joy are equivalent to backing terrorism; victory celebrations give backing to those human scum, for those Nazis.” So, if you can talk about what this means? In the West Bank, we’ve seen thousand people coming out to celebrate the young men now, boys when they were arrested — some have come of age while they were in prison. But in East Jerusalem, we are not seeing that. Is it because people are terrified of being arrested for terrorism? I mean, this from Ben-Gvir, a man who himself was convicted in Israeli court 15 years ago of aiding terrorism and inciting hatred of Palestinians?
TALA NASIR: Yes. First of all, good morning. Thank you for having me.
I’m going to talk about several violations after, or in the past three days, within this exchange deal, starting with the West Bank. So, the Israeli forces deliberately assaulted the released prisoners and their families during the prisoner release operations. They first delayed the release of prisoners until late at night. They released the child prisoners wearing clothes that are too big for their size, and some of them were barefoot. Additionally, the clothes did not provide adequate protection from the cold weather at these days. Forces also used gas bombs, the rubber bullets, live ammunition in front of Ofer Prison, where families were gathered to meet with their children and loved ones.
On the other hand and concerning the released prisoners from Jerusalem, the Israeli forces raided the homes of the prisoners before their release in the occupied Jerusalem. They prevented them from any signs of celebration upon, of course, reuniting with their loved ones, sons and daughters. The families of the released prisoners were summoned to Al-Moscobiyeh center, where they were subjected to harsh and arbitrary conditions that prohibited them from gatherings, banned them from marches and fireworks, prevented them from chanting slogans, in addition to confiscating the sweets that were inside the houses.
Also, there were assaults on journalists who were present at the homes of the released prisoners, and that was by physically assaulting them and expelling them out of the houses, prohibiting them from media coverage. That’s what happened, or these are the main violations happened in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem in the past three days of the prisoner exchange.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about particular cases of young people who are imprisoned, Tala Nasir? You’re speaking to us from Ramallah. If you can talk to us, for example, about the case of — let’s see — of the young man who was — Ahmad Manasra. Tell us when he was arrested. What happened to him when he was 13 years old?
TALA NASIR: Yes, OK. So, regarding Ahmad Manasra, so he was arrested when he was 12 years old, and he was — on attempt of stabbing an Israeli settler. He was interrogated in a very hard conditions inside Israeli prison. He went under torture and ill treatment. He is now facing psychological illness and issues. Of course, he’s not on the list of the prisoners supposed to be released within this exchange deal, because he is over 18, while he was under 18, he was 12 years old, when he was arrested. We hopefully think his name will be on the next list of the supposed to be released from Israeli prisons, but until now nothing is accurate about the many prisoners.
Talking about the prisoners who were released or the names who were on the list, one of them serves the highest sentence of all child prisoners. His name is Mohammed Abu Qtaish. He is serving a 15-year sentence, which is the highest sentence among all the children. We’re talking about a woman prisoner who was released before two days. Her name is Shorouq Dwayyat. She is sentenced to 16 years old, and it’s the highest sentence among the women prisoners. We’re talking about injured and ill female prisoners who were released. One of them is Israa Jaabis, who suffers severe burns all over her body. We’re talking about Fatima Shaheen. She is a woman prisoner who was released. She lost the ability to walk. She is paralyzed for being shot by the occupation forces. We are also talking about releasing four administrative detainees from women prisoners, in addition to nine child administrative detainees. These are being held under administrative detention without a charge, without a trial and indefinitely.
AMY GOODMAN: And let’s talk about how many Palestinians are imprisoned right now. What? Over 7,000, 2,000 of them from the West Bank since October 7th?
TALA NASIR: Not exactly. We are talking about over 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners inside Israeli prisons right now. More than 2,500 of them are being held under administrative detention. And talking about after the 7th of October, the number of 80% of the Palestinians detained after the 7th of October are being now held under administrative detention without a charge, without a trial. And after the 7th of October until this day, we’re talking about 3,260 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons until this day. So, in less than two months, it’s more than 3,000 Palestinians, including 120 female prisoners, including 41 journalists.
And let me shed light on something. From Friday until this day, we are talking about more than 112 Palestinians that were detained in the past three days only, from the beginning of the truce. So it’s actually equal to the number of released prisoners within the exchange deal. So these mass arrest campaigns are still taking place in all the cities, villages, refugee camps in the Palestinian territories. And most of them are being held under administrative detention.
Something important to note also: Six Palestinian prisoners died or were killed inside Israeli prisons in less than a month. These six, four of them were arrested after the 7th of October, and two of them were arrested before. Until now, we don’t know the circumstances of their death, because we still don’t have the accurate information, but the testimonies of prisoners and released prisoners affirm that they were brutally beaten inside the prisons. So, several violations have been taking place inside Israeli prisons after the 7th of October, and that’s what we have documented throughout these two months.
AMY GOODMAN: Near Ofer prison in the West Bank, Hanan Al-Barghouti spoke after she was part of the first group of 39 Palestinian detainees to be released. She said, since October 7th, her family was not allowed to contact her, after Israeli prison authorities launched a brutal crackdown on Palestinian prisoners. She says she was in September and placed in jail without charge or trial for an additional period of four months, subject to indefinite extensions under Israel’s administrative detention policy. Four of her sons are also under arrest.
TALA NASIR: Yes, true.
AMY GOODMAN: This is her.
HANAN AL-BARGHOUTI: [translated] The female prisoners await relief. The female prisoners are in agony. The female prisoners are very upset. They impose on us many humiliating things and all the things that hurt us. But we remain with our heads held high and steadfast and tolerant despite their sadism. God willing, we will free all the female prisoners and empty the jails.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Hanan Al-Barghouti, who was arrested in September and just released as part of the prisoner exchange. I actually want to put this question to Orly Noy. How are Palestinian prisoners perceived? I mean, the way you describe them — we talk about the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on October 7th. You describe them as hostages of the Israeli state, with so many of them not even charged.
ORLY NOY: Yeah. I mean, here, I should mention a word about the collaboration of the Israeli media with the general state attempt to portray each and every Palestinian behind bars as a terrorist. I mean, this is the one and only term that the Israeli media is referring by to the Palestinian prisoners, and it doesn’t matter what they did. And if it’s a 12-year-old child who threw stones or a grown-up man who did something more severe, they are all seen as terrorists. And the double standard, particularly in that area, is really mind-blowing, because the same system that allows every Jewish settler, citizen or soldier or policeman to walk away after killing Palestinians under the most outrageous circumstances is the same system that treats a 12-year-old who threw stones as a dangerous terrorist, and all of a sudden, you know, stones can kill and whatnot, so they are all seen as terrorists.
And one of the most difficult tasks for a human rights organization is actually to advocate for the conditions of the Palestinian prisoners, who — as was mentioned before, which were harshened dramatically since October 7th. And we’ve been talking to some people, and we’ve been hearing heartbreaking, shaking testimonies about the conditions of Palestinian prisoners in the prisons these days, and far away from the public eye and further — even further away from public interest.
AMY GOODMAN: So, where do you see this going, Orly Noy? Do you see Israel — Hamas has already agreed to this — extending this truce for every day that they release 10 hostages? And what about the pressure on Netanyahu, where you had thousands of Israelis marching to his offices, demanding hostages be number one over a military strike on Gaza?
ORLY NOY: I think that the question would become crucial after the release of all the civilians, because we should keep in mind that Hamas is also holding in captivity Israeli soldiers. And without a doubt, the price that they will demand for their release is going to be much, much higher than what we’ve seen so far.
At the same time, and again going back to the role of the Israeli media, the media is pushing very hard to renew the war after those exchanges. And Netanyahu actually has a very big incentive to carry on the war, because of those demands that you mentioned, because he knows that the day after the war, the Israeli public is going to hold him accountable for that catastrophe.
At the same time, nobody knows what Israel’s endgame is and what is Israel’s plan for the day after the war regarding Gaza. So, all of that, with the given situation in Gaza, where — when people, the residents of the already most densely populated place on Earth, are now squeezed in a smaller area, facing hunger, without clear water to drink, without proper medications, what will be the nature of the next phase of war, should there be one? Under those circumstances, I really do not dare to even imagine that scenario.
AMY GOODMAN: Just have 30 seconds left, but I want to ask Tala about your knowledge of the number of arrests of people, of Palestinians in Gaza. In recent days, Israel arrested the Awni Khattab, the head of Khan Younis Medical Center, and Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the head of the Al-Shifa Hospital. We also, of course, know about Mosab Abu Toha, who is known around the world, the Palestinian poet and writer. He was taken with about 200 others in prison, but because of tremendous pressure and outcry, especially from the United States news organizations, he was released, but the others weren’t.
TALA NASIR: Yes. So, unfortunately, we have no information about Palestinians who have been imprisoned from Gaza, to this day. We tried to contact, of course, the Israeli Prison Service. All the Israeli human rights organizations are trying also to find out the whereabouts and the situation of Palestinians detained from Gaza. But until now, we don’t even know the numbers of these Palestinians, and, of course, we do not know the circumstances of their arrests.
We are also talking about, until this day, there are approximately 700 missing Palestinians, who are likely detained in the occupation prisons, but we don’t know the accurate information about their conditions. These are from the workers who have been working inside Israel before the 7th of October. Some of them were released at the Karm Abu Salem crossing. But there are approximately 700 that are now still missing, and we don’t have any information about them. So we are trying and working to know the conditions they are being detained and what are their condition and what are they going through right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Tala Nasir, I want to thank you so much for being with us, lawyer with the Palestinian prisoner and human rights organization Addameer, speaking to us from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, and Orly Noy, Israeli political activist, editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call and chair of B’Tselem’s executive board. We’ll link to your new piece for +972 Magazine, “What Israelis won’t be asking about the Palestinians released for hostages.”
Coming up, we speak to a former Palestinian prisoner and a former Israeli military commando, who together helped found Combatants for Peace. Back in 20 seconds.
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“There Is an Alternative”: Meet the Israeli & Palestinian “Combatants for Peace” Urging Nonviolence
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 27, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/27 ... transcript
Transcript
With Israel and Palestine experiencing the worst violence in decades, we speak with two co-founders of Combatants for Peace, a group composed of people from both sides of the conflict who have committed to nonviolence and peaceful coexistence. Avner Wishnitzer is a former member of Sayeret Matkal, one of the Israel Defense Forces’ elite commando units, and Sulaiman Khatib spent more than 10 years in prison after being arrested as a teenager for an attack on Israeli soldiers. The two recently co-authored a piece for The New York Review of Books on modeling a nonviolent path toward peace. “We are offering a different direction that’s based on partnership and common interest and common values,” says Khatib. Wishnitzer adds that only a political solution can bring lasting peace. “When people are fed with the idea that there is no choice but violence, they respond with violence to each other,” he says.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
As we continue to cover the truce in Gaza and prisoner-hostage releases, we’re joined by two of the founders of the group Combatants for Peace. Avner Wishnitzer is a member of one of the Israeli military’s elite commando units. He’s joining us from Jerusalem. And in Ramallah, we’re joined by Sulaiman Khatib, who spent more than 10 years in prison after an altercation with two Israeli soldiers. They recently co-wrote an article for The New York Review of Books headlined “Combatants for Peace.”
Sulaiman, let’s begin with you. As you see Palestinians released from prison in exchange for the Israeli hostages and those of other nationalities who have been released, can you talk about your thoughts as a former man imprisoned yourself?
