Israel’s War on Journalists: More Reporters Killed in Gaza in 3 Months Than Any Country Over Entire Year
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 17, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/17/ ... transcript
Gaza is now the deadliest place on Earth for media workers. By some estimates, over 110 journalists have been killed there since Israel began its assault on the territory following the October 7 Hamas attack, and the Committee to Protect Journalists says more journalists were killed in the first 10 weeks of the war than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year. We speak with CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa coordinator Sherif Mansour, who says journalists in Gaza are showing great courage amid horrific working conditions. “They really are rewriting what it means to be a journalist today with immense, brave and never-seen-before sacrifices,” Mansour says.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel’s bombardment of Gaza from the land, air and sea continued today, much of it in the southern part of the territory in the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah. At least 163 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the last 24 hours, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Some of the worst shelling hit the western side of Khan Younis, which was designated in the early stages of Israel’s assault on Gaza as a so-called safe zone by Israel. There’s also been intense Israeli bombardment in the vicinity of Nasser Hospital, the main hospital in the city, and tanks and armored vehicles are on the main road leading to the area. Among the places hit in Khan Younis was a school sheltering displaced Palestinians. An eyewitness described the attack.
EYEWITNESS: We saw death with all colors. The tanks entered. We saw everything vividly. It was horrible — random shelling, random fire, random killing. They are coming just to kill and go back home. This is a Nakba. They are just coming to kill children, women, elderly, in the bathroom, in the school, in the hospital, in the street, anywhere. They killed us. They are just coming to kill only. Just that. Just killing.
AMY GOODMAN: The interruption of communications and internet services in Gaza, for days, has continued for the fifth consecutive day, the longest telecommunications blackout of the war so far. This has caused delays for emergency workers to respond to airstrikes and has hampered media coverage from Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh left Gaza on Tuesday, crossing into Egypt, then flying to Qatar to receive medical treatment. Dahdouh has come to symbolize both the suffering and resilience of Palestinian journalists in Gaza. In October, four members of his family were killed, including his wife, his 15-year-old son, his 7-year-old daughter and his grandson, in an Israeli strike on a refugee camp where they were seeking shelter after their home was bombed. Last week, his eldest son, 27-year-old-Hamza, also a journalist, was killed along with another journalist in an Israeli airstrike on their car in Khan Younis. Dahdouh will receive medical treatment in Doha for a wound he received when Israel bombed the area he was in that ended up killing his cameraperson Samer Abudaqa.
By some counts, over 110 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7th. The Committee to Protect Journalists has found more journalists have been killed in the first 10 weeks of Israel’s war on Gaza than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year.
For more, we’re joined by two guests. Sharif Abdel Kouddous is an independent journalist and a Democracy Now! correspondent. His latest piece for The Intercept investigates the killing of Abudaqa. It’s headlined “Israel Bombed an Al Jazeera Cameraman — and Blocked Evacuation Efforts as He Bled to Death.” He’s joining us from here in New York. In Washington, D.C., we’re joined by Sherif Mansour, the Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Before we talk to Sharif about the cameraman, the Al Jazeera cameraman who bled to death over five hours, can we put this in a broader context, Sherif Mansour? Talk about the astounding number, the horrific number, of journalists who have died in Gaza.
SHERIF MANSOUR: Well, thank you for having me again, Amy. I’ve already talked to you about this at least twice, and the number only goes higher. The deadly pattern we discussed become more deadly. And we have since talked, talked about the apparent pattern of targeting against journalists, their families. And specifically when we discuss Al Jazeera and al-Dahdouh’s family, they really are rewriting what it means to be a journalist today, with immense, brave and never-seen-before sacrifices. The Palestinian journalists, local journalists — so far, 76 out of 83 we’ve counted since the start of the war are Palestinians. The overwhelming majority are killed by the Israeli army. The Israeli army has killed more journalists in the span of those three months than any other entity or army have done over a course of one year since 1992. This is the most dangerous and the most — we’ve never seen any assignment like this before.
Of course, what we called on is independent and transparent and thorough investigation. We want to see the case of al-Dahdouh, his son, Al Jazeera and others that show a culpability of the Israeli army to be put to public scrutiny by allowing immediate entry to international media and international investigators into Gaza without censorship by the Israeli army. The killing must stop. And for that to happen, the record must be made public, and U.S., European and other allies of Israel need to call Israel on that record and ensure those investigations are made immediately public.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Sherif Mansour, what has been the response of the Israeli government and the Israeli Defense Forces, given the enormous number of journalists killed? Have they accepted any culpability at all for any of these killings?
SHERIF MANSOUR: The cases of precise attacks by drones against Al Jazeera, which happened at least twice in the last four weeks, included for the first time the Israeli army taking responsibility of doing those attacks, but also doing as they’ve done in the past, when they are held responsible because the case of a journalist is someone who was behind an international news organization. They said they will investigate, but they also push false narratives, claims that they are terrorists or that they were part of an ongoing crossfire, and, as we’ve seen in past incidents before this war, this time around three narratives pushed by the Israeli army, correcting and changing and providing nothing more than a questionable document, with English for the first time, coming from what they said was a terrorist group, but providing no other evidence that support their claim, and have — so far, the outlets, eyewitnesses, and the families of the journalists have denied the Israeli army narratives and showed to the contrary that, for example, Hamza, an Al Jazeera journalist, was approved to travel — before his father, Wael Dahdouh, did yesterday — after Israel vetted him. And if he was wanted by any chance, he wouldn’t have had this approval before he was killed. And other testimony and accounts that we and others are showing the contradicting nature of these narratives, this is also the same narrative we said happened before this war started, in our “Deadly Pattern” report. And it is a pattern of responses designed to evade responsibilities by throwing the word “terrorists,” by also pushing out those narratives until the world look away.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, and Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are both calling for Israel to be officially investigated for war crimes and its targeting of journalists, not only in Gaza, but outside of Gaza, because an internal Reuters investigation found that one of its journalists, Issam Abdallah, was killed by an Israeli tank shell fired on him and a group of six other journalists in southern Lebanon on October 13th. Could you talk about these attacks outside of Gaza?
SHERIF MANSOUR: So, we saw the same pattern of disregard for press insignia that we reported before this war, 13 out of 20 journalists killed by IDF fire over 21 years who wore press signs and press insignia showing that they are media personnel. And like those cases, the case of Issam Abdallah show, with independent investigation, physical proof, forensic proof from the scene, in addition to mapping, audio and visual analysis by international human rights groups and international media organizations, that show that those journalists did not pose any threat to Israeli government positions, that they have been seen by an Israeli drone at least an hour, that they were visibly expressing or showing press signs and only their cameras, and the position that they have taken was a high-vantage hill that did not obscure their location with being close to any camera or house that justified that they would have any threat. And all of this and other evidence have shown that what we show in the past, in the cases of at least three journalists that we categorized as murdered before this course, including Shireen Abu Akleh and Yaser Murtaja and Ahmed Abu Hassin, who were killed in Gaza, that there was no justification for the use of lethal force by the Israeli army. And those and other cases [inaudible] that we call for independent investigation as war crimes, because the Israeli army did not live up to their commitments and obligation under international law.
AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, Shireen Abu Akleh was killed May 11, 2022, outside the Jenin refugee camp. Sharif Abdel Kouddous did a George Polk Award-winning documentary on the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh. He’s joining us, as well.
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How Israel Bombed Al Jazeera Journalists & Blocked Rescue of Cameraman Samer Abudaqa Until He Died
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 17, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/17/ ... transcript
We hear from Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous, whose recent article for The Intercept documents how Israel bombed two Al Jazeera journalists in mid-December while they were accompanying rescue workers, seriously injuring both. But while the network’s Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh managed to get to an ambulance nearby, his cameraman Samer Abudaqa bled to death from his wounds as Israeli forces prevented medical workers from reaching him for about five hours, despite the desperate entreaties of many foreign journalists to save the life of their colleague. “The world should be outraged about this killing, about all the killings that are happening to Palestinian journalists in Gaza,” says Abdel Kouddous.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif, I wanted to ask you about this latest piece you did for The Intercept that’s headlined “Israel Bombed an Al Jazeera Cameraman — and Blocked Evacuation Efforts as He Bled to Death.” Give us the tick-tock, the chronology on what happened on that horrific day, when he and Wael al-Dahdouh, who is the Gaza bureau chief for Al Jazeera, went to the school that was bombed. Tell us exactly what happened.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Right, Amy. And when we talk about the killing of Palestinian journalists in Gaza, this was an incident on December 15th where much of the world watched as hours ticked by as Samer Abudaqa was wounded and prevented from getting medical care by Israel and eventually died. And so, that timeline of what happened, I think, is extremely important.
But, basically, Wael al-Dahdouh, who is Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza, went with Samer Abudaqa, who’s a 20-year veteran journalist, a cameraman — they went to this school in Khan Younis which had been bombed earlier in the day, and they were accompanied by a team of Civil Defense workers. That team had received — had requested and received approval by the Israeli military through the Red Cross to be in the area. They got there around noon. They spent about two-and-a-half hours in the area. This is according to Wael al-Dahdouh. And as they were wrapping up their coverage, there were these — he said there were hardly anyone in the area. There were drones buzzing overhead. They were just about to leave and go back to the ambulance that had brought them there, when a strike hit them, at about 2:30 p.m.
Wael al-Dahdouh was thrown to the ground. He said when he got up and kind of regained awareness, he realized he was bleeding quite profusely from his arm and that he would bleed to death if he didn’t get medical attention. He looked over and saw the three Civil Defense workers who were accompanying them had been killed instantly. And then, at a small distance away, he saw his colleague, Samer Abudaqa, on the ground. He had been wounded in the lower part of his body. Wael said that he seemed like he was screaming — Wael at that point had lost much of his hearing from the blast — and that Samer couldn’t get up. Wael realized the only chance that both of them had was for him to get to medical attention and get help to bring Samer out, because he couldn’t get up. So Wael somehow stumbled across about 800 meters to the ambulance that was waiting. He begged them to go in and get Samer, but they insisted on evacuating him first to a hospital in Khan Younis and that another ambulance would go retrieve him. There are videos of Wael al-Dahdouh receiving treatment, wincing in pain, calling on people to go get Samer, telling them to coordinate with the Red Cross.
What we understand from Wael and others is that an ambulance did go immediately to try and retrieve Samer from the area, but that they were fired on, or in their area, in their proximity, by Israeli forces. At the same time, Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Ramallah, Walid al-Omari, was making calls to the Red Cross — this is around 3:00, 3:30 p.m. — and asking the Red Cross to liaise with the Israeli military to allow for emergency crews to reach Samer Abudaqa in Khan Younis. So the Israeli military knew, at least by 3:00 or 3:30, that there was a wounded journalist who lay helpless that needed evacuation.
And at the same time, news was spreading of Samer Abudaqa’s plight, and there’s a group called the Foreign Press Association, which is a Jerusalem-based nonprofit representing reporters, mostly foreign reporters from over 30 countries, and there’s a WhatsApp group, which has about 140 of these journalists on it. One of the journalists, a freelance reporter and producer based in Jerusalem named Orly Halpern, posted just after 3 p.m. about the Samer’s plight and told the journalists, or called on them, to call Israeli military spokespeople and to demand that Samer be evacuated. And so, the FPA was getting involved. Senior members of the FPA, the Foreign Press Association, were getting involved, calling Israeli military officials, Israeli military spokespeople, senior ones, repeatedly asking for passage for Samer.
And from what we understand, at The Intercept we obtained screenshots of this WhatsApp group from multiple journalists in the group, and also from speaking with people involved in these efforts, that for hours Israel did not give approval to these ambulances. Finally, after about five hours after Samer was initially wounded, a bulldozer was finally approved to go through to reach Samer. But by then, he had already died. He had bled out. He was found with — he had seemed to have removed his flak jacket and had tried to crawl and had died. And it was incredibly tragic. He had lain there. Al Jazeera had posted a live counter of the hours and minutes since he was wounded on its broadcast, and people were just watching. And he eventually died.
And the next day, Al Jazeera announced it was preparing a legal file to submit to the International Criminal Court over what it called the assassination of Samer Abudaqa. And so did Reporters Without Borders, also included his killing in a filing with the ICC, war crimes against journalists killed in Gaza. So, you know, the world should be outraged about this killing, about all the killings that are happening to Palestinians, Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So, Sharif, in this particular case, there is no doubt that the highest echelons of the Israeli Defense Forces were aware that this journalist was wounded and in need of medical attention.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yes, we have multiple journalists who told — we have screenshots of a WhatsApp group where they’re discussing having spoken to Israeli military spokespeople in those hours and saying, “No approval yet. Ambulances not cleared. Bulldozers not cleared yet.” So, this took hours. And, you know, the Israeli military must have known very early on what the situation is. They’re the ones who had repeatedly bombed the area. They knew there was rubble in the streets. There’s constant — near-constant drone surveillance of Gaza. The Red Cross, we know, was liaising with the Israeli military to try and get approval. And yet they left, or they just didn’t allow — by some accounts, firstly, ambulances were fired on that tried to reach Samer Abudaqa. They returned back — this is the Palestinian Red Crescent and Civil Defense — and they were waiting then for approval. They also asked for Red Cross teams to accompany them to the area as a form of protection. And all of this is happening while Samer Abudaqa is lying helpless. The Israeli military is not giving permission. And he eventually died.
AMY GOODMAN: And then, again, that was Wael al-Dahdouh’s cameraperson and dear colleague, who bleeds to death over five hours. And then, in the last weeks, his son, Hamza al-Dahdouh, also an Al Jazeera journalist, is killed in this Israeli airstrike, along with the AFP stringer Mustafa Thuraya, in an airstrike, a drone strike on a car. Sharif, final comments?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yeah, I think, look, in this country, the journalistic community should be outraged, should be vocal in their outrage, at Israel’s killing of their colleagues in Gaza. And we haven’t seen that.
And let me just end by saying, you know, in 2022, the Pulitzer Board awarded a special citation to journalists of Ukraine for their coverage of the Russian invasion and of the war. And the citation reads, quote, “Despite bombardment, abductions, occupation, and even deaths in their ranks, they have persisted in their effort to provide an accurate picture of a terrible reality,” end-quote. This is the case many times over for the journalists of Gaza, for the Palestinian journalists of Gaza. I doubt they will be receiving any such accolades. And that’s where the problem lies.
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif Abdel Kouddous, independent journalist, wrote this piece for The Intercept, “Israel Bombed an Al Jazeera Cameraman — and Blocked Evacuation Efforts as He Bled to Death.” We’ll link to it at The Intercept at democracynow.org. And Sherif Mansour, Committee to Protect Journalists’ Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, speaking to us from D.C.
***
“They Don’t Show Gaza”: Gideon Levy on How Israel’s Press Is Failing to Cover the War’s True Toll
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 17, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/17/ ... transcript
We speak with acclaimed Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, columnist for Haaretz and a member of its editorial board, about how the Israeli media has covered the war on Gaza, the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and more. Levy says the domestic Israeli media all but ignores the Palestinians being killed, focusing mostly on its own soldiers and the families of hostages. “The Israeli average viewer doesn’t see Gaza at all,” he says. “They are betraying our first mission: to tell the full story.”
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.
From coverage of the war by Palestinian journalists on the ground, we turn to coverage by the Israeli media. What do most Israelis see on TV? How has the Israeli media’s coverage shaped opinions of war? This is a clip from i24NEWS of Israeli military commander Lieutenant Colonel Dotan talking about an alleged Hamas tunnel in an exclusive video shown by the network last week.
BENITA LEVIN: Now the IDF has found tunnels and weapons inside a child’s room inside the Gaza Strip. These visuals were obtained from the IDF, and i24NEWS is now going to be allowed to play that. Let’s take a look.
LT. COL. DOTAN: [translated] During our patrols in the area, we uncovered the entrance to a tunnel under this children’s bedroom, actually under this desk, exactly where the children were supposed to study. We can see very clearly the tunnel, which goes towards the tunnel gallery. We can also see here these RPG missiles, these munitions grouped in the same sector, including military tactical vests and grenades ready for use.
AMY GOODMAN: That was a clip from Israeli media outlet i24NEWS.
For more on Israeli media’s coverage of the war, we go to Tel Aviv, where we’re joined by Gideon Levy, an award-winning Israeli journalist and author, columnist for the newspaper Haaretz, a member of its editorial board, his most recent piece headlined “If It Isn’t a Genocide in Gaza, Then What Is It?”
Gideon, welcome back to Democracy Now!
GIDEON LEVY: Thank you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about what Israelis see on television, where most get their news. We just did this whole piece on the killing of Gazan journalists, Palestinian journalists. We’ve never seen anything like this anywhere in modern history, where you have between 80 and over a hundred Palestinian journalists killed in just a matter of weeks. What do Israelis understand is happening?
GIDEON LEVY: The main question, Amy, is what they don’t see or what they are not being shown, because, as you know, and as your viewers definitely know, Israeli media is quite a free media, commercial-owned, quite liberal, no pressure from the government or secret services or army or things like this. Anything it does, it does voluntarily. And the Israeli media decided, almost wall to wall, maybe except of my newspaper, Haaretz, all the rest — it’s also the TV, also newspapers— they decided that they are part of the Israeli propaganda machinery. They stopped being journalists.
And this, they’re doing two ways. The first one is the most serious one. They don’t show Gaza. The Israeli average viewer doesn’t see Gaza at all. He sees the soldiers. He sees the families of the hostages. He is being told day and night about the Israeli sacrifice. He’s being told day and night how brave are the soldiers. You see it seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and only one thing you don’t see: the suffer of Gaza. And the media decided not to show it, not because anyone pushed the media not to do it. They do it because they know very clear that this is what their viewers don’t want to see, and they want to please them. And by this, they are betraying our first mission: to tell the full story. You know, there are Israelis who wouldn’t care less to see all those terrible images and say, “Hamas is to be blamed. The Arabs are to be blamed. They deserve it. They are barbarian. Everything is fine.” But they have to see what is being done on our behalf. So, that’s the first level.
The second level, which is less important but still must be mentioned, is that Israeli media speaks now only in one voice. There is no room for any critic about the war. There is no room for any question marks. I don’t remember a war in which after so many stages, still the entire media is just a pale echo of the propaganda machinery of the army.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Gideon, your newspaper, Haaretz, is somewhat different from the rest of the press. But how widely read is it within Israel, and who reads Haaretz?
GIDEON LEVY: Haaretz is not a big newspaper in terms of quantity, but it is still quite an influential newspaper, both abroad, as you know, because it’s being published both in English and in Hebrew, and also in Israel still parts of the elite are reading it. I don’t want to say that every Israeli reads Haaretz, but every Israeli knows about Haaretz. And through the social media, it has some kind of influence, but it is obviously very limited.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the levels in Gaza we’re hearing about of starvation, that every Palestinian is hungry right now? The babies being pulled from the rubble — I mean, we’re thousands of miles away from you. Tel Aviv is very close to Gaza. What do they see when it comes to casualties?
GIDEON LEVY: Nothing. They hear the figures, but figures are only figures. It’s only statistics. It doesn’t make you feel. It doesn’t make you understand the scale of the tragedy, the scale of the crimes, I must say. You know, you watch all the international networks, and you see Gaza. You see the children dying on the dirty floors of the hospitals, bleeding to death. You see the uprooted people. You see the destruction. You see the suffer of hundreds of thousands of people, and obviously the starvation. And in Israel, you see only the soldiers, only the families of the hostages, only the scenes where you don’t see Palestinians at all. It seems as if they don’t exist.
Now, Amy, that’s not new, because the Israeli media betrayed the coverage of — betrayed its mission by covering in the same way the occupation throughout so many years. It was always dehumanizing the Palestinians as much as possible. But this time we reach a level that I don’t remember such a level, because you can really watch for hours Israeli TV and have no clue what’s going on in Shifa Hospital or in other hospitals or in uprooted neighborhoods, and where are the people, how do they make their living, do they get some food — nothing of this, nothing which might remind us that the Palestinians are human beings. This is almost a taboo: Don’t mention them as human beings.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Gideon, Prime Minister Netanyahu keeps assuring the international community that Israel does not intend to permanently occupy Gaza. But what is he saying domestically to the Israeli people? He even has two Twitter handles, one that’s an official one and then another that is more geared toward sending out incendiary messages to the population?
GIDEON LEVY: Just this morning he was quoted in a private talk, I think, that the war will continue at least until 2025. And nobody sees the end. Nobody knows the end. There is no endgame. There is no plan what to do the day after. And the Israelis start to believe now that this might last for many years, at least the occupation of Gaza — obviously, without intention. Almost everything that Israel did in the last decades was without intention, but it always came out. It never intended to go for wars and always finds itself in war. It never intended to create an occupation of over 50 years, and it came out like this. No, no, the intention is one thing, and the results are another thing. Israel has no plan to leave Gaza in the coming months or years, which doesn’t mean that Israel will stay there, but I don’t see any alternative right now. What will they do?
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What Happened on October 7? Gideon Levy on Haaretz’s Call to Investigate Kibbutz Killings & More
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 17, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/17/ ... transcript
We continue our conversation with the renowned Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, who says there are growing questions about the IDF’s response to the October 7 Hamas attack that cannot wait until the end of fighting in Gaza. That includes intelligence failures in the lead-up to the attack, as well as reports of troops killing Israeli civilians when they opened fire on homes taken over by Hamas militants. “The fact is that those people were killed and might have been rescued. It must be investigated,” says Levy.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about your paper, Haaretz, reporting that a group of family members of Israelis who were killed in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7th in the Hamas attack on Israel are demanding a probe into how their relatives died. An Israeli brigadier general recently admitted he ordered an Israeli tank commander to fire on a home where Hamas fighters were holding 15 Israeli hostages. Brigadier General Barak Hiram told The New York Times he had ordered the tank commander to, quote, “break in, even at the cost of civilian casualties.” Thirteen of the Israeli hostages died; only two survived. Gideon, you’re a member of the Haaretz editorial board, which recently ran a piece headlined “The IDF Must Investigate the Kibbutz Be’eri Tank Fire Incident — Right Now.” Elaborate on what happened and the investigation your editorial board is calling for now.
GIDEON LEVY: Look, everyone is postponing all the investigation to the day after, and the day after seems to get farer and farer. And we are very concerned that it will never be investigated. But here we have a very concrete case. And families, rightly so, want to know who is responsible for the killing of their beloved ones and how did it happen.
The brigadier general that you just mentioned happened to be a settler. I don’t want to say that it says a lot, but let’s remember that many of our high-rank generals, or more and more of them, are settlers. And settlers have their own ideology. Even when they serve in the army, they have their motivation, which is not always a very secular motivation. It’s not always the motivation of the others.
But in any case, the fact is that those people were killed and might have been rescued. It must be investigated. It’s not very complicated to investigate it. It’s a very concrete and focused event. And we were calling the army to do so. I don’t know. Until now, we didn’t hear from the army. I hope they will do it, because this can have also a lot of consequences in the coming days or weeks or months in Gaza, because this situation might repeat itself. When we will face a house where there are hostages and commanders of Hamas, do we shoot them all dead? I really wonder.
AMY GOODMAN: And you also had a piece on how sexism ultimately killed what are known as the spotters. The Israeli military, the women, who were on the border, who were seeing Hamas gear up, were telling their supervisors it looks like there’s about to be an imminent attack. And some were even told if they’d raise this again, they would be brought up on charges of insubordination. Is that right, Gideon?
GIDEON LEVY: Yeah, we had a big story on this. But, you know, the small stories might overwhelm or overshadow the big story, because the big story, finally, there are two huge question marks. A, what happened on the 7th, and how did it happen? Because all those stories get to one conclusion: that there was no army on this day. There was not — the most sophisticated intelligence in the world, with all the most sophisticated devices, who knows the color of the underwears of each Palestinian, all of a sudden didn’t know anything, after all the money in which was invested there and all the reputation they have. And then came the second question: Where was the army after the attack started? No army whatsoever.
And above all, the question which bothers me more than anything else, and that’s namely, having said what happened on the 7th, as barbaric as it was, whatever it was, there are question marks about certain events on the 7th, but it’s very clear that there was an attack, a very aggressive attack: Does this give us Israelis the right to do anything we want after the 7th forever, without any limits, no legal limits, no moral limits? We can just go and kill and destroy and destruct as much as we wish? That’s the main question right now. The event that you mentioned with those soldiers girls just show how unprepared and unprofessional was the intelligence in the army.
AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, most of those young women died. Last question, your biggest piece, “If It Isn’t a Genocide in Gaza” —
GIDEON LEVY: Only two survived. Only two survived, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Only two. “If It Isn’t a Genocide in Gaza” —
GIDEON LEVY: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — “Then What Is It?” We just have 30 seconds, Gideon.