SULAIMAN KHATIB: Firstly, thank you, Amy, for having us, myself and my partner and brother, Avner in Jerusalem.
And as I heard your interview with the colleagues, speakers before us, that explain in details about the prisoners and the hostages exchange, as ex-prisoner, I definitely feel a lot of empathy to the prisoners, especially when talking about kids, actually, women and kids. That makes me feel optimistic. And that shows also, unfortunately, where the dehumanization and the multi standards — double standards that exist in this place.
And definitely as an ex-prisoner personally and Combatants for Peace, in our organization, that includes Palestinians and Israelis, that we live with a more multiple, complex narrative, we would like, really, both the Israeli government and the Hamas in Gaza to release the prisoners, the civilians that were taken hostages in Gaza and the Palestinian prisoners that we are talking about thousands of them, and some of them without charge even, in jail. All these prisoners and hostages have families, have rights. And as we see, unfortunately, their rights by international law were not granted, as myself experienced that. I’ve been in jail when I was actually 14, under a military court. So I know the meaning of separating from your family and being without rights, basically. I know the meaning of that.
AMY GOODMAN: And what inspired you now to commit your life to peace as a co-founder of Combatants for Peace?
SULAIMAN KHATIB: So, as a ex-political prisoner, and I participated — I am a very active person since my childhood, very committed to the liberation and freedom of our people. I participated in different hunger strikes, food hunger strikes in jail, and that was my first introduction and transformation to nonviolence and the power of nonviolence.
Through my experience and learning about the history of the conflict and learning — I also know Hebrew very well, and I’m coming from an Indigenous Palestinian family that has been living around here, outside of Jerusalem, almost more than 500 years. I have been opening my heart and my soul and my mind to find partners on the Israeli side that reach the same conclusion, which is basically as simple as no military solution for this conflict.
And it’s beyond that, because, for us, nonviolence is ideology. We advocate for nonviolence. And we advocate for liberation that’s collectively connected, both Palestinians — despite, of course, the power dynamic and the occupation, which we challenge, and we talk about it clearly. I believe that, as I said, our freedom and our needs for freedom and for dignity and for human rights, both Palestinians and Israeli, is legitimate.
The strategies that has been taking place not just lately, since October 7, but, of course, like over decades of occupation and apartheid system and the violence and the ideology of violence, whether it’s coming from settler violence or it’s coming from religious violence from Hamas side, we are opposing this clearly and publicly. We are offering a different direction that’s based on partnership and common interests and common values, based actually on an old story that we, Jewish and Palestinian Arab, we could live in coexistence next to each other, and our identities can really be safe and practiced in the land where we belong. And it doesn’t have to be either/or. We’ve been — myself, Avner and other friends — we’ve been in the place where is it about us or them, eliminate them, and the army force options. We don’t believe in this anymore.
And definitely, after I was released from jail, I committed my life to bridge the gap among our people with other activists. And the road is long. I know this is a long journey. It’s not necessarily even for our generation.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me bring Avner Wishnitzer into the conversation. You are a former member of one of the IDF’s elite commando units. What inspired you to help found Combatants for Peace?
AVNER WISHNITZER: Hi, and thanks for having us.
For me, it was the gap between the way I was raised to believe that Israel is a safe haven for the Jews and that it’s essentially liberal democracy, and the reality of the occupation, which I learned to really know up close only after my service. I was at that time in my early twenties and still a reserve soldier in that same unit. And what I saw in the early 2000s around the South Hebron Hills and around Nablus and different places around the West Bank really brought me face to face with the systematic oppression, of which I was only vaguely aware. And it exposed, it created a dissonance: the declared values of Israel as a democracy and its backyard, in which none of these values are valid. And I felt that I can no longer talk the talk and act as if this backyard did not exist. And I refused to serve in the Occupied Territories in late 2004. And then, thinking that it’s not enough to just refuse and absolve yourself from this systematic violence, it is crucial also to struggle against it actively, because you can only refuse once.
And at that point, it was early 2005. We were approached by a group of Palestinians who were curious about this refusenik phenomenon, and then we started meeting. And these meetings later led to the formation of Combatants for Peace. And we have been saying for almost two decades what we are still saying now, and we insist even more, as Sulai said, there is no military solution. It’s a fantasy, but a very dangerous fantasy.
And we see now the horror and the fear and the hatred in Israel, in the West Bank, in Gaza. What happened on the 7th of October, the atrocities are unprecedented, and then Israeli attack on Gaza and settler violence in the West Bank, again, unprecedented. The levels of violence keep rising, and the circle of violence just goes on, because we are unable to undo the driving forces of this conflict — first and foremost, the occupation. It’s not the only reason, but we believe it’s the most important reason for perpetuating this conflict. And this is why we’ve been struggling against it for so long. We believe there is —
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think —
AVNER WISHNITZER: There is an alternative, and this is what we are trying to push forward.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s what I want to ask you about: What is the alternative at this point? You have this truce that could end today, unless Hamas releases 10 prisoners a day, but Israel has said only up to 10 days and that they are going to wipe out Hamas in Gaza. What is the alternative, Avner?
AVNER WISHNITZER: So, the alternative is not in this microtactic level. I mean, sure, we are for the release of all hostages. We are for the release of prisoners. You talked about the prisoners a lot during this program. We are talking about something far more fundamental, a sea change, which means the renewal of talks that would lead to a political — a just political solution, that is agreed on both sides and not imposed unilaterally, and to support that political process, that is so crucial, because right now there is no alternative. It’s just brute force. And when people are fed with the idea —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds left, but then we’re going to continue the conversation.
AVNER WISHNITZER: OK, just one point. When people are fed with the idea that there is no choice but violence, there is only violence, to each other. We need to open an alternative, a political process to end the violence.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 27, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/27 ... transcript
Transcript
With a four-day truce between Israel and Hamas set to expire after Monday, we look at who has been released and the growing pressure to extend the pause in fighting that has given Gaza residents small respite from Israel’s relentless bombardment and allowed humanitarian aid to reach people inside the territory. The pause began Friday to allow for the release of Israelis and foreign nationals kept hostage by militants in Gaza in exchange for the freedom of some of the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails, many of whom are minors and women. “We are talking about over 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners inside Israeli prisons right now. More than 2,500 are being held under administrative detention … without a charge and without a trial,” says Tala Nasir, a lawyer with Addameer, a group that advocates for Palestinian prisoners. We also speak with Israeli journalist Orly Noy, who says the sheer number of Palestinian prisoners shows “how central the tool of incarceration is in the Israeli project” of occupying and oppressing Palestinians. “The same system that allows every Jewish settler, citizen or soldier or policeman to walk away after killing Palestinians under the most outrageous circumstances is the same system that treats a 12-year-old who threw stones as a dangerous terrorist,” says Noy.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
The four-day truce in Gaza has entered its final day, but negotiations are underway to extend it. So far, Hamas has released a total of 58 hostages who had been held captive for the seven weeks. Thirty-nine of the freed hostages have been Israeli citizens. Hamas also released 17 Thai workers, a Filipino worker and an Israeli Russian. Since the truce began, Israel has released 117 Palestinian prisoners, mostly women and children, including many who had been held without charge.
One of the first hostages released was the 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Yaffa Adar. She was captured from her home in the kibbutz Nir Oz. Her granddaughter, Adva Adar, spoke Sunday.
ADVA ADAR: I can say that she’s deaf, and I can say that she said that she was thinking about the family a lot and that it helped her survive that she could hear the voices of the great-grandchildren calling her and that it gives her a lot of power, and that she’s now trying to realize what’s happening here and about a lot of friends and neighbors that are either dead or kidnapped from the kibbutz and about Tamir, her oldest grandson, that is also a hostage, and that she has no house to return.
AMY GOODMAN: In the occupied West Bank, crowds gathered to celebrate the release of Palestinians held in prison. This is Nasrallah Alawar, one of the Palestinian teenagers released.
NASRALLAH ALAWAR: [translated] Prison guards made us starve. They used to bring us two patches of bread for each cell, which is not enough. There were also children, 11 and 12 years old, with us, and there wasn’t enough food for them. God only knows how bad the situation was.
AMY GOODMAN: Health officials in Gaza now say the death toll from Israel’s bombardment has reached nearly 15,000. The New York Times is reporting the rate of civilians killed in Gaza by Israel has been far higher than in recent wars in Ukraine, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. The New York Times reports more than twice as many women and children have already been reported killed in Gaza in the last seven weeks than have been confirmed killed in Ukraine since Russia launched its attack nearly two years, though the exact death tolls in both conflicts are unknown.
Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Israeli troops in Gaza and told them, “Israel will continue until the end. Nothing will stop us.”
We’re joined now by two guests. We go to Jerusalem, where we’re joined by Orly Noy, Israeli political activist and editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call. She’s also the chair of B’Tselem’s executive board. Her new piece for +972 Magazine is “What Israelis won’t be asking about the Palestinians released for hostages.” Tala Nasir is also with us, a lawyer with the Palestinian prisoner and human rights organization Addameer.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Orly Noy. If you can talk about this temporary truce, that could end today or possibly will continue, Israel says, for each day that Hamas releases at least 10 hostages, what this four-day respite has meant, who has been released, Orly?
ORLY NOY: Thank you, Amy, so much for having me.
As soon as the exchange of prisoners deal was agreed upon, Israel came up with a list of 300 Palestinian prisoners, almost all of them minors, with a few women included, that would be the pool to be released throughout the ceasefire. When you look thoroughly at the names and the charges, as you said, first off, many of them were never charged with anything. I mean, the numbers are incredible. The latest data from the beginning of November talk about more than 6,800 Palestinians, political prisoners, what Israel refers to as “security” prisoners, more than 2,000 of them through administrative detention. It means that not only they have never been convicted with anything, they’ve never been charged with anything, so never had the opportunity to defend themselves.
You look at minor Palestinian teenagers who have been arrested for throwing stones at police jeeps or army jeeps. One of the names in that list is in prison just simply for calling, with a group of his friends, “Allahu Akbar” — yes, “God is great.” Another Palestinian woman has been sitting in jail for allegedly intending to carry out an attack, not even doing anything in practice. Others have been charged with attempts to carry out stabbing attacks, or did — even did so, but mildly injured policemen and women. So you see that the charges are incredibly minor, but what this list really gives, allows is the sense of how central the tool of incarceration is in the Israeli project of the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about the Israeli hostages, and others. Thai, a Filipino hostage, a Russian Israeli hostage was released.
ORLY NOY: So, of course, I mean, these past three days with the release of the hostages have been really a sort of national celebration, after — in what are maybe the darkest days that Israelis can remember. I mean, there was a very anxious anticipation for their return, especially the children, whom the Israeli entire society became to know by name each of the children that have been held as hostages. So there’s been a lot of anxiety in anticipation for their return.