GIDEON LEVY: Listen, the Israelis don’t seem to care that so many innocent Palestinians were killed. They just care how to label it, if it’s genocide or not. And I say it doesn’t matter what is the legal definition. Twenty-four thousand people, most of them innocent people, 60, 70% of them women and children, 10,000 children among them, this is enough of a fact that nobody can deny, by the way, to ask ourselves: Do we really have the right to do it? What does it tell about us, about our moral standards? And, above all, how long will we go on, and where are we aiming to? Another 25,000 killed people in Gaza will guarantee more security to Israel? And even if yes, do we have the right to do so?
AMY GOODMAN: Gideon Levy, Israeli journalist, author, columnist for the newspaper Haaretz, also a member of the Haaretz editorial board. We’ll link to your piece, “If It Isn’t a Genocide in Gaza, Then What Is It?”
***
“The Logic of Escalation”: From Red Sea to Iran & Beyond, Will Israel’s Gaza Assault Spark Wider War?
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 17, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/17/ ... transcript
Military actions by various actors across the Middle East are compounding fears that Israel’s assault on Gaza is escalating into a full-blown regional war. In recent days, the United States has carried out strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen who have resumed their attacks on container ships in the Red Sea; Iran has struck targets in northern Iraq, Syria and Pakistan; while Hezbollah and Israel have escalated the intensity of fighting across their border. For a look at where all this is headed, we speak with journalist Spencer Ackerman, who says it’s “the most dangerous moment for the Middle East” he has witnessed in over 20 years of covering war and security. “This is now a conflict with battlefronts ranging across the region,” he says. “We shouldn’t think that absent an active act of deescalation that this won’t continue spiraling outward throughout 2024.” Ackerman writes the Forever Wars newsletter and is the foreign policy columnist for The Nation.
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.
From northern Iraq to Lebanon to Pakistan to the Red Sea, an array of strikes and counterstrikes over the last several days are compounding fears that Israel’s assault on Gaza could escalate into a full-blown regional war. In just the past few days, the U.S. has carried out strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have resumed their attacks on container ships in the Red Sea. Iran has struck what it said was as an Israeli spy headquarters in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, as well as targeting anti-Iran militants in Pakistan and Syria. Meanwhile, in Lebanon, Hezbollah and Israel have escalated the intensity of fighting across the border.
For more, we’re joined by award-winning journalist Spencer Ackerman, foreign policy columnist for The Nation magazine. His latest piece, “Israel Is Not Promising to 'Scale Back' Its War.” He also publishes the Forever Wars newsletter on Ghost, where his new piece is headlined “Iran’s Opening Shots and the Logic of Escalation.”
Welcome back, Spencer, to Democracy Now! Talk about this possibility of a widening war, and what you’re most concerned about.
SPENCER ACKERMAN: Amy, thank you for having me.
I think that in my 20-plus years of covering the “war on terror,” this is the most dangerous moment in — for the Middle East that I’ve seen professionally. You talk about there being the possibility of a full-blown regional conflict. We’re at least at half-blown now. Consider what the battlefields are and have been in this conflict: Gaza, obviously the most important one, the most devastating to humanity, where the Palestinians are experiencing what could and probably should be understood as a genocide, but also southern Israel, northern Israel, southern Lebanon, northwestern Syria, Beirut, northeastern Syria, Erbil, Baghdad, southwestern Yemen, the Red Sea, Pakistan, as well. This is now a conflict with battlefronts ranging across the region, each of which facing pressure to escalate as their various combatants’ objectives are not fully achieved. We shouldn’t think that absent an active act of deescalation, that this won’t continue spiraling outward throughout 2024.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Spencer, this whole idea that we hear almost every day some member of the Biden administration say that they’re trying to prevent an escalation of the conflict in the region, when in fact their actions are quite the opposite?
SPENCER ACKERMAN: That’s right, Juan. We heard the Biden administration say most recently that it was deeply concerned about escalation in Lebanon. Well, just in the last 24 hours, the Israeli Air Force has been bombing southern Lebanon, bombing what it says are Hezbollah positions there, but also the United States has taken direct action, not just in the Red Sea, but also on Yemeni soil itself multiple times, three times at least, including most recently yesterday. And, as well, recently it carried out its first drone strike in Baghdad since 2020, which has now strained U.S.-Iraqi relations. So, the United States, while it might say that it’s seeking to contain the conflict, is caught up in the logic of escalation.
And that means we shouldn’t give the Biden administration a pass on this. These aren’t, you know, automatic gravitational forces. These are the accumulations of choices that Biden and his team are making to involve the U.S. more deeply in this spiraling conflict, all of which could be stopped if the United States used its immense influence over Israel to restrain it or stop it from carrying out its collective punishment of Gaza.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We often hear, as well, about the Axis of Resistance, supposedly controlled or financed by Iran, but very little about the Axis of Empire, of the U.K., the United States and Israel in the region. To what degree does this axis have more right to control the affairs of the region than those who are actually from countries there?
SPENCER ACKERMAN: Quite well said, Juan. Without ceding any of Iran’s claims to regional hegemony, the United States and its allies act as if they are the representatives of the natural and just order of the Middle East, and not, in fact, Western impositions upon the aspirations of the citizenry, the people of these countries, to determine their own affairs.
And we are seeing that quite starkly most recently in Yemen, where one of the most war-devastated countries in the Middle East, as a result of not only U.S. strikes against al-Qaeda targets, what the United States says is al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, stemming from something like over the past 15 years, but also a U.S.-backed Saudi and Emirati campaign that lasted seven years before a ceasefire took hold in 2022, that brought not only famine but cholera to this country, that has been engulfed in a foreign-backed, foreign-sponsored and foreign-accelerated civil war, nevertheless, even among people who don’t accept the Houthi movement as the legitimate rulers of Yemen, saw massive demonstrations after the United States and its Western allies started bombing Yemen in retaliation for the Houthi attempt to relieve the siege of Gaza. So you really have the — we really have on full exposure the rejection of U.S. claims to, you know, standing for peace and stability in the region.
AMY GOODMAN: Spencer, your piece last week for The Nation is headlined “Israel Is Not Promising to 'Scale Back' Its War,” which you wrote partly as a corrective to a New York Times article that claimed that’s what Israel is planning. If you could explain this and what it means for — I mean, we just heard Gideon Levy, the Israeli Jewish journalist at Haaretz, talking about this war going on for a year or more.
SPENCER ACKERMAN: That’s right. Amy, when you listen to what the Israeli government says to its own people, like Gideon mentioned, it talks about a war that will — and this is what Benjamin Netanyahu said over the weekend — “will last until victory, and no one, not even The Hague, will stop us,” which is an incredibly and ominous thing to say, and probably ought to be tacked on to South Africa’s genocide lawsuit.
What it says to the Americans, as the Americans are feeling the pressure from its Arab allies in the region, and indeed from President Biden’s own supporters in the United States who want to see this war stopped, is that, in fact, it’s scaling down to lower-intensity operations, or more often it doesn’t say that quite outright. It says it will move away from high-intensity operations into what it says is a so-called phase three of its operations in Gaza.
So, what is phase three? Phase three focuses on southern Gaza. Every day we are getting reports of casualties from Gaza, civilian casualties in the triple digits. Israel already made something like 1.7, 1.8 million people —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.
SPENCER ACKERMAN: — relocate to southern Gaza. So this war is not, in fact, scaling down. It’s moving toward a sustainable path of civilian devastation.
AMY GOODMAN: Spencer Ackerman, foreign policy columnist for The Nation magazine, also publishes the Forever Wars newsletter on Ghost. We’ll link to your pieces at democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, for another edition of Democracy Now!
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Palestinian Artist Samia Halaby Slams Indiana University for Canceling Exhibit over Her Support for Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 18, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/18/ ... transcript
We spend the hour looking at how artists, writers and other cultural workers in the United States and Europe are facing a growing backlash after expressing solidarity for Palestine. We begin with one of these “canceled” cultural workers: renowned Palestinian American artist Samia Halaby, whose first U.S. retrospective was canceled by her graduate alma mater, Indiana University, after she criticized Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. The school’s provost said this week the show would have been a “lightning rod” that carried a “risk of violence.” Halaby expresses her shock and disappointment at the betrayal of “academic freedom” evidenced by the decision. “The administration has lost sight of their responsibility to the community, to the students that are there,” she says, and adds, “This is much larger than I am,” citing the suppression of pro-Palestine student activism around the country and calling it “a kind of attempt at mind control.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Over the past three months, artists, writers and other cultural workers in the United States and Europe have faced a backlash after expressing solidarity for Palestine as Israel has continued its relentless assault on Gaza. Talks and performances have been canceled, artworks deinstalled, exhibits removed, and livelihoods threatened.
Today we speak with two Palestinian American artists. One was canceled by her own alma mater, Indiana University. The other was canceled in Berlin. And we’ll speak with a German American Jewish Holocaust survivor who stood outside the White House for months calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. She was scheduled to speak at a number of schools in her native Hamburg but was told her appearances were canceled.
We begin with Samia Halaby, a renowned Palestinian visual artist, activist, educator and scholar. Samia Halaby’s first U.S. retrospective, which had taken three years to organize, was abruptly canceled by Indiana University’s Eskenazi Museum of Art over her criticism of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which she has described as a genocide.
Before we speak with Samia about what happened, let’s turn to a short documentary about her life and work by Palestinian Jordanian filmmaker Munir Atalla. This is Samia talking about moving with her family to the United States as a teenager from Palestine.
SAMIA HALABY: In 1951, my father and mother had come to the decision that it was safer to bring their family up in the U.S. I did not want to come. I was 14 and close to high school. I couldn’t decide between the sciences. It was my mother who finally said, “You always loved art. Why don’t you study art?”
I gained tenure at Indiana University and decided that really I wanted to be in New York. But it’s hard to just pick up and have no money and come to New York, a city I don’t know anybody or anything in. I moved in '76. I continued trying to get a gallery for years. It was total rejection. In this world, people don't see — if you’re Palestinian, don’t see what you make. They see you. And they don’t like us Palestinians.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: This is another clip of Samia, talking about the process of creating her art and how abstraction can result from a new way of seeing.
SAMIA HALABY: I work on two, three, sometimes four or five paintings at the same time. When I enter and get going, then the paintings begin to permeate my consciousness. The paintings do not arise out of feelings. They arise out of thinking. And I am very scientific in the way I think and plan. But when I do them, I trust my intuitions —
Fulfilling every whim that comes along.
— balancing back and forth between what I intuit is right and what I want to do, and which one wins is hard to tell. When a painting is going badly, I’m feeling badly, but not because my feeling is in the painting. I’m reacting to frustration. But when it’s going well, I’m very happy, because I’ve captured something I’ve wanted to capture.
As I was saying about Palestine, something remains that I almost feel it with my hands I can make it. I put it in a painting, but it’s not a photographic image. It’s what remains visually in memory. It’s something palpable and real. What your iPhone or cellphone is telling you when you take a picture is only a teeny slice of what is in front of it when you take the picture. It’s an image of a fragment of time of reality. But the new abstraction can result from a new way of seeing.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of Samia Halaby: A Video Portrait, a short documentary about the Palestinian American artist’s life and work. Samia Halaby’s paintings are in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Art Institute of Chicago. And Samia joins us today in New York.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! We’ve told a bit of the story, but you are one of the most prestigious Palestinian American artists, in these permanent art collections around the country. You were doing this life retrospective at your alma mater, Indiana University, worked on it for three years, Samia. Can you tell us what happened right before it was to open?
SAMIA HALABY: Thank you, Amy. I’m really pleased to be with you and to tell my story and tell the story of what happened, which is very important also to the community in Bloomington and Indiana.
Just immediately before, after a lot of work preparing, first I heard a little rumble that someone was paying attention to the fact that I’m Palestinian. Other than that, I had expected, being an alumna and a one-time professor who had been awarded tenure, to be somewhat immune, because I knew the atmosphere in the country. And so, the sudden, sudden cancellation came as a surprise.
It was amazing to know that they would go ahead and act in this way, when a catalog that’s one-inch thick and hard cover had been printed and delivered, plans for the opening were being made, the artwork was picked up by the shippers. Everything was done in so beautifully and excellent museum fashion that, suddenly, after the — few days after the pickup of the paintings, I hear a very brief notice, a two-sentence letter, saying the show is canceled and the art will be returned to me. I wrote two letters suggesting, in very friendly terms, that they reverse this decision, but I have not heard a word back from them.