They’ve been greeted with a national embrace. And they, of course, went immediately to receive medical treatment, those who needed, but a medical checkup for all of them. And they have — I mean, but this is just the beginning of their journey back to life, because many of them don’t know what happened since they went to captivity. Many of them lost immediate family members, and they are just now learning about it. So it’s a very bittersweet moment for them and for the Israeli society as a whole.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, from the beginning, it was said that Americans or Israeli Americans would be released. It was only yesterday that the little 4-year-old, Abigail Edan, was released. Both her parents were murdered. She ran, as a 3-year-old — it’s astounding; she turned 4 in captivity — to her neighbor’s house, and there Abigail was captured along with the mom and her three kids — I think her oldest daughter and the husband were murdered — and then they were all taken into captivity. She is the first American to be released, and some are speculating that Hamas is holding off on Americans so that Biden will put pressure on Netanyahu to continue the ceasefire.
ORLY NOY: Yeah, we are being told so. And it actually makes some sense, because, I mean, it is almost ironic that while Israel is incarcerating Palestinian children for throwing stones, at the same time, the only lesson that it teaches the Palestinians is that the only way to actually release Palestinian prisoners is through such heinous crimes, such as the one that Hamas carried out on October 7th. I mean, really, the amount of Palestinian children, women, minors and others in the prisons, without any due process, without the ability to really honestly protect themselves from, is such that right now it seems that their only hope is through such actions — again, horrible, violent, heinous actions taken by the Hamas — but Israel just doesn’t show any other way for Palestinians to be able to resist the occupation, which they have the right to, without spending the rest of their lives in the Israeli prisons.
AMY GOODMAN: Tala Nasir, I want to ask you about what’s happening on the streets right now. I want to go back to what Ben-Gvir, the far-right Cabinet minister, said. On Thursday, the Israeli minister of national security, Ben-Gvir, instructed police to use an iron fist against attempts to celebrate prisoner releases, and said, quote, “My instructions are clear: There are to be no expressions of joy. Expressions of joy are equivalent to backing terrorism; victory celebrations give backing to those human scum, for those Nazis.” So, if you can talk about what this means? In the West Bank, we’ve seen thousand people coming out to celebrate the young men now, boys when they were arrested — some have come of age while they were in prison. But in East Jerusalem, we are not seeing that. Is it because people are terrified of being arrested for terrorism? I mean, this from Ben-Gvir, a man who himself was convicted in Israeli court 15 years ago of aiding terrorism and inciting hatred of Palestinians?
TALA NASIR: Yes. First of all, good morning. Thank you for having me.
I’m going to talk about several violations after, or in the past three days, within this exchange deal, starting with the West Bank. So, the Israeli forces deliberately assaulted the released prisoners and their families during the prisoner release operations. They first delayed the release of prisoners until late at night. They released the child prisoners wearing clothes that are too big for their size, and some of them were barefoot. Additionally, the clothes did not provide adequate protection from the cold weather at these days. Forces also used gas bombs, the rubber bullets, live ammunition in front of Ofer Prison, where families were gathered to meet with their children and loved ones.
On the other hand and concerning the released prisoners from Jerusalem, the Israeli forces raided the homes of the prisoners before their release in the occupied Jerusalem. They prevented them from any signs of celebration upon, of course, reuniting with their loved ones, sons and daughters. The families of the released prisoners were summoned to Al-Moscobiyeh center, where they were subjected to harsh and arbitrary conditions that prohibited them from gatherings, banned them from marches and fireworks, prevented them from chanting slogans, in addition to confiscating the sweets that were inside the houses.
Also, there were assaults on journalists who were present at the homes of the released prisoners, and that was by physically assaulting them and expelling them out of the houses, prohibiting them from media coverage. That’s what happened, or these are the main violations happened in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem in the past three days of the prisoner exchange.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about particular cases of young people who are imprisoned, Tala Nasir? You’re speaking to us from Ramallah. If you can talk to us, for example, about the case of — let’s see — of the young man who was — Ahmad Manasra. Tell us when he was arrested. What happened to him when he was 13 years old?
TALA NASIR: Yes, OK. So, regarding Ahmad Manasra, so he was arrested when he was 12 years old, and he was — on attempt of stabbing an Israeli settler. He was interrogated in a very hard conditions inside Israeli prison. He went under torture and ill treatment. He is now facing psychological illness and issues. Of course, he’s not on the list of the prisoners supposed to be released within this exchange deal, because he is over 18, while he was under 18, he was 12 years old, when he was arrested. We hopefully think his name will be on the next list of the supposed to be released from Israeli prisons, but until now nothing is accurate about the many prisoners.
Talking about the prisoners who were released or the names who were on the list, one of them serves the highest sentence of all child prisoners. His name is Mohammed Abu Qtaish. He is serving a 15-year sentence, which is the highest sentence among all the children. We’re talking about a woman prisoner who was released before two days. Her name is Shorouq Dwayyat. She is sentenced to 16 years old, and it’s the highest sentence among the women prisoners. We’re talking about injured and ill female prisoners who were released. One of them is Israa Jaabis, who suffers severe burns all over her body. We’re talking about Fatima Shaheen. She is a woman prisoner who was released. She lost the ability to walk. She is paralyzed for being shot by the occupation forces. We are also talking about releasing four administrative detainees from women prisoners, in addition to nine child administrative detainees. These are being held under administrative detention without a charge, without a trial and indefinitely.
AMY GOODMAN: And let’s talk about how many Palestinians are imprisoned right now. What? Over 7,000, 2,000 of them from the West Bank since October 7th?
TALA NASIR: Not exactly. We are talking about over 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners inside Israeli prisons right now. More than 2,500 of them are being held under administrative detention. And talking about after the 7th of October, the number of 80% of the Palestinians detained after the 7th of October are being now held under administrative detention without a charge, without a trial. And after the 7th of October until this day, we’re talking about 3,260 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons until this day. So, in less than two months, it’s more than 3,000 Palestinians, including 120 female prisoners, including 41 journalists.
And let me shed light on something. From Friday until this day, we are talking about more than 112 Palestinians that were detained in the past three days only, from the beginning of the truce. So it’s actually equal to the number of released prisoners within the exchange deal. So these mass arrest campaigns are still taking place in all the cities, villages, refugee camps in the Palestinian territories. And most of them are being held under administrative detention.
Something important to note also: Six Palestinian prisoners died or were killed inside Israeli prisons in less than a month. These six, four of them were arrested after the 7th of October, and two of them were arrested before. Until now, we don’t know the circumstances of their death, because we still don’t have the accurate information, but the testimonies of prisoners and released prisoners affirm that they were brutally beaten inside the prisons. So, several violations have been taking place inside Israeli prisons after the 7th of October, and that’s what we have documented throughout these two months.
AMY GOODMAN: Near Ofer prison in the West Bank, Hanan Al-Barghouti spoke after she was part of the first group of 39 Palestinian detainees to be released. She said, since October 7th, her family was not allowed to contact her, after Israeli prison authorities launched a brutal crackdown on Palestinian prisoners. She says she was in September and placed in jail without charge or trial for an additional period of four months, subject to indefinite extensions under Israel’s administrative detention policy. Four of her sons are also under arrest.
TALA NASIR: Yes, true.
AMY GOODMAN: This is her.
HANAN AL-BARGHOUTI: [translated] The female prisoners await relief. The female prisoners are in agony. The female prisoners are very upset. They impose on us many humiliating things and all the things that hurt us. But we remain with our heads held high and steadfast and tolerant despite their sadism. God willing, we will free all the female prisoners and empty the jails.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Hanan Al-Barghouti, who was arrested in September and just released as part of the prisoner exchange. I actually want to put this question to Orly Noy. How are Palestinian prisoners perceived? I mean, the way you describe them — we talk about the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on October 7th. You describe them as hostages of the Israeli state, with so many of them not even charged.
ORLY NOY: Yeah. I mean, here, I should mention a word about the collaboration of the Israeli media with the general state attempt to portray each and every Palestinian behind bars as a terrorist. I mean, this is the one and only term that the Israeli media is referring by to the Palestinian prisoners, and it doesn’t matter what they did. And if it’s a 12-year-old child who threw stones or a grown-up man who did something more severe, they are all seen as terrorists. And the double standard, particularly in that area, is really mind-blowing, because the same system that allows every Jewish settler, citizen or soldier or policeman to walk away after killing Palestinians under the most outrageous circumstances is the same system that treats a 12-year-old who threw stones as a dangerous terrorist, and all of a sudden, you know, stones can kill and whatnot, so they are all seen as terrorists.
And one of the most difficult tasks for a human rights organization is actually to advocate for the conditions of the Palestinian prisoners, who — as was mentioned before, which were harshened dramatically since October 7th. And we’ve been talking to some people, and we’ve been hearing heartbreaking, shaking testimonies about the conditions of Palestinian prisoners in the prisons these days, and far away from the public eye and further — even further away from public interest.
AMY GOODMAN: So, where do you see this going, Orly Noy? Do you see Israel — Hamas has already agreed to this — extending this truce for every day that they release 10 hostages? And what about the pressure on Netanyahu, where you had thousands of Israelis marching to his offices, demanding hostages be number one over a military strike on Gaza?
ORLY NOY: I think that the question would become crucial after the release of all the civilians, because we should keep in mind that Hamas is also holding in captivity Israeli soldiers. And without a doubt, the price that they will demand for their release is going to be much, much higher than what we’ve seen so far.
At the same time, and again going back to the role of the Israeli media, the media is pushing very hard to renew the war after those exchanges. And Netanyahu actually has a very big incentive to carry on the war, because of those demands that you mentioned, because he knows that the day after the war, the Israeli public is going to hold him accountable for that catastrophe.
At the same time, nobody knows what Israel’s endgame is and what is Israel’s plan for the day after the war regarding Gaza. So, all of that, with the given situation in Gaza, where — when people, the residents of the already most densely populated place on Earth, are now squeezed in a smaller area, facing hunger, without clear water to drink, without proper medications, what will be the nature of the next phase of war, should there be one? Under those circumstances, I really do not dare to even imagine that scenario.
AMY GOODMAN: Just have 30 seconds left, but I want to ask Tala about your knowledge of the number of arrests of people, of Palestinians in Gaza. In recent days, Israel arrested the Awni Khattab, the head of Khan Younis Medical Center, and Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the head of the Al-Shifa Hospital. We also, of course, know about Mosab Abu Toha, who is known around the world, the Palestinian poet and writer. He was taken with about 200 others in prison, but because of tremendous pressure and outcry, especially from the United States news organizations, he was released, but the others weren’t.
TALA NASIR: Yes. So, unfortunately, we have no information about Palestinians who have been imprisoned from Gaza, to this day. We tried to contact, of course, the Israeli Prison Service. All the Israeli human rights organizations are trying also to find out the whereabouts and the situation of Palestinians detained from Gaza. But until now, we don’t even know the numbers of these Palestinians, and, of course, we do not know the circumstances of their arrests.
We are also talking about, until this day, there are approximately 700 missing Palestinians, who are likely detained in the occupation prisons, but we don’t know the accurate information about their conditions. These are from the workers who have been working inside Israel before the 7th of October. Some of them were released at the Karm Abu Salem crossing. But there are approximately 700 that are now still missing, and we don’t have any information about them. So we are trying and working to know the conditions they are being detained and what are their condition and what are they going through right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Tala Nasir, I want to thank you so much for being with us, lawyer with the Palestinian prisoner and human rights organization Addameer, speaking to us from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, and Orly Noy, Israeli political activist, editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call and chair of B’Tselem’s executive board. We’ll link to your new piece for +972 Magazine, “What Israelis won’t be asking about the Palestinians released for hostages.”
Coming up, we speak to a former Palestinian prisoner and a former Israeli military commando, who together helped found Combatants for Peace. Back in 20 seconds.
***
“There Is an Alternative”: Meet the Israeli & Palestinian “Combatants for Peace” Urging Nonviolence
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 27, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/27 ... transcript
Transcript
With Israel and Palestine experiencing the worst violence in decades, we speak with two co-founders of Combatants for Peace, a group composed of people from both sides of the conflict who have committed to nonviolence and peaceful coexistence. Avner Wishnitzer is a former member of Sayeret Matkal, one of the Israel Defense Forces’ elite commando units, and Sulaiman Khatib spent more than 10 years in prison after being arrested as a teenager for an attack on Israeli soldiers. The two recently co-authored a piece for The New York Review of Books on modeling a nonviolent path toward peace. “We are offering a different direction that’s based on partnership and common interest and common values,” says Khatib. Wishnitzer adds that only a political solution can bring lasting peace. “When people are fed with the idea that there is no choice but violence, they respond with violence to each other,” he says.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
As we continue to cover the truce in Gaza and prisoner-hostage releases, we’re joined by two of the founders of the group Combatants for Peace. Avner Wishnitzer is a member of one of the Israeli military’s elite commando units. He’s joining us from Jerusalem. And in Ramallah, we’re joined by Sulaiman Khatib, who spent more than 10 years in prison after an altercation with two Israeli soldiers. They recently co-wrote an article for The New York Review of Books headlined “Combatants for Peace.”
Sulaiman, let’s begin with you. As you see Palestinians released from prison in exchange for the Israeli hostages and those of other nationalities who have been released, can you talk about your thoughts as a former man imprisoned yourself?
SULAIMAN KHATIB: Firstly, thank you, Amy, for having us, myself and my partner and brother, Avner in Jerusalem.
And as I heard your interview with the colleagues, speakers before us, that explain in details about the prisoners and the hostages exchange, as ex-prisoner, I definitely feel a lot of empathy to the prisoners, especially when talking about kids, actually, women and kids. That makes me feel optimistic. And that shows also, unfortunately, where the dehumanization and the multi standards — double standards that exist in this place.
And definitely as an ex-prisoner personally and Combatants for Peace, in our organization, that includes Palestinians and Israelis, that we live with a more multiple, complex narrative, we would like, really, both the Israeli government and the Hamas in Gaza to release the prisoners, the civilians that were taken hostages in Gaza and the Palestinian prisoners that we are talking about thousands of them, and some of them without charge even, in jail. All these prisoners and hostages have families, have rights. And as we see, unfortunately, their rights by international law were not granted, as myself experienced that. I’ve been in jail when I was actually 14, under a military court. So I know the meaning of separating from your family and being without rights, basically. I know the meaning of that.
AMY GOODMAN: And what inspired you now to commit your life to peace as a co-founder of Combatants for Peace?
SULAIMAN KHATIB: So, as a ex-political prisoner, and I participated — I am a very active person since my childhood, very committed to the liberation and freedom of our people. I participated in different hunger strikes, food hunger strikes in jail, and that was my first introduction and transformation to nonviolence and the power of nonviolence.
Through my experience and learning about the history of the conflict and learning — I also know Hebrew very well, and I’m coming from an Indigenous Palestinian family that has been living around here, outside of Jerusalem, almost more than 500 years. I have been opening my heart and my soul and my mind to find partners on the Israeli side that reach the same conclusion, which is basically as simple as no military solution for this conflict.
And it’s beyond that, because, for us, nonviolence is ideology. We advocate for nonviolence. And we advocate for liberation that’s collectively connected, both Palestinians — despite, of course, the power dynamic and the occupation, which we challenge, and we talk about it clearly. I believe that, as I said, our freedom and our needs for freedom and for dignity and for human rights, both Palestinians and Israeli, is legitimate.
The strategies that has been taking place not just lately, since October 7, but, of course, like over decades of occupation and apartheid system and the violence and the ideology of violence, whether it’s coming from settler violence or it’s coming from religious violence from Hamas side, we are opposing this clearly and publicly. We are offering a different direction that’s based on partnership and common interests and common values, based actually on an old story that we, Jewish and Palestinian Arab, we could live in coexistence next to each other, and our identities can really be safe and practiced in the land where we belong. And it doesn’t have to be either/or. We’ve been — myself, Avner and other friends — we’ve been in the place where is it about us or them, eliminate them, and the army force options. We don’t believe in this anymore.
And definitely, after I was released from jail, I committed my life to bridge the gap among our people with other activists. And the road is long. I know this is a long journey. It’s not necessarily even for our generation.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me bring Avner Wishnitzer into the conversation. You are a former member of one of the IDF’s elite commando units. What inspired you to help found Combatants for Peace?
AVNER WISHNITZER: Hi, and thanks for having us.
For me, it was the gap between the way I was raised to believe that Israel is a safe haven for the Jews and that it’s essentially liberal democracy, and the reality of the occupation, which I learned to really know up close only after my service. I was at that time in my early twenties and still a reserve soldier in that same unit. And what I saw in the early 2000s around the South Hebron Hills and around Nablus and different places around the West Bank really brought me face to face with the systematic oppression, of which I was only vaguely aware. And it exposed, it created a dissonance: the declared values of Israel as a democracy and its backyard, in which none of these values are valid. And I felt that I can no longer talk the talk and act as if this backyard did not exist. And I refused to serve in the Occupied Territories in late 2004. And then, thinking that it’s not enough to just refuse and absolve yourself from this systematic violence, it is crucial also to struggle against it actively, because you can only refuse once.
And at that point, it was early 2005. We were approached by a group of Palestinians who were curious about this refusenik phenomenon, and then we started meeting. And these meetings later led to the formation of Combatants for Peace. And we have been saying for almost two decades what we are still saying now, and we insist even more, as Sulai said, there is no military solution. It’s a fantasy, but a very dangerous fantasy.
And we see now the horror and the fear and the hatred in Israel, in the West Bank, in Gaza. What happened on the 7th of October, the atrocities are unprecedented, and then Israeli attack on Gaza and settler violence in the West Bank, again, unprecedented. The levels of violence keep rising, and the circle of violence just goes on, because we are unable to undo the driving forces of this conflict — first and foremost, the occupation. It’s not the only reason, but we believe it’s the most important reason for perpetuating this conflict. And this is why we’ve been struggling against it for so long. We believe there is —
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think —
AVNER WISHNITZER: There is an alternative, and this is what we are trying to push forward.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s what I want to ask you about: What is the alternative at this point? You have this truce that could end today, unless Hamas releases 10 prisoners a day, but Israel has said only up to 10 days and that they are going to wipe out Hamas in Gaza. What is the alternative, Avner?
AVNER WISHNITZER: So, the alternative is not in this microtactic level. I mean, sure, we are for the release of all hostages. We are for the release of prisoners. You talked about the prisoners a lot during this program. We are talking about something far more fundamental, a sea change, which means the renewal of talks that would lead to a political — a just political solution, that is agreed on both sides and not imposed unilaterally, and to support that political process, that is so crucial, because right now there is no alternative. It’s just brute force. And when people are fed with the idea —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds left, but then we’re going to continue the conversation.
AVNER WISHNITZER: OK, just one point. When people are fed with the idea that there is no choice but violence, there is only violence, to each other. We need to open an alternative, a political process to end the violence.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
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“Atmosphere of Hate”: AFSC Leader & Palestinian Vermonter on Shooting of 3 College Students
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 28, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/28 ... transcript
We get an update on the three university students of Palestinian descent who were shot Saturday in Burlington, Vermont. Two were wearing keffiyehs and speaking Arabic at the time of the attack. Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ahmad are now recovering, though Hisham Awartani, who was shot in the spine, has reportedly lost feeling in the lower part of his body. The FBI is reportedly investigating whether the shooting was a hate crime. “This atmosphere of hate” starts “from the federal level,” declares Wafic Faour of the organization Vermonters for Justice in Palestine, who joins us to discuss the recent history of Vermont’s suppression of pro-Palestinian sentiment. “If you talk about Palestinian rights, you’re going to be called 'terrorist,'” says Faour, yet although “the attacker is a white supremacist, … we don’t call it as is.” We also speak to Joyce Ajlouny, former director of the Ramallah Friends School in the occupied West Bank, where the three victims were students together. She reads poems they wrote in sixth grade and notes that over the course of the decadeslong occupation, “Palestinians of all faiths … have not been offered the humanity and dignity that they deserve.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Burlington, Vermont, where three Palestinian college students were shot on Saturday as they were walking to dinner at the home of one of the students’ grandmothers, who lives near the University of Vermont. Two of the men were wearing keffiyehs, and they were speaking Arabic at the time of the attack. The young men have been identified as Hisham Awartani, a Brown University student; Kinnan Abdalhamid, of Haverford College; and Tahseen Ahmad, a student at Trinity College. They were all 20 years old — they’re all 20 years old and graduates of the Ramallah Friends School in the occupied West Bank. Two of the students remain hospitalized. Hisham Awartani, who was shot in the spine, has reportedly lost feeling in the lower part of his body and may never walk again.
Authorities have charged a 48-year-old white man named Jason Eaton with three counts of second-degree attempted murder. He’s being held without bail. He pleaded not guilty on Monday. He reportedly shot the students from his porch as they walked by. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the FBI is investigating whether the shooting is a hate crime.
The shooting comes just weeks after a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy was stabbed to death near Chicago by his landlord.
Tamara Tamimi, the mother of one of the students, Kinnan Abdalhamid, told ABC News, quote, “To us, it’s decades of dehumanizing policy and rhetoric from U.S. leaders towards Palestinians and Arabs, including from the Biden administration, which has caused our children to be in the situation that they’re in,” unquote.
On Monday, relatives of the men shot in Vermont joined local authorities at a news conference at Burlington City Hall. This is Rich Price, the uncle of the Brown student, Hisham Awartani.
RICH PRICE: We speak only on behalf of the family because the family can’t be here. I want to say that these three young men are incredible. And that’s not just a proud uncle speaking, but it’s true. They are — they have their lives in front of them. …
I moved here 15 years ago, and I never imagined that this sort of thing could happen. And my sister lives in the occupied West Bank, and people often ask me, “Aren’t you worried about your sister? Aren’t you worried about your nephews and your niece?” And the reality is, as difficult as their life is, they are surrounded by incredible sense of community. And “tragic irony” is not even the right phrase, but to have them come stay with me for Thanksgiving and have something like this happen speaks to the level of civic vitriol, speaks to the level of hatred that exists in some corners of this country. It speaks to a sickness of gun violence that exists in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Rich Price, the uncle of Hisham Awartani, one of the three college students of Palestinian descent who were shot Saturday in Burlington, Vermont. And this is Kinnan Abdalhamid’s uncle, Radi Tamimi.
RADI TAMIMI: Kinnan grew up in the West Bank, and we always thought that that could be more of a risk in terms of his safety, and sending him here would be, you know, the right decision. And we feel somehow betrayed in that decision here. And, you know, we’re just trying to come to terms with everything.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined by two guests. In Burlington, Vermont, Wafic Faour is with us. He’s a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, has lived in Vermont for years. He’s a member of Vermonters for Justice in Palestine. And in Bethesda, Maryland, Joyce Ajlouny is the former director of the Ramallah Friends School, the school where all three of the students shot in Vermont graduated from. She’s now the general secretary of the international Quaker social justice organization American Friends Service Committee. She herself is Palestinian American.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Wafic, you’re in Burlington. Let’s begin with you. Where were you on Saturday when you got the news that three young Palestinian students, all 20 years old, best friends, visiting one of their grandmothers for Thanksgiving, were shot?