And, you know, Amy, this was a twin retrospective committed to my relationship to the Midwest. The Midwest had been a place where I had felt was my second home. I really enjoyed my education there. I started as I arrived in the U.S. at age 14. I’m 87 now. And I remember the University of Cincinnati with a great deal of affection for the great education we received there. I remember it being an atmosphere that was very open and radical. My teachers were all inspired by the resistant painters of the time, like Ben Shahn. They were in admiration of the industrial union movement. The Great Depression was still in people’s memory. And the professors were all very enlightened and advanced and talked a lot about academic freedom. My feeling is I wished I could bring that batch of attitudes in those professors to modern, to contemporary American education.
Maybe I’m going on too long, Amy, but my feeling, through words, what happened to me, is that the administration has lost sight of their responsibility to the community, to the students who are there. They’re trying to stop students from moving forward with thinking with their creative process politically. And that’s — they’re being more responsible to pronouncements from the government and from threats, perhaps, from parts of the government, but not at all responsible. A division is taking place in their position of having administrative power, but no responsibility to the real community.
I feel the students — the repression of the students right now in the country, who are the most advanced, the new partnership between the young Palestinians and all they’re doing and the young Jews and all that they are doing. They’re so disciplined and determined and clear-thinking. I’m really in admiration for them. And I think this act of suspension, of cancellation, is as much against them as it is against me and the curator of the show. We mustn’t forget about the curator, a curator beginning their career, to whom this was a very important show, Elliot Reichert, who was magnificent in his — as was all the staff at the museum, magnificent in their effort.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So —
SAMIA HALABY: So I’m very — go ahead.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Samia Halaby, we’d like to get your response to the formal explanation that Indiana University, your alma mater, where you received your master’s degree — the formal response that the university gave to why your show was canceled. The university provost, Rahul Shrivastav, spoke at a faculty council meeting and addressed the backlash over the decision to cancel your show. He called your exhibit a, quote, “potential lightning rod” that could incite protests, and said the three months for it to be on view would require long-term security, adding, quote, “[If] I have to make a decision on keeping a project, a program going when there is a risk of violence or a risk of other incidents, I would err on the side of caution.” So, Samia Halaby, your response to that?
SAMIA HALABY: Well, my response to that is, first of all, they never gave me a reason, and they never responded. And they never even talked to me. So I got the impression that they didn’t like my — from a very brief phone call with the director of the museum, that, one way or the other, my general attitude and support of Palestine and criticism of Israel and U.S. partnership, U.S.-Israel attacking Palestine, and especially the massacre, the unbelievable massacre in Gaza, both destruction of people and of culture, that my anger with that and my support of the Palestinians was the cause.
I think this idea that they’re so terrorized or frightened by me being a lightning rod and the show bringing — I think the students, to their majority, were for the show. They would have been delighted to see the show. I think this idea of a lightning rod for trouble is their imagination, their invention. It’s just a propaganda, you know, invention. I don’t see the — you know, museums guard their work always, guard what is there, and they could have put a second guard on the show, if that’s — they’re so frightened. But canceling it, considering all of the grants they received, all the expenses they went through, is just not reflective of this kind of fear. Museums all over are concerned about art. So, yes, that’s my reaction to that.
You know, I would like to say some more about what’s happening in Gaza, because it connects to art. First of all, I do want to say that this is much larger than I am. There’s suppression of students throughout the U.S. There’s suppression of faculty. There’s one faculty member at Indiana University who’s been censored for — censured for a very minor thing, as an excuse for his true open-mindedness and support of young students.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to —
SAMIA HALABY: To me, the young students are —
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to that point, Samia. I’m looking at a piece in The Nation magazine. On December 15th, Indiana University did — suspended professor Abdulkader Sinno, “a tenured faculty member who has taught at IU for almost two decades and who, until his suspension, was the faculty adviser of the PSC. The supposed reason for the suspension: alleged mistakes in the filing of a room reservation form to support a PSC event, a scheduled public lecture by Miko Peled, an Israeli American IDF veteran and peace activist.” I mean, this is amazing. You know, Miko Peled is the son of General Peled, who, well-known in Israel, fought in 1948 and in the Six-Day War. Miko Peled was going to speak. And so, “the alleged mistakes led the administration to demand cancellation of the event two days before it was scheduled.” They went forward anyway. It proceeded without a hitch, until the administration claimed it was an unauthorized event, and the professor suspended. Samia Halaby?
SAMIA HALABY: You know, my feeling is that they indict themselves with their own words. When they suspend someone and they say the reason is he did something — made a minor mistake in filling a form requesting space for the event, it is ridiculous. You don’t suspend a professor for that kind of thing. And then you make — you create a whole range of excuses to defend the real reason. And it’s similar to my case. You know, in his case, they’re accusing him of misfilling a form. In my case, they’re saying they need — they’re worried that my show is a lightning rod to hostile activity against the show or discord among the students. So, it doesn’t make sense to me that they suspend someone who is so highly respected by the students and beloved of the students. It is unforgivable.
Again, it’s an indication that there is a huge gap growing between administrative layers and the government and the students, professors, workers, staff and general population in this country. You see it very clearly. You see huge demonstrations not only in the U.S., but all over the world, and disregard. This whole disregard of governments to what the people are asking for is, in miniature form, taking place at Indiana University. And it is this very thing I’m talking about, this division in the minds of administrators that they no longer owe anything to the students and to the faculty or to an open atmosphere of learning and discourse, as though disagreement, differences of opinion, is a negative thing. It is a kind of attempted mind control. You know, you can only think that way, and then you’re OK, and you can be a student. But if you want to discourse and see other points of view, you’re not allowed. So, it’s very backward. Very backward.
***
Artist Emily Jacir: Rampant Censorship Is Part of the Genocidal Campaign to Erase Palestinians
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 18, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/18/ ... transcript
We speak with award-winning Palestinian American artist and filmmaker Emily Jacir, whose event in Berlin in October was canceled after Israel launched its ongoing assault on Gaza. Jacir decries a pattern of “harassment, baseless smear campaigns, canceling shows, canceling talks” conducted against Palestinian artists in Germany and around the world. “It’s very much part of a coordinated movement,” she says, connecting global censorship of diasporic Palestinian voices with the violent “targeted destruction of culture in Gaza,” which she calls a “part of genocide.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Samia Halaby, we want to bring in another Palestinian American artist into this discussion, the artist and filmmaker Emily Jacir. She was scheduled to speak at any event in Berlin, Germany, in October, but her appearance was canceled. She’s the recipient of prestigious awards, including a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, a Prince Claus Award from the Prince Claus Fund in The Hague, the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum, and most recently she won an American Academy of Arts and Letters prize and received an honorary doctorate from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland. She is the founding director of Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research in Bethlehem, where she was born.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Emily. It’s very good to have you with us. Can you talk about what’s happened to you, actually, not here in the United States, but in Berlin, Germany?
EMILY JACIR: Thank you, Amy, for having me on your show. It’s really a pleasure to be here. I also just would like to begin by expressing my solidarity for Samia and the loss of her show, but also for the curator, Elliot, because he was in Bethlehem last summer and spoke to me at length about this exhibition, so I was quite excited about it.
I was slated to speak in Berlin as part of a workshop at Potsdam University. And when they canceled the talk, they wrote to me and said they were going to postpone it to a more peaceful time — or, to a more peaceful point in time, which, now listening to Samia speaking about the idea of being a lightning rod, this really resonated with me. And this is one of the methodologies that is being used to actually stop us from being able to speak publicly and share our words and share our work. This is another way of doing it, is by saying, “Oh, we’ll just do this in another peaceful time.” But this is the time. This is the time when we should be speaking and having discourse, across the board, around the world. So I don’t buy that that was the real reason.
Again, we have to also take the curator into consideration and try to imagine what kind of pressure, particularly being in Germany, they must have been under. The situation in Germany, as we all know, is one of the most extreme cases of silencing Palestinians. But it’s part of a larger war effort targeting Palestinian voices and intellectuals, using various methodologies, including harassment, baseless smear campaigns, canceling shows, canceling talks. So, it’s very much part of a coordinated movement.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Emily Jacir, could you talk about some of the — there have been numerous incidents in Germany where people have been canceled, for one reason or another having to do with Gaza. If you could just go through some of those people, in particular, the Palestinian artists and writers?
EMILY JACIR: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the first incidents was Adania Shibli, who was slated to receive an award in Germany. That was within the first week of October, if I remember correctly. The list is quite extensive. My sister’s film, Annemarie Jacir, was canceled within weeks also, I think. Her film was canceled. It’s a film about a wedding, and it was deemed too controversial to show on German television. Candice Breitz, as we all know, is another person. There are so many. The list is endless.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, we want to go now to a writer, a highly acclaimed writer and author, the award-winning Masha Gessen, who was also canceled, or her award. She was to receive the Hannah Arendt Award in Bremen. We spoke to her in December, shortly after the publication of their New Yorker piece headlined “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: How the politics of memory in Europe obscures what we see in Israel and Gaza today.”
In the essay, Gessen wrote, quote, “For the last seventeen years, Gaza has been a hyperdensely populated, impoverished, walled-in compound where only a small fraction of the population had the right to leave for even a short amount of time — in other words, a ghetto. Not like the Jewish ghetto in Venice or an inner-city ghetto in America but like a Jewish ghetto in an Eastern European country occupied by Nazi Germany,” they wrote.
Gessen went on to explain why the term “ghetto” is not commonly used to describe Gaza. Gessen said, quote, “Presumably, the more fitting term 'ghetto' would have drawn fire for comparing the predicament of besieged Gazans to that of ghettoized Jews. It also would have given us the language to describe what is happening in Gaza now. The ghetto is being liquidated,” Gessen wrote.
They had been scheduled to receive the prestigious Hannah Arendt Prize in Germany, but the ceremony had to be postponed after one of the award’s sponsors, the left-leaning Heinrich Böll Foundation, withdrew its support.
Gessen discussed the New Yorker piece and the controversy that followed on Democracy Now! on the very day they had been originally scheduled to receive the award in Bremen.
MASHA GESSEN: A large part of the article is devoted to, in fact, memory politics in Germany and the vast anti-antisemitism machine, which largely targets people who are critical of Israel and, in fact, are often Jewish. This happens to be a description that fits me, as well. I am Jewish. I come from a family that includes Holocaust survivors. I grew up in the Soviet Union very much in the shadow of the Holocaust. That’s where the phrase in the headline came from, is from the passage in the article itself. And I am critical of Israel.
Now, the part that really offended the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the city of Bremen — and, I would imagine, some German public — is the part that you read out loud, which is where I make the comparison between the besieged Gaza, so Gaza before October 7th, and a Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe. I made that comparison intentionally. It was not what they call here a provocation. It was very much the point of the piece, because I think that the way that memory politics function now in Europe and in the United States, but particularly in Germany, is that their cornerstone is that you can’t compare the Holocaust to anything. It is a singular event that stands outside of history.
My argument is that in order to learn from history, we have to compare. Like, that actually has to be a constant exercise. We are not better people or smarter people or more educated people than the people who lived 90 years ago. The only thing that makes us different from those people is that in their imagination the Holocaust didn’t yet exist and in ours it does. We know that it’s possible. And the way to prevent it is to be vigilant, in the way that Hannah Arendt, in fact, and other Jewish thinkers who survived the Holocaust were vigilant and were — there was an entire conversation, especially in the first two decades after World War II, in which they really talked about how to recognize the signs of sliding into the darkness.
And I think that we need to — oh, and one other thing that I want to say is that our entire framework of international humanitarian law is essentially based — it all comes out of the Holocaust, as does the concept of genocide. And I argue that that framework is based on the assumption that you’re always looking at war, at conflict, at violence through the prism of the Holocaust. You always have to be asking the question of whether crimes against humanity, the definitions of which came out of the Holocaust, are occurring. And Israel has waged an incredibly successful campaign at setting — not only setting the Holocaust outside of history, but setting itself aside from the optics of international humanitarian law, in part by weaponizing the politics of memory and the politics of the Holocaust.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Masha Gessen. Masha Gessen was speaking to us from Bremen, Germany. The award ceremony went from an auditorium of hundreds — they ultimately got the award in someone’s backyard.