WAFIC FAOUR: I was at my house in Richmond. Thank you, Amy, for inviting us. I was at my house. We were organizing many activities and rallies because of what is happening on Palestine and this genocide war against our people over there. Definitely, I was shocked. And our community here are terrified and angry.
But, Amy, we should talk about what brought this atmosphere of hate. And this is a hate crime, and we should call it as is. From the federal level, the actions of Biden administration’s and Secretary of State Blinken and the defense secretary, they’re supporting Israel unconditionally and talking about the Palestinian victims and questioning the numbers of the Palestinian Health Ministry. This is on the federal level. And here in Vermont, for the past two years we have living under siege, too, from attacks from institutions here. When we brought resolution to talk about Palestinian rights, human rights and the protection of the Palestinian people, we found attacks from administrations in UVM, University of Vermont in Middlebury, and, unfortunately, from many faith-based institutions. And they called us antisemitic. And this atmosphere will bring to the American public that if you talk about Palestinian rights, you’re going to be called “terrorist.” If you wear a keffiyeh like this, you’re going to be called “terrorist.” And this is what brought this crime. And it is hate crime. Unfortunately, our leaders here in Vermont didn’t call it as is. And we should call it as is and use the right words.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Wafic, specifically at the press conference that was held on Monday by law enforcement, what do you believe should have been said but was not?
WAFIC FAOUR: Well, I mean, when state attorney Sarah George mentioned it’s a hateful event, but it is not hate crime. I mean, if it happened to another community, it would have been called hate crime immediately. And now they are questioning of the mental capacity of the attacker, when it is — believe me, we feel here if the name of the attacker is an Arab name or a Muslim name, he will be called “terrorist” immediately by the media, and the media will have a field of describing that person. Now the attacker is a white supremacist, and because of the atmosphere and racism against the Muslims, the Arabs and the Palestinians here, in this state and all across United States, we don’t call it as is.
At the same time, the mayor of Burlington, who opposed and he promised to reject and to veto any resolution in our progressive city that calls for Palestinian human rights and our rights as a Palestinian American citizen and our solidarity groups to call — to use our First Amendment and to call for the right of BDS, Boycott, Divestment and Sanction. And that happened a year and a half ago. You cannot have a double standard that attack us because we are activists for the rights of the Palestinians, at the same time when something like this, you just bring sorrow and mourning and defend yourself and where you stand. You have to stand with people justice regardless, and you have to be the mayor of all the citizens.
And I call for the Burlington councilmembers to bring a stronger resolution, and mainly for ceasefire now. You know, the Palestinians are dying. And we are working to stop this genocide over there. And we have — our local leaders, they have responsibility to support our solidarity group and the people in Vermont and Burlington.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you — the mother of one of the injured young men, Hisham Awartani, his mother, Elizabeth Price, has been trying to leave Ramallah and travel to the U.S. to see her son. Is there any news about whether she’ll be able to come?
WAFIC FAOUR: I don’t know. I heard that she’s coming. I saw a statement about that. I don’t know if she’s on her way already. I know a sister, and her husband, of another victim is here. I am in contact with the stepfather of another victim, and he told me his health is improving now.
But we have to take this crime as example of what we feel and what we are experiencing here. We stand by those victims. But at the same time, I have to talk to you about the fear and the anger of our community here in Vermont, the Palestinian and the Arab Muslim community in particular, and our solidarity groups and young students who getting attacked by UVM administrations and a year and a half ago from Middlebury administration, too.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to get to that, but I want to bring in Joyce Ajlouny into the conversation, former director of the Ramallah Friends School, the school where all three boys went to school in Ramallah. She’s now the general secretary of American Friends Service Committee, joining us from Virginia [sic]. Can you talk about where they went to school? These were three best friends, now 20 years old. I think you’re muted.
JOYCE AJLOUNY: Terribly sorry.
AMY GOODMAN: Perfect.
JOYCE AJLOUNY: Yes, Amy. Thank you for having me.
As you were speaking to Wafic, I received a message from Ali Awartani and Elizabeth Price. They’re saying they’re on their way to America — just to answer your question about if they are planning to come. They are en route, traveling to be with Hisham.
AMY GOODMAN: And I should correct that you’re in Bethesda, Maryland. Sorry, I said Virginia.
JOYCE AJLOUNY: I am.
AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.
JOYCE AJLOUNY: No worries. That’s close enough.
Yes, the Ramallah Friends School was established in 1869 by Quaker missionaries. It’s a phenomenal place. I’m a graduate of the school myself. My grandmother, who was a Palestinian Quaker, graduated from there in the 1920s. So, this is a proud place for many of us. And not that it’s educationally and academically superior than IP education, kindergarten through 12th grade, but it’s also the Quaker values and the foundations of peace and nonviolence and teaching tolerance and service and integrity, conflict resolution, emphasizing dialogue and inquiry. That is what the school is about. And the track record is phenomenal when we look at our graduates and what they are up to. I think graduates say that they are who they are because of the Ramallah Friends School. So it is a phenomenal place that has transformed the lives of many throughout generations. So I know that Hisham, Kinnan and Tahseen are proud alums.
And, you know, I think that they’re getting together as most of us are, Palestinian Americans here. I also want to share that three of them are Palestinian Americans. And so, sometimes that’s dropped from the news, that two of them are actually American citizens. And so, they are gathered. They gather together to provide solace for each other and just vent sometimes, and it’s therapy to come together. And unfortunately, they have witnessed this horrific, horrific crime in the midst of them coming together to comfort each other. And I think that is what has happened, unfortunately, this time.
AMY GOODMAN: You posted on Facebook their poems, Tahseen’s poem, as well as Hisham. I’m wondering if you could read them for us? How old were they? Like in sixth grade?
JOYCE AJLOUNY: They were in sixth grade. I had the privilege of being the head of school when they were in middle school. And so, the librarian, actually, dug those up. And I will read Hisham’s poem, sixth grade Hisham, who now goes to Brown — by the way, brilliant students, all of them, accomplished, top-notch, value-driven.
I wanted to say, maybe, Amy, before I read his poem, that’s how selfless our students are. You know, Hisham wrote to his professor at Brown — and I want to quote him — he said, “It’s important to recognize that this is part of the larger story. The serious crime did not happen in a vacuum. As much as I appreciate and love every single one of you here today, I am but one casualty in a much wider conflict.” And then Hisham goes on to say to his professor that “This is why, when you say your wishes and light your candles today, you should mind — your mind should not just be focused on me as an individual, but rather a proud member of a people being oppressed.” And so, these are his words since the shooting.
When he was in sixth grade in 2015, he wrote — that’s Hisham Awartani:
“Hope dwells in my heart
It shines like a light in darkness
[This] light cannot be smothered
It cannot be drowned out by tears and the screams of the wounded
It only grows in strength
This light can outshine hate
This light can outshine injustice
It outshines segregation and apartheid
As of Greek legend, Pandora opened a box
And when she did that, all the evil escaped
But luckily, Pandora closed the jar before hope could escape
And as long as hope stayed in that jar
Hope would never escape
So I ask you one thing, learn from that story
Learn to never give up hope
Learn to let hope give power
In the darkest of times
And let the light shine.”
AMY GOODMAN: Wow! Hisham in sixth grade.
JOYCE AJLOUNY: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And how about Tahseen?
JOYCE AJLOUNY: Tahseen, there are two poems. I want to read one, which depicts where our students are coming from, that they are coming from living under a brutal occupation apartheid system that agonizes them, that traumatizes them day in and day out, children, sixth-graders. So, Tahseen writes:
“My ears are pounding
Children dying
Mothers crying
Authorities lying
My ears are pounding
My ears are pounding
Missiles destroying
Bombs exploding
Bullets killing
My ears are pounding
Press careless
Dreams traceless
Lands ownerless
My ears are pounding
Kids without mothers
Beds without covers
Palestine without others
My ears are pounding
My ears are pounding
There is one sound I heard
Not from a breeze or a bird
The sound of darkness
My ears are pounding
My ears are pounding
I’d rather be deaf.”
So, that says a lot. That says a lot about where we are at today in the story of the Palestinian struggle, which is often depicted as that this all started on October 7th. And so, this is 2015. And they are — when you read this poem, you feel like you’re reading it about today, about our people in Gaza and what they are going through, and yet this was eight years ago. So, the struggle continues.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And —
JOYCE AJLOUNY: Yeah. Go ahead.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Joyce, I wanted to ask you if you could comment on the tragic irony that the families of the victims have said in various interviews that they thought that the U.S. would be a safer place for their children than the West Bank, and then to have this terrible tragedy occur here.
JOYCE AJLOUNY: Yes, of course. I mean, I think that is the absolute truth. You know, I know that a large number of Palestinian students from the Ramallah Friends School attend U.S. colleges. And they’re actually very sought after. And when they come here, the parents know that they are keeping them away from being subjected to violence from not just the Israeli military but the Israeli settlers. I have a 31-year-old son there now, and I worry about his safety. The settlers have been emboldened, and there’s violence there every day. And you wonder. You know, you send them here, and then they — this keffiyeh has now become a symbol, instead of our struggle, instead of a symbol of our tradition, our traditional dress and our struggle, this is now being painted and tainted as a symbol of violence. And so, I have another son in Washington, D.C. He doesn’t leave home without his keffiyeh. I worry about him, too. So, that is where we’re at right now.
And I can’t but agree with Wafic about the dehumanization that has been taking place. And this is not new. You know, Palestinians are — you know, even in our grief, we are depicted as Palestinians “dying” — right? — while Israelis are being “killed” and “massacred.” So language really matters. And I think that is what we have seen time and time again. You know, 47 children died on the West Bank between January and August of this year, way before this war started. And I wonder, like, who cried for them. Who mourned them? Where was the U.S. mainstream media talking about them? And so, it’s not just the language. It’s also the framing — right? — that this is the worst attack since the Holocaust, painting Palestinians as Jew haters, as that this is a religious struggle rather than a people seeking freedom, seeking liberation from a settler colonial system, and remembering, you know, that Palestinians of all faiths are in the same struggle, as well, and they have not been offered the humanity and the dignity that they deserve. And so, I think this is all — this is manifest due to the continued dehumanization, not only by the media but by our government, you know, as Wafic said, that they continue to turn a blind eye. They’re not calling for a ceasefire. They continue to embolden the Israeli atrocities by sending more aid, doubling their aid, and supporting the genocide of our people. And so, that is truly the reason why this is happening.
I just wanted to also take the opportunity, you know, we’re doing the — there’s this exchange of hostages. And when they talk about that, they talk about Israelis released the children — the Israelis released are “children,” while the Palestinians who are released are “teenagers,” so children versus teenagers. You know, in my book, they’re all hostages. The fact that the media is not talking about the 3,000 Palestinians who have been kidnapped, basically, since October 10th and put in Israeli jails, and they’re calling them — they’re not prisoners. To them, they are bargaining chips — right? — that they will use in exchange. But, to us, they are hostages, just like the hostages that are held in Gaza. And so, that is the narrative that is being talked about day in and day out. And people who have sentiments that are anti-Arab, anti-Muslim are emboldened by all of that and take action, like Jason Eaton, who felt emboldened because no is portraying Palestinians as human beings that deserve the dignity and the respect that everyone else should be — that everyone else is granted.
AMY GOODMAN: Jason Eaton, of course, is the alleged shooter —
JOYCE AJLOUNY: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — of the three Palestinian young men. I want to thank you, Joyce Ajlouny, the former director of the Ramallah Friends School, where they all went to school in the occupied West Bank, all three students shot in Burlington, Vermont, on Friday. Joyce is also now the general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee. And I want to thank Wafic Faour, a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, member of Vermonters for Justice in Palestine, speaking to us from Burlington.
And this final note: Speaking about the Vermont representatives, you have Becca Balint, who is the first Jewish congressmember to call for a ceasefire. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has not called for a ceasefire but has called for conditions on U.S. aid to Israel. He said, quote, “While Israel has the right to go after Hamas, Netanyahu’s right-wing extremist government does not have the right to wage almost total warfare against the Palestinian people.”
Coming up, we speak to prize-winning investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill about Israel’s propaganda war over Al-Shifa Hospital and what’s underneath it. Who built what’s under Shifa Hospital? Back in 20 seconds.
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Jeremy Scahill: Israel’s “Lethal Lie” About Al-Shifa Hospital as Hamas Base Was Co-Signed by Biden
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 28, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/28 ... transcript
The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill deconstructs Israel's narrative around Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, including unsubstantiated allegations Hamas uses tunnels under the hospital as its command center — tunnels that Israel itself built. “We were told that this was like a Hamas Pentagon,” says Scahill, who describes how the Israeli military’s own evidence disproves its allegations that the hospital was dangerous enough to justify its siege and bombardment. The World Health Organization says Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, “is no longer functioning.” The Israeli disinformation campaign against it was a “lethal lie,” says Scahill. We also discuss the status of Palestinian prisoners who are now candidates for release in Israel and Hamas’s ongoing hostage exchange.
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, with Juan González.
Israel is continuing to detain the head of Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza. Last week, the Israeli military detained Muhammad Abu Salmiya as he was evacuating patients south from Gaza City.
Israel raided Al-Shifa, claiming Hamas ran a command and control center under the hospital, but Israel has yet to provide any hard evidence to back that up. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak recently spoke with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. He admitted Israel built the bunkers decades ago underneath Al-Shifa.
EHUD BARAK: It’s already known for many years that they have in the bunkers, that originally was built by Israeli constructors underneath Shifa, were used as a command post of the Hamas in a kind of a junction of several — several tunnels, part of this system. I don’t know to say to what extent it is a major. It’s probably not the only kind of command post. Several others are under other hospitals or in other sensitive places. But it’s for sure had been used by Hamas even during this conflict.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Well, when you say it was built by Israeli engineers, did you misspeak?
EHUD BARAK: No, no. Someday, you know, decades ago, we were wanting the place, so we held them. It was decades, many decades, ago, probably five, four decades ago, that we helped them to build these bunkers in order to enable more — more space for the operation of the hospital within the very limited size of this compound.
AMY GOODMAN: Again, that was the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
We’re joined now by Jeremy Scahill, senior reporter and correspondent at The Intercept, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army and Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield. One of his most recent pieces for The Intercept is headlined “Al-Shifa Hospital, Hamas’s Tunnels, and Israeli Propaganda.” Jeremy is joining us from Germany.
Jeremy, can you talk about what he just said?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah. Well, first of all, Amy, the Al-Shifa Hospital, originally, going back to the years of the British Mandate in the 1940s, it was a British military barracks, and then it was converted into a hospital, under both the Israeli and the Egyptian occupations of that area. And then, in the 1980s, the Israelis began to do extensive construction on it. In fact, I was looking at the Israeli Architecture Archives that were set up, and you can go back and look at [inaudible] from that era, and two Tel Aviv architects oversaw the expansion of the Al-Shifa Hospital. And by 1983, they had finished the construction of underground facilities at the hospital.
Now, we should also say, it’s not uncommon for hospitals the world over to have underground facilities for a variety of reasons. But when you’re in an active war zone, it’s very common. In fact, Israel has many underground facilities at its hospitals throughout Israel and has been using them since October 7th, certainly. They’re considered more secure places to hold vulnerable patients.
And so, what we know about Israel’s construction is that they at least built an underground operating room. They built a network of tunnels. And, in fact, during some of the construction, the son of one of the Israeli architects who designed the underground facility said that when Israel was building these in the 1980s, they hired people from Hamas as security to guard the construction project to ensure that it wouldn’t get attacked.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jeremy, could you talk also about the thousands of prisoners that Israel has been holding, many of them without any trial for extended years, and yet the Netanyahu government refers to all of them as “terrorists”?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah. I mean, Juan, I went through — and this connects also to the narrative around Al-Shifa. But just to directly answer your question, Israel released a list of 300 names that it said were fair game for a hostage-prisoner handover because of the truce with Hamas. And I went through all 15 pages of those names. I read each of the individual dates of birth, the dates of arrest, what the nature of the charges were — if there were any charges. Some of them don’t even list any actual charges against them. And what I discovered is that of the 300 names, 233 of these prisoners — most of them are teenage boys, some are — there’s a teenage girl who’s 15 years old — the 233 of 300 have not been convicted of anything. They haven’t been sentenced for anything. And Israel is the only country in the so-called developed world that tries children in military courts.
And so, you know, the Israeli narrative is that these are all hardened terrorists, because Palestinians are not allowed to have any context. Palestinians are not treated as full human beings. So, when a child — maybe his brother was killed by the Israeli forces, maybe his mother was killed by the Israeli forces — throws a rock at a soldier, their houses are often then raided at night. They’re snatched. They’re taken to interrogation without the presence of a parent or a lawyer. And then they’re pressured into pleading guilty under threat of spending years in a military judicial process.
Now, I say this relates to Al-Shifa because the colonial narrative always — and you can look at the British with the IRA, you can look at the position against Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress — is that those who are victims of the occupation have no rights to legitimate struggle. And so, the prisoners that Israel are holding, overwhelmingly, are people that are accused of committing political acts of violence. And that context also bleeds into Israel’s narrative about Al-Shifa: Al-Shifa is not really a hospital.
Al-Shifa — look, I don’t know if you guys have the video, but if you do, you should play it. Israel puts out a video to justify the siege of Al-Shifa Hospital, the most important hospital in Gaza, where you had dozens of children that needed incubators. Israel had knocked out the power supply. You had the most vulnerable patients there. They put out a video, the Israeli Defense Forces, that is this high-tech three-dimensional rendering, they said, of an underground, what I just call a Hamas Pentagon, and they imply that this is where — this is the central facility where Hamas is planning its terror operations.
When Israel finally then lays full siege to it, with the backing of the Biden administration and Biden himself — they co-signed all of that. They said that hostages had been held under the hospital. They said that it was used as a command and control center. When Israel finally starts to access the hospital, they take embedded journalists on these propaganda tours. And what they found was essentially nothing of any major significance. They go in, and they say, “Oh, look, we found these rifles behind an MRI machine,” which is ridiculous for anyone who knows the technology of an MRI machine and the magnetism of it. They’re all conveniently placed, neatly arranged. There’s one Hamas vest with a Hamas logo on it. So that gets ridiculed, and skepticism is expressed even by corporate media outlets that historically print Israel’s propaganda as just established fact.
So, then they finally gain access to a tunnel in the area. They go down there, and they say, “Oh, this tunnel is X number of meters long, and there’s a blast-proof door that has a hole so that the Hamas terrorists can fire at us. So we need to take some time before we blow it open. And then on the other side is going to be this command and control center.” So, finally, then, last week, they blow the thing open. They go in there. And what do they find? They find three rooms, basically. One looks like a kind of very old-school, 1980s-style exam room from a hospital. There’s a sink somewhere in there. There’s two toilets. And then you have this utter clown from the IDF who has been made a fool of himself by doing these tours. It’s like Geraldo Rivera looking for Al Capone’s vault. He’s running around, saying, “Aha! There’s electricity in here. This is a Hamas command center. Aha! They had an air conditioner in here.” You know, the pipes are rusty. Many of the electrical wires aren’t even connected.
Now, I don’t know for a fact that Hamas guys weren’t under there. It wouldn’t shock me if at some point Hamas did have people under there. But we were told this was like a Hamas Pentagon and that it was so dangerous that it justified laying siege to a hospital filled with the most vulnerable people. This is akin to sort of the George H.W. Bush administration lies about the Iraqis pulling babies from incubators. It’s an utter lie that was co-signed and promoted by President Joe Biden and his administration, and they should be made to answer for this, because it wasn’t just Al-Shifa. They did it at the Indonesia Hospital. They did it at other hospitals. Of course Hamas has networks of tunnels underneath Gaza, 150 to 300 kilometers, by some estimates. Israel is waging a targeted assassination campaign against them, and they live in a confined area waging a guerrilla war. That’s not news. But Israel tried to rebrand something that anyone who’s followed this already knows, and tried to make it seem like it’s a smoking gun. And, in fact, it was a lethal lie.
AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, we want to thank you for being with us, senior reporter, correspondent at The Intercept. We’ll link to your pieces on Al-Shifa and Palestinian prisoners at democracynow.org.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 28, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/28 ... transcript
We get an update on the three university students of Palestinian descent who were shot Saturday in Burlington, Vermont. Two were wearing keffiyehs and speaking Arabic at the time of the attack. Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ahmad are now recovering, though Hisham Awartani, who was shot in the spine, has reportedly lost feeling in the lower part of his body. The FBI is reportedly investigating whether the shooting was a hate crime. “This atmosphere of hate” starts “from the federal level,” declares Wafic Faour of the organization Vermonters for Justice in Palestine, who joins us to discuss the recent history of Vermont’s suppression of pro-Palestinian sentiment. “If you talk about Palestinian rights, you’re going to be called 'terrorist,'” says Faour, yet although “the attacker is a white supremacist, … we don’t call it as is.” We also speak to Joyce Ajlouny, former director of the Ramallah Friends School in the occupied West Bank, where the three victims were students together. She reads poems they wrote in sixth grade and notes that over the course of the decadeslong occupation, “Palestinians of all faiths … have not been offered the humanity and dignity that they deserve.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Burlington, Vermont, where three Palestinian college students were shot on Saturday as they were walking to dinner at the home of one of the students’ grandmothers, who lives near the University of Vermont. Two of the men were wearing keffiyehs, and they were speaking Arabic at the time of the attack. The young men have been identified as Hisham Awartani, a Brown University student; Kinnan Abdalhamid, of Haverford College; and Tahseen Ahmad, a student at Trinity College. They were all 20 years old — they’re all 20 years old and graduates of the Ramallah Friends School in the occupied West Bank. Two of the students remain hospitalized. Hisham Awartani, who was shot in the spine, has reportedly lost feeling in the lower part of his body and may never walk again.
Authorities have charged a 48-year-old white man named Jason Eaton with three counts of second-degree attempted murder. He’s being held without bail. He pleaded not guilty on Monday. He reportedly shot the students from his porch as they walked by. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the FBI is investigating whether the shooting is a hate crime.
The shooting comes just weeks after a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy was stabbed to death near Chicago by his landlord.