Meanwhile, more than 500 global artists, filmmakers and writers and cultural workers have announced a push against Germany’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza, calling on artists to step back from collaborating with German state-funded associations. The campaign is backed by the French author, Nobel Prize for Literature winner Annie Ernaux and the Palestinian poet and activist Mohammed el-Kurd. It alleges Germany has adopted, quote, “McCarthyist policies that suppress freedom of expression, specifically expressions of solidarity with Palestine,” unquote.
We’re speaking with Emily Jacir, whose speech was just canceled in Berlin, Germany. And as we wrap up with you, Emily, I wanted to know if you could comment on what’s happening in your birthplace, in Bethlehem. The last time we went to Bethlehem, we were interviewing two pastors there, one of them who set up Christ in the rubble, a crèche scene that showed the baby Jesus in rubble, signifying Gaza. If you can talk about that and the importance of your art, as you continue?
EMILY JACIR: Yeah, I will talk about that, but just to relate back to what everyone else was talking about and how you started, I think it’s really important to consider the way this attempt at creating a culture of fear amongst the arts community globally and internationally is happening through these baseless smear campaigns and defamation, threatening people’s jobs. And I mention this just because, you know, one of the things that happened to me was that there was a letter-writing campaign in which every university I’ve ever taught at internationally, anyone that’s ever given me an award received literally a five-page PDF claiming that I was an ISIS terrorist that supports the rape of women and the killing of babies. People who signed that Artforum letter, and many, many, many of whom are Jewish and Israeli allies that I have worked with for 25 years, also received that letter. In my case, because people know me — they’ve worked with me for 25 years — the letters come off as just absolutely absurd and ridiculous. But if that is happening to me, it begs the question of what is happening to younger artists, people who don’t — people in museums don’t know receiving letters like that. And it’s very targeted and very systematic, and it’s something to consider also in relationship with the targeted destruction of culture in Gaza, art centers being bombed. Why would an art center be bombed? Because part of genocide is precisely silencing artists and silencing a culture’s cultural production. And I feel that that was very important to say that.
In Bethlehem, the situation is quite difficult — nothing compared to Gaza, of course. But we are witnessing incursions every night. It’s been — you know, Bethlehem is a town that very, very much relies on visitors and tourists for its economy, so that, economically, it’s been a disaster. As an art center, our art center in Bethlehem promotes dance and music and art practices and making and residencies of local artists and international artists. We’re doing our very best to both deal with the situation at hand but also provide a kind of way of working with the children now who live in our neighborhood who are trying to handle the situation, both on the ground in Bethlehem but also witnessing what’s happening to Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Emily Jacir, we want to thank you for being with us, acclaimed artist and filmmaker, born in Bethlehem, goes back and forth between Bethlehem and New York, was scheduled to speak in Berlin, Germany, her talk canceled. And Samia Halaby, renowned Palestinian visual artist, activist, educator and scholar, whose first U.S. retrospective was abruptly canceled by Indiana University’s Eskenazi Museum of Art over her support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
**
Holocaust Survivor Marione Ingram Decries Climate of Censorship After Her Hamburg Talks Are Canceled
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 18, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2024/1/18
We are joined by 88-year-old Jewish German American Marione Ingram, who describes how her scheduled speaking tour in Hamburg — the city she fled in the Holocaust — was “postponed” this month amid a wider backlash against those speaking out against Israel’s assault on Gaza. Ingram has been protesting for months outside the White House calling for a ceasefire, and characterizes U.S. and German pro-Israel policy as “disturbing” and “frightening.” As a survivor of the Holocaust, Ingram says, “My childhood was spent in the first 10 years much the same way as the children of Gaza. I know exactly what they’re going through. I know exactly how they’re feeling.” She argues “it should be an absolute standstill of all governments that you are told over 10,000 children are being murdered. There is no excuse for that.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Marione Ingram. She’s an 88-year-old German American Holocaust survivor who’s been protesting for months outside the White House calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. She was scheduled to speak this month at eight different schools in her native Hamburg, Germany. She was planning to address students receiving awards recognizing their commitment to social justice activism. Then, in December, she was told by an event organizer that her appearances were canceled. The trip was eventually postponed until May.
AMY GOODMAN: Marione Ingram is author of The Hands of War: A Tale of Endurance and Hope from a Survivor of the Holocaust and also the book The Hands of Peace: A Holocaust Survivor’s Fight for Civil Rights in the American South. She’s joining us from Washington, D.C.
Marione, I’m sorry you had to leave the studio because there was an alarm in the building and everyone had to evacuate, but you’re back now. And you have heard the previous guests, two Palestinian American esteemed artists, talking about having been canceled, like you, Samia Halaby by Indiana University, and Emily Jacir was about to give a talk in Berlin. Talk about the reason you were given for going back to Hamburg, Germany, where you’ve gone a number of times to speak to young people, but the reason why your talks were canceled this month.
MARIONE INGRAM: Good morning, Amy. Yes, a bit of excitement, so I missed — I heard Samia’s explanation of her cancellation — I’m really sorry about that — and missed the other, because we were evacuated.
The reasons for my cancellation have been extremely vague, given a climate in Germany right now of a lot of antisemitic events, apparently. And the only concrete explanation I got from someone was that I, as a Holocaust survivor, would be used by the AfD, which is the Alternative for Deutschland, the Alternative for Germany, which is a neo-Nazi and a primarily antisemitic group. But I was told that they would use my picture and my protest sign in a propaganda — I can’t even figure out what kind of propaganda that would be used for, since they are basically Nazis and would be a destruction of —
AMY GOODMAN: The sign you’re talking about is, standing outside the White House, “Survivor says peace not war”?
MARIONE INGRAM: Yes, yes. But on the flip side, it says “Stop genocide in Gaza.” And that has upset the powers that be, politicians who decide what can be said and what cannot be said.
I have been speaking to students for years, and I was also told by several teachers that right now my presence, talking to students, is of the utmost importance, because the schools in Hamburg are so diverse and there are many students who come from countries where there is war, oppression, poverty, and students in really terrible positions of trying to manage what is going on, conflict with each other. And I was told that my presence is so important because I have a rapport with students, and they were looking forward to expressing their thoughts, because they know that in talking to me and with me that they can say everything that is on their minds without being criticized or ostracized.
I find it extremely — I understand Germany’s sensitivity because of their gruesome history. But Germany has also been the only country, maybe other than Rwanda, that has acknowledged its horrific history, and it has taught this history as a “never again” thing. We must face our history so we can learn from it. So it is surprising to me that Germany has chosen to silence me.
But I think the worst part of it is that they are silencing young people who are experiencing — especially in Germany, they are close to the war in Ukraine. They are troubled by what is going on by the war in the Mideast and the horrific slaughter of innocent people. It should be an absolute standstill of all governments when you are told that over 10,000 children are being murdered. There is no excuse for that.
And then to turn around — America and Germany’s support of Israel’s politics is extremely disturbing and, to me, frightening, because any time any government decides to silence the voices of people who oppose government policies, whatever they may be, this reminds me so much of my childhood. My childhood was spent in the first 10 years much the same way as the children of Gaza. I know exactly what they are going through. I know exactly what they are thinking. And this, apparently, has upset the Ministry of Culture, because I have compared the onset —
AMY GOODMAN: We have less than a minute to go.
MARIONE INGRAM: The silencing of the last survivor of all three major events in Hamburg — the firestorm, the worst bombing in the European war, and the Holocaust, where I lost almost all of my family — and the silencing of voices like all of our voices when they are most needed is indicative of something more frightening, because I believe when governments decide to silence voices in opposition to the stance that they are taking, then we have to really question very deeply why are they doing it and for what reason.
AMY GOODMAN: Marione Ingram, we’re going to have to leave it there, but we thank you so much for being with us, 88-year-old Jewish German Holocaust survivor, has been protesting, calling for Biden to support a Gaza ceasefire.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 18, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/18/ ... transcript
We spend the hour looking at how artists, writers and other cultural workers in the United States and Europe are facing a growing backlash after expressing solidarity for Palestine. We begin with one of these “canceled” cultural workers: renowned Palestinian American artist Samia Halaby, whose first U.S. retrospective was canceled by her graduate alma mater, Indiana University, after she criticized Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. The school’s provost said this week the show would have been a “lightning rod” that carried a “risk of violence.” Halaby expresses her shock and disappointment at the betrayal of “academic freedom” evidenced by the decision. “The administration has lost sight of their responsibility to the community, to the students that are there,” she says, and adds, “This is much larger than I am,” citing the suppression of pro-Palestine student activism around the country and calling it “a kind of attempt at mind control.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Over the past three months, artists, writers and other cultural workers in the United States and Europe have faced a backlash after expressing solidarity for Palestine as Israel has continued its relentless assault on Gaza. Talks and performances have been canceled, artworks deinstalled, exhibits removed, and livelihoods threatened.
Today we speak with two Palestinian American artists. One was canceled by her own alma mater, Indiana University. The other was canceled in Berlin. And we’ll speak with a German American Jewish Holocaust survivor who stood outside the White House for months calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. She was scheduled to speak at a number of schools in her native Hamburg but was told her appearances were canceled.
We begin with Samia Halaby, a renowned Palestinian visual artist, activist, educator and scholar. Samia Halaby’s first U.S. retrospective, which had taken three years to organize, was abruptly canceled by Indiana University’s Eskenazi Museum of Art over her criticism of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which she has described as a genocide.
Before we speak with Samia about what happened, let’s turn to a short documentary about her life and work by Palestinian Jordanian filmmaker Munir Atalla. This is Samia talking about moving with her family to the United States as a teenager from Palestine.
SAMIA HALABY: In 1951, my father and mother had come to the decision that it was safer to bring their family up in the U.S. I did not want to come. I was 14 and close to high school. I couldn’t decide between the sciences. It was my mother who finally said, “You always loved art. Why don’t you study art?”
I gained tenure at Indiana University and decided that really I wanted to be in New York. But it’s hard to just pick up and have no money and come to New York, a city I don’t know anybody or anything in. I moved in '76. I continued trying to get a gallery for years. It was total rejection. In this world, people don't see — if you’re Palestinian, don’t see what you make. They see you. And they don’t like us Palestinians.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: This is another clip of Samia, talking about the process of creating her art and how abstraction can result from a new way of seeing.
SAMIA HALABY: I work on two, three, sometimes four or five paintings at the same time. When I enter and get going, then the paintings begin to permeate my consciousness. The paintings do not arise out of feelings. They arise out of thinking. And I am very scientific in the way I think and plan. But when I do them, I trust my intuitions —
Fulfilling every whim that comes along.
— balancing back and forth between what I intuit is right and what I want to do, and which one wins is hard to tell. When a painting is going badly, I’m feeling badly, but not because my feeling is in the painting. I’m reacting to frustration. But when it’s going well, I’m very happy, because I’ve captured something I’ve wanted to capture.
As I was saying about Palestine, something remains that I almost feel it with my hands I can make it. I put it in a painting, but it’s not a photographic image. It’s what remains visually in memory. It’s something palpable and real. What your iPhone or cellphone is telling you when you take a picture is only a teeny slice of what is in front of it when you take the picture. It’s an image of a fragment of time of reality. But the new abstraction can result from a new way of seeing.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of Samia Halaby: A Video Portrait, a short documentary about the Palestinian American artist’s life and work. Samia Halaby’s paintings are in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Art Institute of Chicago. And Samia joins us today in New York.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! We’ve told a bit of the story, but you are one of the most prestigious Palestinian American artists, in these permanent art collections around the country. You were doing this life retrospective at your alma mater, Indiana University, worked on it for three years, Samia. Can you tell us what happened right before it was to open?
SAMIA HALABY: Thank you, Amy. I’m really pleased to be with you and to tell my story and tell the story of what happened, which is very important also to the community in Bloomington and Indiana.
Just immediately before, after a lot of work preparing, first I heard a little rumble that someone was paying attention to the fact that I’m Palestinian. Other than that, I had expected, being an alumna and a one-time professor who had been awarded tenure, to be somewhat immune, because I knew the atmosphere in the country. And so, the sudden, sudden cancellation came as a surprise.
It was amazing to know that they would go ahead and act in this way, when a catalog that’s one-inch thick and hard cover had been printed and delivered, plans for the opening were being made, the artwork was picked up by the shippers. Everything was done in so beautifully and excellent museum fashion that, suddenly, after the — few days after the pickup of the paintings, I hear a very brief notice, a two-sentence letter, saying the show is canceled and the art will be returned to me. I wrote two letters suggesting, in very friendly terms, that they reverse this decision, but I have not heard a word back from them.