Tamara Tamimi, the mother of one of the students, Kinnan Abdalhamid, told ABC News, quote, “To us, it’s decades of dehumanizing policy and rhetoric from U.S. leaders towards Palestinians and Arabs, including from the Biden administration, which has caused our children to be in the situation that they’re in,” unquote.
On Monday, relatives of the men shot in Vermont joined local authorities at a news conference at Burlington City Hall. This is Rich Price, the uncle of the Brown student, Hisham Awartani.
RICH PRICE: We speak only on behalf of the family because the family can’t be here. I want to say that these three young men are incredible. And that’s not just a proud uncle speaking, but it’s true. They are — they have their lives in front of them. …
I moved here 15 years ago, and I never imagined that this sort of thing could happen. And my sister lives in the occupied West Bank, and people often ask me, “Aren’t you worried about your sister? Aren’t you worried about your nephews and your niece?” And the reality is, as difficult as their life is, they are surrounded by incredible sense of community. And “tragic irony” is not even the right phrase, but to have them come stay with me for Thanksgiving and have something like this happen speaks to the level of civic vitriol, speaks to the level of hatred that exists in some corners of this country. It speaks to a sickness of gun violence that exists in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Rich Price, the uncle of Hisham Awartani, one of the three college students of Palestinian descent who were shot Saturday in Burlington, Vermont. And this is Kinnan Abdalhamid’s uncle, Radi Tamimi.
RADI TAMIMI: Kinnan grew up in the West Bank, and we always thought that that could be more of a risk in terms of his safety, and sending him here would be, you know, the right decision. And we feel somehow betrayed in that decision here. And, you know, we’re just trying to come to terms with everything.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined by two guests. In Burlington, Vermont, Wafic Faour is with us. He’s a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, has lived in Vermont for years. He’s a member of Vermonters for Justice in Palestine. And in Bethesda, Maryland, Joyce Ajlouny is the former director of the Ramallah Friends School, the school where all three of the students shot in Vermont graduated from. She’s now the general secretary of the international Quaker social justice organization American Friends Service Committee. She herself is Palestinian American.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Wafic, you’re in Burlington. Let’s begin with you. Where were you on Saturday when you got the news that three young Palestinian students, all 20 years old, best friends, visiting one of their grandmothers for Thanksgiving, were shot?
WAFIC FAOUR: I was at my house in Richmond. Thank you, Amy, for inviting us. I was at my house. We were organizing many activities and rallies because of what is happening on Palestine and this genocide war against our people over there. Definitely, I was shocked. And our community here are terrified and angry.
But, Amy, we should talk about what brought this atmosphere of hate. And this is a hate crime, and we should call it as is. From the federal level, the actions of Biden administration’s and Secretary of State Blinken and the defense secretary, they’re supporting Israel unconditionally and talking about the Palestinian victims and questioning the numbers of the Palestinian Health Ministry. This is on the federal level. And here in Vermont, for the past two years we have living under siege, too, from attacks from institutions here. When we brought resolution to talk about Palestinian rights, human rights and the protection of the Palestinian people, we found attacks from administrations in UVM, University of Vermont in Middlebury, and, unfortunately, from many faith-based institutions. And they called us antisemitic. And this atmosphere will bring to the American public that if you talk about Palestinian rights, you’re going to be called “terrorist.” If you wear a keffiyeh like this, you’re going to be called “terrorist.” And this is what brought this crime. And it is hate crime. Unfortunately, our leaders here in Vermont didn’t call it as is. And we should call it as is and use the right words.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Wafic, specifically at the press conference that was held on Monday by law enforcement, what do you believe should have been said but was not?
WAFIC FAOUR: Well, I mean, when state attorney Sarah George mentioned it’s a hateful event, but it is not hate crime. I mean, if it happened to another community, it would have been called hate crime immediately. And now they are questioning of the mental capacity of the attacker, when it is — believe me, we feel here if the name of the attacker is an Arab name or a Muslim name, he will be called “terrorist” immediately by the media, and the media will have a field of describing that person. Now the attacker is a white supremacist, and because of the atmosphere and racism against the Muslims, the Arabs and the Palestinians here, in this state and all across United States, we don’t call it as is.
At the same time, the mayor of Burlington, who opposed and he promised to reject and to veto any resolution in our progressive city that calls for Palestinian human rights and our rights as a Palestinian American citizen and our solidarity groups to call — to use our First Amendment and to call for the right of BDS, Boycott, Divestment and Sanction. And that happened a year and a half ago. You cannot have a double standard that attack us because we are activists for the rights of the Palestinians, at the same time when something like this, you just bring sorrow and mourning and defend yourself and where you stand. You have to stand with people justice regardless, and you have to be the mayor of all the citizens.
And I call for the Burlington councilmembers to bring a stronger resolution, and mainly for ceasefire now. You know, the Palestinians are dying. And we are working to stop this genocide over there. And we have — our local leaders, they have responsibility to support our solidarity group and the people in Vermont and Burlington.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you — the mother of one of the injured young men, Hisham Awartani, his mother, Elizabeth Price, has been trying to leave Ramallah and travel to the U.S. to see her son. Is there any news about whether she’ll be able to come?
WAFIC FAOUR: I don’t know. I heard that she’s coming. I saw a statement about that. I don’t know if she’s on her way already. I know a sister, and her husband, of another victim is here. I am in contact with the stepfather of another victim, and he told me his health is improving now.
But we have to take this crime as example of what we feel and what we are experiencing here. We stand by those victims. But at the same time, I have to talk to you about the fear and the anger of our community here in Vermont, the Palestinian and the Arab Muslim community in particular, and our solidarity groups and young students who getting attacked by UVM administrations and a year and a half ago from Middlebury administration, too.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to get to that, but I want to bring in Joyce Ajlouny into the conversation, former director of the Ramallah Friends School, the school where all three boys went to school in Ramallah. She’s now the general secretary of American Friends Service Committee, joining us from Virginia [sic]. Can you talk about where they went to school? These were three best friends, now 20 years old. I think you’re muted.
JOYCE AJLOUNY: Terribly sorry.
AMY GOODMAN: Perfect.
JOYCE AJLOUNY: Yes, Amy. Thank you for having me.
As you were speaking to Wafic, I received a message from Ali Awartani and Elizabeth Price. They’re saying they’re on their way to America — just to answer your question about if they are planning to come. They are en route, traveling to be with Hisham.
AMY GOODMAN: And I should correct that you’re in Bethesda, Maryland. Sorry, I said Virginia.
JOYCE AJLOUNY: I am.
AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.
JOYCE AJLOUNY: No worries. That’s close enough.
Yes, the Ramallah Friends School was established in 1869 by Quaker missionaries. It’s a phenomenal place. I’m a graduate of the school myself. My grandmother, who was a Palestinian Quaker, graduated from there in the 1920s. So, this is a proud place for many of us. And not that it’s educationally and academically superior than IP education, kindergarten through 12th grade, but it’s also the Quaker values and the foundations of peace and nonviolence and teaching tolerance and service and integrity, conflict resolution, emphasizing dialogue and inquiry. That is what the school is about. And the track record is phenomenal when we look at our graduates and what they are up to. I think graduates say that they are who they are because of the Ramallah Friends School. So it is a phenomenal place that has transformed the lives of many throughout generations. So I know that Hisham, Kinnan and Tahseen are proud alums.
And, you know, I think that they’re getting together as most of us are, Palestinian Americans here. I also want to share that three of them are Palestinian Americans. And so, sometimes that’s dropped from the news, that two of them are actually American citizens. And so, they are gathered. They gather together to provide solace for each other and just vent sometimes, and it’s therapy to come together. And unfortunately, they have witnessed this horrific, horrific crime in the midst of them coming together to comfort each other. And I think that is what has happened, unfortunately, this time.
AMY GOODMAN: You posted on Facebook their poems, Tahseen’s poem, as well as Hisham. I’m wondering if you could read them for us? How old were they? Like in sixth grade?
JOYCE AJLOUNY: They were in sixth grade. I had the privilege of being the head of school when they were in middle school. And so, the librarian, actually, dug those up. And I will read Hisham’s poem, sixth grade Hisham, who now goes to Brown — by the way, brilliant students, all of them, accomplished, top-notch, value-driven.
I wanted to say, maybe, Amy, before I read his poem, that’s how selfless our students are. You know, Hisham wrote to his professor at Brown — and I want to quote him — he said, “It’s important to recognize that this is part of the larger story. The serious crime did not happen in a vacuum. As much as I appreciate and love every single one of you here today, I am but one casualty in a much wider conflict.” And then Hisham goes on to say to his professor that “This is why, when you say your wishes and light your candles today, you should mind — your mind should not just be focused on me as an individual, but rather a proud member of a people being oppressed.” And so, these are his words since the shooting.
When he was in sixth grade in 2015, he wrote — that’s Hisham Awartani:
“Hope dwells in my heart
It shines like a light in darkness
[This] light cannot be smothered
It cannot be drowned out by tears and the screams of the wounded
It only grows in strength
This light can outshine hate
This light can outshine injustice
It outshines segregation and apartheid
As of Greek legend, Pandora opened a box
And when she did that, all the evil escaped
But luckily, Pandora closed the jar before hope could escape
And as long as hope stayed in that jar
Hope would never escape
So I ask you one thing, learn from that story
Learn to never give up hope
Learn to let hope give power
In the darkest of times
And let the light shine.”
AMY GOODMAN: Wow! Hisham in sixth grade.
JOYCE AJLOUNY: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And how about Tahseen?
JOYCE AJLOUNY: Tahseen, there are two poems. I want to read one, which depicts where our students are coming from, that they are coming from living under a brutal occupation apartheid system that agonizes them, that traumatizes them day in and day out, children, sixth-graders. So, Tahseen writes:
“My ears are pounding
Children dying
Mothers crying
Authorities lying
My ears are pounding
My ears are pounding
Missiles destroying
Bombs exploding
Bullets killing
My ears are pounding
Press careless
Dreams traceless
Lands ownerless
My ears are pounding
Kids without mothers
Beds without covers
Palestine without others
My ears are pounding
My ears are pounding
There is one sound I heard
Not from a breeze or a bird
The sound of darkness
My ears are pounding
My ears are pounding
I’d rather be deaf.”
So, that says a lot. That says a lot about where we are at today in the story of the Palestinian struggle, which is often depicted as that this all started on October 7th. And so, this is 2015. And they are — when you read this poem, you feel like you’re reading it about today, about our people in Gaza and what they are going through, and yet this was eight years ago. So, the struggle continues.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And —
JOYCE AJLOUNY: Yeah. Go ahead.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Joyce, I wanted to ask you if you could comment on the tragic irony that the families of the victims have said in various interviews that they thought that the U.S. would be a safer place for their children than the West Bank, and then to have this terrible tragedy occur here.
JOYCE AJLOUNY: Yes, of course. I mean, I think that is the absolute truth. You know, I know that a large number of Palestinian students from the Ramallah Friends School attend U.S. colleges. And they’re actually very sought after. And when they come here, the parents know that they are keeping them away from being subjected to violence from not just the Israeli military but the Israeli settlers. I have a 31-year-old son there now, and I worry about his safety. The settlers have been emboldened, and there’s violence there every day. And you wonder. You know, you send them here, and then they — this keffiyeh has now become a symbol, instead of our struggle, instead of a symbol of our tradition, our traditional dress and our struggle, this is now being painted and tainted as a symbol of violence. And so, I have another son in Washington, D.C. He doesn’t leave home without his keffiyeh. I worry about him, too. So, that is where we’re at right now.