And, you know, Amy, this was a twin retrospective committed to my relationship to the Midwest. The Midwest had been a place where I had felt was my second home. I really enjoyed my education there. I started as I arrived in the U.S. at age 14. I’m 87 now. And I remember the University of Cincinnati with a great deal of affection for the great education we received there. I remember it being an atmosphere that was very open and radical. My teachers were all inspired by the resistant painters of the time, like Ben Shahn. They were in admiration of the industrial union movement. The Great Depression was still in people’s memory. And the professors were all very enlightened and advanced and talked a lot about academic freedom. My feeling is I wished I could bring that batch of attitudes in those professors to modern, to contemporary American education.
Maybe I’m going on too long, Amy, but my feeling, through words, what happened to me, is that the administration has lost sight of their responsibility to the community, to the students who are there. They’re trying to stop students from moving forward with thinking with their creative process politically. And that’s — they’re being more responsible to pronouncements from the government and from threats, perhaps, from parts of the government, but not at all responsible. A division is taking place in their position of having administrative power, but no responsibility to the real community.
I feel the students — the repression of the students right now in the country, who are the most advanced, the new partnership between the young Palestinians and all they’re doing and the young Jews and all that they are doing. They’re so disciplined and determined and clear-thinking. I’m really in admiration for them. And I think this act of suspension, of cancellation, is as much against them as it is against me and the curator of the show. We mustn’t forget about the curator, a curator beginning their career, to whom this was a very important show, Elliot Reichert, who was magnificent in his — as was all the staff at the museum, magnificent in their effort.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So —
SAMIA HALABY: So I’m very — go ahead.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Samia Halaby, we’d like to get your response to the formal explanation that Indiana University, your alma mater, where you received your master’s degree — the formal response that the university gave to why your show was canceled. The university provost, Rahul Shrivastav, spoke at a faculty council meeting and addressed the backlash over the decision to cancel your show. He called your exhibit a, quote, “potential lightning rod” that could incite protests, and said the three months for it to be on view would require long-term security, adding, quote, “[If] I have to make a decision on keeping a project, a program going when there is a risk of violence or a risk of other incidents, I would err on the side of caution.” So, Samia Halaby, your response to that?
SAMIA HALABY: Well, my response to that is, first of all, they never gave me a reason, and they never responded. And they never even talked to me. So I got the impression that they didn’t like my — from a very brief phone call with the director of the museum, that, one way or the other, my general attitude and support of Palestine and criticism of Israel and U.S. partnership, U.S.-Israel attacking Palestine, and especially the massacre, the unbelievable massacre in Gaza, both destruction of people and of culture, that my anger with that and my support of the Palestinians was the cause.
I think this idea that they’re so terrorized or frightened by me being a lightning rod and the show bringing — I think the students, to their majority, were for the show. They would have been delighted to see the show. I think this idea of a lightning rod for trouble is their imagination, their invention. It’s just a propaganda, you know, invention. I don’t see the — you know, museums guard their work always, guard what is there, and they could have put a second guard on the show, if that’s — they’re so frightened. But canceling it, considering all of the grants they received, all the expenses they went through, is just not reflective of this kind of fear. Museums all over are concerned about art. So, yes, that’s my reaction to that.
You know, I would like to say some more about what’s happening in Gaza, because it connects to art. First of all, I do want to say that this is much larger than I am. There’s suppression of students throughout the U.S. There’s suppression of faculty. There’s one faculty member at Indiana University who’s been censored for — censured for a very minor thing, as an excuse for his true open-mindedness and support of young students.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to —
SAMIA HALABY: To me, the young students are —
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to that point, Samia. I’m looking at a piece in The Nation magazine. On December 15th, Indiana University did — suspended professor Abdulkader Sinno, “a tenured faculty member who has taught at IU for almost two decades and who, until his suspension, was the faculty adviser of the PSC. The supposed reason for the suspension: alleged mistakes in the filing of a room reservation form to support a PSC event, a scheduled public lecture by Miko Peled, an Israeli American IDF veteran and peace activist.” I mean, this is amazing. You know, Miko Peled is the son of General Peled, who, well-known in Israel, fought in 1948 and in the Six-Day War. Miko Peled was going to speak. And so, “the alleged mistakes led the administration to demand cancellation of the event two days before it was scheduled.” They went forward anyway. It proceeded without a hitch, until the administration claimed it was an unauthorized event, and the professor suspended. Samia Halaby?
SAMIA HALABY: You know, my feeling is that they indict themselves with their own words. When they suspend someone and they say the reason is he did something — made a minor mistake in filling a form requesting space for the event, it is ridiculous. You don’t suspend a professor for that kind of thing. And then you make — you create a whole range of excuses to defend the real reason. And it’s similar to my case. You know, in his case, they’re accusing him of misfilling a form. In my case, they’re saying they need — they’re worried that my show is a lightning rod to hostile activity against the show or discord among the students. So, it doesn’t make sense to me that they suspend someone who is so highly respected by the students and beloved of the students. It is unforgivable.
Again, it’s an indication that there is a huge gap growing between administrative layers and the government and the students, professors, workers, staff and general population in this country. You see it very clearly. You see huge demonstrations not only in the U.S., but all over the world, and disregard. This whole disregard of governments to what the people are asking for is, in miniature form, taking place at Indiana University. And it is this very thing I’m talking about, this division in the minds of administrators that they no longer owe anything to the students and to the faculty or to an open atmosphere of learning and discourse, as though disagreement, differences of opinion, is a negative thing. It is a kind of attempted mind control. You know, you can only think that way, and then you’re OK, and you can be a student. But if you want to discourse and see other points of view, you’re not allowed. So, it’s very backward. Very backward.
***
Artist Emily Jacir: Rampant Censorship Is Part of the Genocidal Campaign to Erase Palestinians
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 18, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/18/ ... transcript
We speak with award-winning Palestinian American artist and filmmaker Emily Jacir, whose event in Berlin in October was canceled after Israel launched its ongoing assault on Gaza. Jacir decries a pattern of “harassment, baseless smear campaigns, canceling shows, canceling talks” conducted against Palestinian artists in Germany and around the world. “It’s very much part of a coordinated movement,” she says, connecting global censorship of diasporic Palestinian voices with the violent “targeted destruction of culture in Gaza,” which she calls a “part of genocide.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Samia Halaby, we want to bring in another Palestinian American artist into this discussion, the artist and filmmaker Emily Jacir. She was scheduled to speak at any event in Berlin, Germany, in October, but her appearance was canceled. She’s the recipient of prestigious awards, including a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, a Prince Claus Award from the Prince Claus Fund in The Hague, the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum, and most recently she won an American Academy of Arts and Letters prize and received an honorary doctorate from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland. She is the founding director of Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research in Bethlehem, where she was born.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Emily. It’s very good to have you with us. Can you talk about what’s happened to you, actually, not here in the United States, but in Berlin, Germany?
EMILY JACIR: Thank you, Amy, for having me on your show. It’s really a pleasure to be here. I also just would like to begin by expressing my solidarity for Samia and the loss of her show, but also for the curator, Elliot, because he was in Bethlehem last summer and spoke to me at length about this exhibition, so I was quite excited about it.
I was slated to speak in Berlin as part of a workshop at Potsdam University. And when they canceled the talk, they wrote to me and said they were going to postpone it to a more peaceful time — or, to a more peaceful point in time, which, now listening to Samia speaking about the idea of being a lightning rod, this really resonated with me. And this is one of the methodologies that is being used to actually stop us from being able to speak publicly and share our words and share our work. This is another way of doing it, is by saying, “Oh, we’ll just do this in another peaceful time.” But this is the time. This is the time when we should be speaking and having discourse, across the board, around the world. So I don’t buy that that was the real reason.
Again, we have to also take the curator into consideration and try to imagine what kind of pressure, particularly being in Germany, they must have been under. The situation in Germany, as we all know, is one of the most extreme cases of silencing Palestinians. But it’s part of a larger war effort targeting Palestinian voices and intellectuals, using various methodologies, including harassment, baseless smear campaigns, canceling shows, canceling talks. So, it’s very much part of a coordinated movement.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Emily Jacir, could you talk about some of the — there have been numerous incidents in Germany where people have been canceled, for one reason or another having to do with Gaza. If you could just go through some of those people, in particular, the Palestinian artists and writers?
EMILY JACIR: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the first incidents was Adania Shibli, who was slated to receive an award in Germany. That was within the first week of October, if I remember correctly. The list is quite extensive. My sister’s film, Annemarie Jacir, was canceled within weeks also, I think. Her film was canceled. It’s a film about a wedding, and it was deemed too controversial to show on German television. Candice Breitz, as we all know, is another person. There are so many. The list is endless.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, we want to go now to a writer, a highly acclaimed writer and author, the award-winning Masha Gessen, who was also canceled, or her award. She was to receive the Hannah Arendt Award in Bremen. We spoke to her in December, shortly after the publication of their New Yorker piece headlined “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: How the politics of memory in Europe obscures what we see in Israel and Gaza today.”
In the essay, Gessen wrote, quote, “For the last seventeen years, Gaza has been a hyperdensely populated, impoverished, walled-in compound where only a small fraction of the population had the right to leave for even a short amount of time — in other words, a ghetto. Not like the Jewish ghetto in Venice or an inner-city ghetto in America but like a Jewish ghetto in an Eastern European country occupied by Nazi Germany,” they wrote.
Gessen went on to explain why the term “ghetto” is not commonly used to describe Gaza. Gessen said, quote, “Presumably, the more fitting term 'ghetto' would have drawn fire for comparing the predicament of besieged Gazans to that of ghettoized Jews. It also would have given us the language to describe what is happening in Gaza now. The ghetto is being liquidated,” Gessen wrote.
They had been scheduled to receive the prestigious Hannah Arendt Prize in Germany, but the ceremony had to be postponed after one of the award’s sponsors, the left-leaning Heinrich Böll Foundation, withdrew its support.
Gessen discussed the New Yorker piece and the controversy that followed on Democracy Now! on the very day they had been originally scheduled to receive the award in Bremen.
MASHA GESSEN: A large part of the article is devoted to, in fact, memory politics in Germany and the vast anti-antisemitism machine, which largely targets people who are critical of Israel and, in fact, are often Jewish. This happens to be a description that fits me, as well. I am Jewish. I come from a family that includes Holocaust survivors. I grew up in the Soviet Union very much in the shadow of the Holocaust. That’s where the phrase in the headline came from, is from the passage in the article itself. And I am critical of Israel.
Now, the part that really offended the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the city of Bremen — and, I would imagine, some German public — is the part that you read out loud, which is where I make the comparison between the besieged Gaza, so Gaza before October 7th, and a Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe. I made that comparison intentionally. It was not what they call here a provocation. It was very much the point of the piece, because I think that the way that memory politics function now in Europe and in the United States, but particularly in Germany, is that their cornerstone is that you can’t compare the Holocaust to anything. It is a singular event that stands outside of history.
My argument is that in order to learn from history, we have to compare. Like, that actually has to be a constant exercise. We are not better people or smarter people or more educated people than the people who lived 90 years ago. The only thing that makes us different from those people is that in their imagination the Holocaust didn’t yet exist and in ours it does. We know that it’s possible. And the way to prevent it is to be vigilant, in the way that Hannah Arendt, in fact, and other Jewish thinkers who survived the Holocaust were vigilant and were — there was an entire conversation, especially in the first two decades after World War II, in which they really talked about how to recognize the signs of sliding into the darkness.
And I think that we need to — oh, and one other thing that I want to say is that our entire framework of international humanitarian law is essentially based — it all comes out of the Holocaust, as does the concept of genocide. And I argue that that framework is based on the assumption that you’re always looking at war, at conflict, at violence through the prism of the Holocaust. You always have to be asking the question of whether crimes against humanity, the definitions of which came out of the Holocaust, are occurring. And Israel has waged an incredibly successful campaign at setting — not only setting the Holocaust outside of history, but setting itself aside from the optics of international humanitarian law, in part by weaponizing the politics of memory and the politics of the Holocaust.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Masha Gessen. Masha Gessen was speaking to us from Bremen, Germany. The award ceremony went from an auditorium of hundreds — they ultimately got the award in someone’s backyard.
Meanwhile, more than 500 global artists, filmmakers and writers and cultural workers have announced a push against Germany’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza, calling on artists to step back from collaborating with German state-funded associations. The campaign is backed by the French author, Nobel Prize for Literature winner Annie Ernaux and the Palestinian poet and activist Mohammed el-Kurd. It alleges Germany has adopted, quote, “McCarthyist policies that suppress freedom of expression, specifically expressions of solidarity with Palestine,” unquote.
We’re speaking with Emily Jacir, whose speech was just canceled in Berlin, Germany. And as we wrap up with you, Emily, I wanted to know if you could comment on what’s happening in your birthplace, in Bethlehem. The last time we went to Bethlehem, we were interviewing two pastors there, one of them who set up Christ in the rubble, a crèche scene that showed the baby Jesus in rubble, signifying Gaza. If you can talk about that and the importance of your art, as you continue?
EMILY JACIR: Yeah, I will talk about that, but just to relate back to what everyone else was talking about and how you started, I think it’s really important to consider the way this attempt at creating a culture of fear amongst the arts community globally and internationally is happening through these baseless smear campaigns and defamation, threatening people’s jobs. And I mention this just because, you know, one of the things that happened to me was that there was a letter-writing campaign in which every university I’ve ever taught at internationally, anyone that’s ever given me an award received literally a five-page PDF claiming that I was an ISIS terrorist that supports the rape of women and the killing of babies. People who signed that Artforum letter, and many, many, many of whom are Jewish and Israeli allies that I have worked with for 25 years, also received that letter. In my case, because people know me — they’ve worked with me for 25 years — the letters come off as just absolutely absurd and ridiculous. But if that is happening to me, it begs the question of what is happening to younger artists, people who don’t — people in museums don’t know receiving letters like that. And it’s very targeted and very systematic, and it’s something to consider also in relationship with the targeted destruction of culture in Gaza, art centers being bombed. Why would an art center be bombed? Because part of genocide is precisely silencing artists and silencing a culture’s cultural production. And I feel that that was very important to say that.
In Bethlehem, the situation is quite difficult — nothing compared to Gaza, of course. But we are witnessing incursions every night. It’s been — you know, Bethlehem is a town that very, very much relies on visitors and tourists for its economy, so that, economically, it’s been a disaster. As an art center, our art center in Bethlehem promotes dance and music and art practices and making and residencies of local artists and international artists. We’re doing our very best to both deal with the situation at hand but also provide a kind of way of working with the children now who live in our neighborhood who are trying to handle the situation, both on the ground in Bethlehem but also witnessing what’s happening to Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Emily Jacir, we want to thank you for being with us, acclaimed artist and filmmaker, born in Bethlehem, goes back and forth between Bethlehem and New York, was scheduled to speak in Berlin, Germany, her talk canceled. And Samia Halaby, renowned Palestinian visual artist, activist, educator and scholar, whose first U.S. retrospective was abruptly canceled by Indiana University’s Eskenazi Museum of Art over her support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
**
Holocaust Survivor Marione Ingram Decries Climate of Censorship After Her Hamburg Talks Are Canceled
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 18, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2024/1/18
We are joined by 88-year-old Jewish German American Marione Ingram, who describes how her scheduled speaking tour in Hamburg — the city she fled in the Holocaust — was “postponed” this month amid a wider backlash against those speaking out against Israel’s assault on Gaza. Ingram has been protesting for months outside the White House calling for a ceasefire, and characterizes U.S. and German pro-Israel policy as “disturbing” and “frightening.” As a survivor of the Holocaust, Ingram says, “My childhood was spent in the first 10 years much the same way as the children of Gaza. I know exactly what they’re going through. I know exactly how they’re feeling.” She argues “it should be an absolute standstill of all governments that you are told over 10,000 children are being murdered. There is no excuse for that.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Marione Ingram. She’s an 88-year-old German American Holocaust survivor who’s been protesting for months outside the White House calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. She was scheduled to speak this month at eight different schools in her native Hamburg, Germany. She was planning to address students receiving awards recognizing their commitment to social justice activism. Then, in December, she was told by an event organizer that her appearances were canceled. The trip was eventually postponed until May.
AMY GOODMAN: Marione Ingram is author of The Hands of War: A Tale of Endurance and Hope from a Survivor of the Holocaust and also the book The Hands of Peace: A Holocaust Survivor’s Fight for Civil Rights in the American South. She’s joining us from Washington, D.C.
Marione, I’m sorry you had to leave the studio because there was an alarm in the building and everyone had to evacuate, but you’re back now. And you have heard the previous guests, two Palestinian American esteemed artists, talking about having been canceled, like you, Samia Halaby by Indiana University, and Emily Jacir was about to give a talk in Berlin. Talk about the reason you were given for going back to Hamburg, Germany, where you’ve gone a number of times to speak to young people, but the reason why your talks were canceled this month.
MARIONE INGRAM: Good morning, Amy. Yes, a bit of excitement, so I missed — I heard Samia’s explanation of her cancellation — I’m really sorry about that — and missed the other, because we were evacuated.
The reasons for my cancellation have been extremely vague, given a climate in Germany right now of a lot of antisemitic events, apparently. And the only concrete explanation I got from someone was that I, as a Holocaust survivor, would be used by the AfD, which is the Alternative for Deutschland, the Alternative for Germany, which is a neo-Nazi and a primarily antisemitic group. But I was told that they would use my picture and my protest sign in a propaganda — I can’t even figure out what kind of propaganda that would be used for, since they are basically Nazis and would be a destruction of —
AMY GOODMAN: The sign you’re talking about is, standing outside the White House, “Survivor says peace not war”?
MARIONE INGRAM: Yes, yes. But on the flip side, it says “Stop genocide in Gaza.” And that has upset the powers that be, politicians who decide what can be said and what cannot be said.
I have been speaking to students for years, and I was also told by several teachers that right now my presence, talking to students, is of the utmost importance, because the schools in Hamburg are so diverse and there are many students who come from countries where there is war, oppression, poverty, and students in really terrible positions of trying to manage what is going on, conflict with each other. And I was told that my presence is so important because I have a rapport with students, and they were looking forward to expressing their thoughts, because they know that in talking to me and with me that they can say everything that is on their minds without being criticized or ostracized.
I find it extremely — I understand Germany’s sensitivity because of their gruesome history. But Germany has also been the only country, maybe other than Rwanda, that has acknowledged its horrific history, and it has taught this history as a “never again” thing. We must face our history so we can learn from it. So it is surprising to me that Germany has chosen to silence me.
But I think the worst part of it is that they are silencing young people who are experiencing — especially in Germany, they are close to the war in Ukraine. They are troubled by what is going on by the war in the Mideast and the horrific slaughter of innocent people. It should be an absolute standstill of all governments when you are told that over 10,000 children are being murdered. There is no excuse for that.
And then to turn around — America and Germany’s support of Israel’s politics is extremely disturbing and, to me, frightening, because any time any government decides to silence the voices of people who oppose government policies, whatever they may be, this reminds me so much of my childhood. My childhood was spent in the first 10 years much the same way as the children of Gaza. I know exactly what they are going through. I know exactly what they are thinking. And this, apparently, has upset the Ministry of Culture, because I have compared the onset —
AMY GOODMAN: We have less than a minute to go.
MARIONE INGRAM: The silencing of the last survivor of all three major events in Hamburg — the firestorm, the worst bombing in the European war, and the Holocaust, where I lost almost all of my family — and the silencing of voices like all of our voices when they are most needed is indicative of something more frightening, because I believe when governments decide to silence voices in opposition to the stance that they are taking, then we have to really question very deeply why are they doing it and for what reason.
AMY GOODMAN: Marione Ingram, we’re going to have to leave it there, but we thank you so much for being with us, 88-year-old Jewish German Holocaust survivor, has been protesting, calling for Biden to support a Gaza ceasefire.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Sat Jan 20, 2024 2:58 am
Meet Tal Mitnick, 18, the First Israeli Jailed for Refusing Military Service in “Revenge War” on Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 19, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/19/ ... transcript
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to continue the assault on Gaza, we speak with the first Israeli to refuse mandatory military service since Israel’s offensive began over three months ago. Last month, 18-year-old Tal Mitnick announced he would refuse military service in what he called a “revenge war” on Gaza, and was sentenced to 30 days in a military prison. Just released from jail, Mitnick faces another draft summons and says he will refuse “over and over until someone gives up, until the army gives me an exemption.” Mitnick says the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel broke the idea Israel could live with occupation. “We need to keep fighting for a just future,” he says, urging the younger generation of Israelis to use their voices for peace. “We’re the future, and we can change.”
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.
Israel is continuing its attacks across the Gaza Strip, from the north to the south, as the number of Palestinian casualties continues to soar. Over the last 24 hours, at least 142 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Nearly 25,000 Palestinians have been killed over the past three months, 10,000 of them children, thousands of others missing under the rubble presumed dead, making Israel’s assault one of the deadliest, most destructive military campaigns in recent history.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has again rejected calls to scale back Israel’s military assault on Gaza or take steps towards the establishment of a Palestinian state. In a nationally broadcast news conference, Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with the offensive until what he called a “decisive victory over Hamas.”
As Netanyahu vows to continue Israel’s assault on Gaza, we turn now to the first Israeli to refuse mandatory military service since Israel’s offensive began over three months ago. Tal Mitnick is an 18-year-old conscientious objector in Israel. Last month, he announced he would refuse military service, saying, quote, “I refuse to take part in a war of revenge.” He was sentenced to 30 days in a military prison, was just released yesterday morning. Tal Mitnick is joining us now from a studio in Tel Aviv.
Tal, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about why you are refusing?
TAL MITNICK: Thank you for having me on.
I am refusing because, like I said, I refuse to take part in this revenge war. I’m refusing because I want to make a statement about how we need to conduct ourselves in this land. I feel like there’s too much violence here. There’s too much revenge and talk about this side or that side. And we need to talk about how we need to go forward in a future of coexistence, where both Israelis and Palestinians can live together and live with security and peace.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about what exactly this means. How did you make this known? Talk about where you served time in prison. And is this just a brief period of days before you’re sent back to prison?
TAL MITNICK: Yes. I got sentenced for 30 days for my first sentencing, and I got another draft order for Monday morning, which means I have to get drafted on Monday morning, where I will go and refuse service once again and probably get sentenced again. And this will happen over and over until someone gives up, until the army gives me an exemption.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about the response of your friends, your family. And I was also just wondering — you’re an Israeli, but you have an American accent. Are you American, as well?
TAL MITNICK: My parents immigrated from the U.S., and we spoke English at home. But I’m Israeli and American, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So —
TAL MITNICK: The friends and family response — yes?
AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.
TAL MITNICK: My friends and family response was, thankfully, mostly very understanding, because people that know me and people that talk to me know that I come from a good place of nonviolence and coexistence. I feel like the people that got to talk to me also inside military prison, a lot of them, Ben-Gvir supporters, they support killing all Arabs. When they got to know me before they knew my political opinions, they understood. They understood that there are people that don’t support this. Sorry, I can hear myself twice.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can possibly blank that out, because we’re not sure how to fix that right now. But just continue to talk, because we don’t hear you twice, but we do hear you very clearly.
TAL MITNICK: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about your time —
TAL MITNICK: OK, yeah. So, the —
AMY GOODMAN: — in prison? And where are you —
TAL MITNICK: No, no, go ahead.
AMY GOODMAN: — being held?
TAL MITNICK: Yeah. So, I’m being held in a military prison, where other soldiers that have committed crimes inside the military and got sentenced to military prison are also being held. It’s not a fun experience, but it’s also not the worst experience imaginable. It’s not like the experience that Palestinian prisoners are being held under in the West Bank or inside Israel. Yeah, it’s very strict timing, very strict about what you’re allowed to do and when. But this is something that I’m willing to do to make an impact.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering if you feel the climate is changing among Israelis, and also what Israelis see about what’s happening in Gaza. I mean, we just reported we’re talking about now close to 25,000 Palestinians killed, over 10,000 children, over 7,000 women, many believed to be dead in the rubble. We don’t even know that count. If you watch something like Al Jazeera or you watch other media, since there are only Palestinian journalists there on the ground, you see endless pictures of carnage, of horror, of babies being pulled out of the rubble, dead or alive. What do you see on Israeli TV? We’re talking about people who are just 15 minutes away from Gaza.