And I can’t but agree with Wafic about the dehumanization that has been taking place. And this is not new. You know, Palestinians are — you know, even in our grief, we are depicted as Palestinians “dying” — right? — while Israelis are being “killed” and “massacred.” So language really matters. And I think that is what we have seen time and time again. You know, 47 children died on the West Bank between January and August of this year, way before this war started. And I wonder, like, who cried for them. Who mourned them? Where was the U.S. mainstream media talking about them? And so, it’s not just the language. It’s also the framing — right? — that this is the worst attack since the Holocaust, painting Palestinians as Jew haters, as that this is a religious struggle rather than a people seeking freedom, seeking liberation from a settler colonial system, and remembering, you know, that Palestinians of all faiths are in the same struggle, as well, and they have not been offered the humanity and the dignity that they deserve. And so, I think this is all — this is manifest due to the continued dehumanization, not only by the media but by our government, you know, as Wafic said, that they continue to turn a blind eye. They’re not calling for a ceasefire. They continue to embolden the Israeli atrocities by sending more aid, doubling their aid, and supporting the genocide of our people. And so, that is truly the reason why this is happening.
I just wanted to also take the opportunity, you know, we’re doing the — there’s this exchange of hostages. And when they talk about that, they talk about Israelis released the children — the Israelis released are “children,” while the Palestinians who are released are “teenagers,” so children versus teenagers. You know, in my book, they’re all hostages. The fact that the media is not talking about the 3,000 Palestinians who have been kidnapped, basically, since October 10th and put in Israeli jails, and they’re calling them — they’re not prisoners. To them, they are bargaining chips — right? — that they will use in exchange. But, to us, they are hostages, just like the hostages that are held in Gaza. And so, that is the narrative that is being talked about day in and day out. And people who have sentiments that are anti-Arab, anti-Muslim are emboldened by all of that and take action, like Jason Eaton, who felt emboldened because no is portraying Palestinians as human beings that deserve the dignity and the respect that everyone else should be — that everyone else is granted.
AMY GOODMAN: Jason Eaton, of course, is the alleged shooter —
JOYCE AJLOUNY: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — of the three Palestinian young men. I want to thank you, Joyce Ajlouny, the former director of the Ramallah Friends School, where they all went to school in the occupied West Bank, all three students shot in Burlington, Vermont, on Friday. Joyce is also now the general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee. And I want to thank Wafic Faour, a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, member of Vermonters for Justice in Palestine, speaking to us from Burlington.
And this final note: Speaking about the Vermont representatives, you have Becca Balint, who is the first Jewish congressmember to call for a ceasefire. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has not called for a ceasefire but has called for conditions on U.S. aid to Israel. He said, quote, “While Israel has the right to go after Hamas, Netanyahu’s right-wing extremist government does not have the right to wage almost total warfare against the Palestinian people.”
Coming up, we speak to prize-winning investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill about Israel’s propaganda war over Al-Shifa Hospital and what’s underneath it. Who built what’s under Shifa Hospital? Back in 20 seconds.
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Jeremy Scahill: Israel’s “Lethal Lie” About Al-Shifa Hospital as Hamas Base Was Co-Signed by Biden
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 28, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/28 ... transcript
The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill deconstructs Israel's narrative around Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, including unsubstantiated allegations Hamas uses tunnels under the hospital as its command center — tunnels that Israel itself built. “We were told that this was like a Hamas Pentagon,” says Scahill, who describes how the Israeli military’s own evidence disproves its allegations that the hospital was dangerous enough to justify its siege and bombardment. The World Health Organization says Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, “is no longer functioning.” The Israeli disinformation campaign against it was a “lethal lie,” says Scahill. We also discuss the status of Palestinian prisoners who are now candidates for release in Israel and Hamas’s ongoing hostage exchange.
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, with Juan González.
Israel is continuing to detain the head of Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza. Last week, the Israeli military detained Muhammad Abu Salmiya as he was evacuating patients south from Gaza City.
Israel raided Al-Shifa, claiming Hamas ran a command and control center under the hospital, but Israel has yet to provide any hard evidence to back that up. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak recently spoke with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. He admitted Israel built the bunkers decades ago underneath Al-Shifa.
EHUD BARAK: It’s already known for many years that they have in the bunkers, that originally was built by Israeli constructors underneath Shifa, were used as a command post of the Hamas in a kind of a junction of several — several tunnels, part of this system. I don’t know to say to what extent it is a major. It’s probably not the only kind of command post. Several others are under other hospitals or in other sensitive places. But it’s for sure had been used by Hamas even during this conflict.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Well, when you say it was built by Israeli engineers, did you misspeak?
EHUD BARAK: No, no. Someday, you know, decades ago, we were wanting the place, so we held them. It was decades, many decades, ago, probably five, four decades ago, that we helped them to build these bunkers in order to enable more — more space for the operation of the hospital within the very limited size of this compound.
AMY GOODMAN: Again, that was the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
We’re joined now by Jeremy Scahill, senior reporter and correspondent at The Intercept, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army and Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield. One of his most recent pieces for The Intercept is headlined “Al-Shifa Hospital, Hamas’s Tunnels, and Israeli Propaganda.” Jeremy is joining us from Germany.
Jeremy, can you talk about what he just said?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah. Well, first of all, Amy, the Al-Shifa Hospital, originally, going back to the years of the British Mandate in the 1940s, it was a British military barracks, and then it was converted into a hospital, under both the Israeli and the Egyptian occupations of that area. And then, in the 1980s, the Israelis began to do extensive construction on it. In fact, I was looking at the Israeli Architecture Archives that were set up, and you can go back and look at [inaudible] from that era, and two Tel Aviv architects oversaw the expansion of the Al-Shifa Hospital. And by 1983, they had finished the construction of underground facilities at the hospital.
Now, we should also say, it’s not uncommon for hospitals the world over to have underground facilities for a variety of reasons. But when you’re in an active war zone, it’s very common. In fact, Israel has many underground facilities at its hospitals throughout Israel and has been using them since October 7th, certainly. They’re considered more secure places to hold vulnerable patients.
And so, what we know about Israel’s construction is that they at least built an underground operating room. They built a network of tunnels. And, in fact, during some of the construction, the son of one of the Israeli architects who designed the underground facility said that when Israel was building these in the 1980s, they hired people from Hamas as security to guard the construction project to ensure that it wouldn’t get attacked.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jeremy, could you talk also about the thousands of prisoners that Israel has been holding, many of them without any trial for extended years, and yet the Netanyahu government refers to all of them as “terrorists”?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah. I mean, Juan, I went through — and this connects also to the narrative around Al-Shifa. But just to directly answer your question, Israel released a list of 300 names that it said were fair game for a hostage-prisoner handover because of the truce with Hamas. And I went through all 15 pages of those names. I read each of the individual dates of birth, the dates of arrest, what the nature of the charges were — if there were any charges. Some of them don’t even list any actual charges against them. And what I discovered is that of the 300 names, 233 of these prisoners — most of them are teenage boys, some are — there’s a teenage girl who’s 15 years old — the 233 of 300 have not been convicted of anything. They haven’t been sentenced for anything. And Israel is the only country in the so-called developed world that tries children in military courts.
And so, you know, the Israeli narrative is that these are all hardened terrorists, because Palestinians are not allowed to have any context. Palestinians are not treated as full human beings. So, when a child — maybe his brother was killed by the Israeli forces, maybe his mother was killed by the Israeli forces — throws a rock at a soldier, their houses are often then raided at night. They’re snatched. They’re taken to interrogation without the presence of a parent or a lawyer. And then they’re pressured into pleading guilty under threat of spending years in a military judicial process.
Now, I say this relates to Al-Shifa because the colonial narrative always — and you can look at the British with the IRA, you can look at the position against Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress — is that those who are victims of the occupation have no rights to legitimate struggle. And so, the prisoners that Israel are holding, overwhelmingly, are people that are accused of committing political acts of violence. And that context also bleeds into Israel’s narrative about Al-Shifa: Al-Shifa is not really a hospital.
Al-Shifa — look, I don’t know if you guys have the video, but if you do, you should play it. Israel puts out a video to justify the siege of Al-Shifa Hospital, the most important hospital in Gaza, where you had dozens of children that needed incubators. Israel had knocked out the power supply. You had the most vulnerable patients there. They put out a video, the Israeli Defense Forces, that is this high-tech three-dimensional rendering, they said, of an underground, what I just call a Hamas Pentagon, and they imply that this is where — this is the central facility where Hamas is planning its terror operations.
When Israel finally then lays full siege to it, with the backing of the Biden administration and Biden himself — they co-signed all of that. They said that hostages had been held under the hospital. They said that it was used as a command and control center. When Israel finally starts to access the hospital, they take embedded journalists on these propaganda tours. And what they found was essentially nothing of any major significance. They go in, and they say, “Oh, look, we found these rifles behind an MRI machine,” which is ridiculous for anyone who knows the technology of an MRI machine and the magnetism of it. They’re all conveniently placed, neatly arranged. There’s one Hamas vest with a Hamas logo on it. So that gets ridiculed, and skepticism is expressed even by corporate media outlets that historically print Israel’s propaganda as just established fact.
So, then they finally gain access to a tunnel in the area. They go down there, and they say, “Oh, this tunnel is X number of meters long, and there’s a blast-proof door that has a hole so that the Hamas terrorists can fire at us. So we need to take some time before we blow it open. And then on the other side is going to be this command and control center.” So, finally, then, last week, they blow the thing open. They go in there. And what do they find? They find three rooms, basically. One looks like a kind of very old-school, 1980s-style exam room from a hospital. There’s a sink somewhere in there. There’s two toilets. And then you have this utter clown from the IDF who has been made a fool of himself by doing these tours. It’s like Geraldo Rivera looking for Al Capone’s vault. He’s running around, saying, “Aha! There’s electricity in here. This is a Hamas command center. Aha! They had an air conditioner in here.” You know, the pipes are rusty. Many of the electrical wires aren’t even connected.
Now, I don’t know for a fact that Hamas guys weren’t under there. It wouldn’t shock me if at some point Hamas did have people under there. But we were told this was like a Hamas Pentagon and that it was so dangerous that it justified laying siege to a hospital filled with the most vulnerable people. This is akin to sort of the George H.W. Bush administration lies about the Iraqis pulling babies from incubators. It’s an utter lie that was co-signed and promoted by President Joe Biden and his administration, and they should be made to answer for this, because it wasn’t just Al-Shifa. They did it at the Indonesia Hospital. They did it at other hospitals. Of course Hamas has networks of tunnels underneath Gaza, 150 to 300 kilometers, by some estimates. Israel is waging a targeted assassination campaign against them, and they live in a confined area waging a guerrilla war. That’s not news. But Israel tried to rebrand something that anyone who’s followed this already knows, and tried to make it seem like it’s a smoking gun. And, in fact, it was a lethal lie.
AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, we want to thank you for being with us, senior reporter, correspondent at The Intercept. We’ll link to your pieces on Al-Shifa and Palestinian prisoners at democracynow.org.
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