TAL MITNICK: So, actually, inside prison, the only source of news that we got was one newspaper called Israel Hayom. And every day on the newspaper, there will be pictures of the soldiers that died. And I remember feeling like — I feel sad, very sad for the soldiers and the families that have to take this great burden of losing someone close to them, but I know that while seeing soldiers dying, I know that this means that there are much more Palestinian civilians dying, which we don’t see in the newspaper.
AMY GOODMAN: Who else are you serving time with in that prison? Who else is there?
TAL MITNICK: Sadly, a lot of the other people there don’t — they are deserters, which means that they served time in the military, and then at some point, for some reason, they went back home and did not come back. Most of these people desert because of socioeconomic reasons, if it’s having to take care of their siblings or go work for their family. And when they come back and turn themselves in, we’re now seeing a very heavy sentencing of those deserters as a part of the fascist persecution and the fog of war. People that went to work for three months to feed their family are now being sentenced to half a year in military prison.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the overall antiwar movement, if there is one in Israel? I mean, there were massive protests, up to a million people in the streets, which is massive for Israel, around the — Netanyahu wanting to gut the power of the judiciary. Of course, he is under charges himself, and that would help him remain out of prison. But at that point, many reservists said they would not serve in the military. Everything changed after October 7th Hamas attack on southern Israel. If you can talk about why that did not change you? And how large is the antiwar movement, and do you feel it’s growing?
TAL MITNICK: I feel like after the horrendous attack of October 7th against Israeli civilians, there was a very important conception that was broken in Israeli society: the conception that we can live with the siege and with the occupation and not feel it. Now, when that conception is broken, we have a vacuum. And there are two ideas that are trying to pull people: one idea that the right is offering, which is, “We can’t live with occupation. We can’t live with siege. This means we need to wipe all of them out,” and the other idea, the moderate one, the one that makes sense, is that “We can’t live with occupation. We can’t live with siege. We need to step forward for peace.”
Inside military prison, I got asked a lot, “What do you think? We should just stop the war and put our hands up and not do anything?” And I would answer, “No, we need to keep fighting. We need to keep fighting for a just future. We need to stop the physical fighting between us, and we need to very, very aggressively push for a better future.”
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering your response to Prime Minister Netanyahu once again saying “from the river to the sea.” When Palestinian advocates and their allies talk about “from the river to the sea,” the response of the Israeli government has been, “That means they’re for the genocide of Jews, because they don’t want Jews to be there,” the government says. Now you have Netanyahu saying — not that this hasn’t been said before by Likud — but, “From the river to the sea, Israel must control.” Your response to that, Tal? And if you can talk about the word “occupation”? Because in the U.S. media also, there is rarely that word used, that Israel occupies the West Bank and Gaza.
TAL MITNICK: The term “from the river to the sea” is very controversial inside of Israel. And I feel like some people that use it, there are people that use it that mean the genocide of Jews inside Israel. But just the term itself, I feel like, does not mean a genocide of Jews; it means freedom of all Palestinians from the river to the sea. When Benjamin Netanyahu uses this term, it does not mean freedom for all from the river to the sea; it means oppression of Palestinians, and it means Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Tal, I’m wondering your response to Jews around the world, particularly here in the United States, like Jewish Voice for Peace, these massive protests that have been held, from Grand Central Station to shutting down the bridges and the tunnels from New York, to highways in California, saying, “We want a ceasefire now.” How do you respond to that? And your final message to other 18-year-old Israelis?
TAL MITNICK: These protests are amazing. These organizations, like Jewish Voices for Peace and IfNotNow, do incredible work. And I support the continuation of these protests all around the world.
And a message to other people my age, other kids, I feel like it’s important to know that we have a voice. I used to think that talking to people is all we could do, but we can change, and people want to hear what we have to say because we’re the future. And this is — yeah, we’re the future, and we can change.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, might you spend months, more than a year in jail if you keep saying no to military service, since Netanyahu says this will go on for more than a year?
TAL MITNICK: Because there’s no policy set for jailing conscientious objectors, I don’t really know how much time I’ll spend in prison, but it could be months.
AMY GOODMAN: Tal Mitnick, 18-year-old Israeli activist, known as a refusenik. He’s refused mandatory military service in the Israeli army, the first conscientious objector in Israel since the Israeli assault on Gaza began over a hundred days ago. He’s just sentenced to 30 days in prison, which he served, for refusing to enlist, was released a few days ago, then will be called up again and says he will refuse again.
***
Horrific Traumatic Injuries of Children: British Dr. Witnesses Israel’s Destruction of Gaza Hospitals
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 19, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/19/ ... transcript
Before Israel’s unprecedented assault on Gaza, the territory had 36 functioning hospitals. Now only 16 partially functioning health facilities remain. As Israeli bombs and ground troops approach Nasser Hospital, the largest remaining partially functioning health facility in Gaza, we speak with Dr. James Smith, an emergency medical doctor recently returned from Gaza, where he worked alongside Palestinian healthcare workers to treat patients at Al-Aqsa Hospital. “Every single day, without exception, there were multiple mass casualty incidents at the hospital,” says Smith. “They would include open chest wounds, open abdominal wounds, traumatic amputations, severe full-thickness burns … really some of the most horrific traumatic injuries that I have ever seen.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Israeli forces are pushing further into southern Gaza, with airstrikes and ground troops attacking areas that Israel had previously told Palestinians to flee to as safe zones. Over the past few days, Israel has bombed areas close to Nasser Hospital, the largest remaining semi-functioning health facility in Gaza, located in the southern city of Khan Younis. Gaza only has 16 partially functioning health facilities remaining. Before Israel’s assault, Gaza had 36 hospitals. The hospitals that are still working are operating far beyond their capacity, have been turned into makeshift refugee camps to house the displaced — and makeshift morgues — with health officials describing the situation as catastrophic. The Health Ministry estimates that over 60,000 people have been wounded in Gaza, with hundreds more casualties every day. The casualty count at this point is nearing 25,000, more than 10,000 of them children.
For more, we’re joined by Dr. James Smith, an emergency medical doctor who just returned from Gaza earlier this month, where he worked alongside Palestinian healthcare workers to treat patients at Al-Aqsa Hospital located in Deir al-Balah in the middle of the Gaza Strip. Dr. James was in Gaza with the organization Medical Aid for Palestinians. He’s joining us now from London.
Dr. James, welcome to Democracy Now! Describe what you saw, what you confronted, the work you were doing, what’s happening at Al-Aqsa Hospital.
DR. JAMES SMITH: Hi, Amy.
So, yes, as you say, I was working with a team. There were 10 of us. Myself, I was with the organization Medical Aid for Palestinians. We were accompanied by colleagues from the International Rescue Committee. And very importantly, we were — it’s important to really reiterate that we were working with our Palestinian colleagues, so doctors, nurses, other healthcare professionals, at Al — sorry, at Al-Aqsa Hospital. Al-Aqsa is a hospital based in the middle area of Gaza, so south of Gaza City and north of Khan Younis.
Myself, I was working in the emergency room. So, we would position ourselves in the ER every morning and, really, at that point, wait to see what the day would bring. Every single day, without exception, there were multiple mass casualty incidents at the hospital. So that’s several patients presenting at a time with traumatic injuries of varying severity. Those patients would require stabilization and then often transfer through to the operating room for surgical intervention. Some patients would require palliative care, if we were able to provide some form of palliative care, and in addition to many, many trauma patients. And by “many,” I mean several hundred over the time that we were working at Al-Aqsa. We were also treating patients presenting with complex medical problems, so people that had suffered heart attacks, for example, had suffered from strokes, and people whose hypertension or diabetes management had been negatively impacted, usually through a lack of access to their usual medication or because they hadn’t been able to see their usual doctor for several months. And then, furthermore, we were also seeing an even greater number of people with, effectively, primary healthcare-level problems.
So, the entirety of the primary healthcare or community care system in Gaza has completely collapsed. In fact, the entire healthcare system, the Ministry of Health has already announced several months ago, has completely collapsed. But that meant that anyone presenting with so-called, well, more minor complaints — coughs, colds, diarrheal illnesses — they were all also presenting to the emergency room to be seen by the doctors and nurses there.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about treating children, Dr. James?
DR. JAMES SMITH: Sure. So, as you’ve mentioned, a significant proportion of the people that have been killed since the start of this escalation are children. We certainly saw every mass casualty incident in the emergency room. There were several children also present. I remember very vividly some of the most traumatic injuries inflicted upon people were inflicted upon children. And they would include open chest wounds, open abdominal wounds, traumatic amputations, severe full-thickness burns to a substantial proportion of the body area — really some of the most horrific traumatic injuries that I have ever seen.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re actually showing images for our TV audience of Al-Aqsa Hospital and of the children and the adults who have been wounded there. You know, it’s really important to point out, if you’re talking about a hospital in normal times that has repeatedly been attacked, it would — and that’s severely compromised in its functioning, but we’re talking about this constant bombardment, where you have people coming in who have been severely wounded. You have people taking refuge there. And is it both like a refugee camp and a morgue?
DR. JAMES SMITH: So, there were several thousand people that had sought supposed sanctuary within the hospital compound itself. And we’ve seen this in several other hospitals across the Gaza Strip. There were reports, for example, of thousands of people sheltering in the Al-Shifa compound before that was surrounded and raided by the Israeli occupation forces. The same was the case at Al-Aqsa. So there were people staying in makeshift tents in and around the hospital buildings. Just up the main street adjacent to the hospital, sort of another IDP camp, internally displaced persons camp, had sort of formed very organically on open land. As the Israeli ground forces moved closer to the hospital and as the bombardment, the artillery and air bombardment, intensified, many of those — many thousands of those displaced people have displaced further south towards Rafah. And that also includes patients who were in the hospital at the time that we were working there. Many of them have also fled, along with many of the staff, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to a clip, and it’s really important to play these clips. Right now Gaza has experienced the longest communications blackout of this Israeli attack for the last three months. I think it’s something like seven days. So it’s really hard to get information inside this intense Israeli bombardment in the vicinity of Nasser Hospital, the main hospital in Khan Younis, the largest remaining semi-functioning health facility in Gaza, and tanks and armored vehicles are on the main road leading to the area. On Wednesday, Democracy Now! reached Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi, who works in Nasser Hospital. He described the situation on the ground and the difficulty in getting out any messages. This is what he had to say.
DR. AHMED MOGHRABI: Thank you, sister, for asking about us. Thank you for letting me speak out here. We don’t have internet at all. I managed to get a very weak signal. I can’t upload any of these videos. Here, 90% of people who are already evacuated at the hospital, they evacuated from the hospital. Ninety percent of medical personnel evacuated from the hospital.
And this is my little daughter, actually. She got head trauma Saturday. You know, hundreds of these evacuating people at the corridor, somebody pushed her, and she fell on her head. Now I’m taking care about my — this little girl. She needs medicine. She’s not well. So I stay at the hospital now, but I want to evacuate. The situation is catastrophic, sister. Really, I’m very tired. I’m very tired.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi, and the image we’ve been showing as he spoke was Dr. Moghrabi holding his own wounded daughter. I’m wondering, Dr. James, if you can talk about the significance, the medical significance, of a complete — almost complete telecommunications blackout, in terms of ambulances being reached, people being able to communicate to get help.
DR. JAMES SMITH: Absolutely. I mean, this is a catastrophic development. As you’ve mentioned, Amy, this, I think, is the seventh time that the Israelis have suspended access to telecommunications across almost the entirety of the Gaza Strip. This is now day six or seven of a complete sort of telecommunications blackout. It makes it almost impossible to do anything.
So, in the first instance, people can’t reach their families, their loved ones. They can’t communicate with colleagues. They can’t reassure family that they’re OK, or indeed relatives and friends can’t inform family members and so on when somebody has been killed or injured. There have been occasions where the emergency number has not been in use. So, as you say, it’s been difficult to call ambulances or mobilize ambulances to places where there has been an air or artillery strike. It makes it very difficult for health and humanitarian workers to do their essential work —
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Smith, we —
DR. JAMES SMITH: — so they can’t coordinate with each other.
AMY GOODMAN: We only have 10 seconds. What message do you have for the world, just having come out of Gaza? Ten seconds.
DR. JAMES SMITH: The violence needs to end immediately.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. James Smith, emergency medical doctor, just back from Gaza, where he worked to treat patients at Al-Aqsa Hospital.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 19, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/19/ ... transcript
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to continue the assault on Gaza, we speak with the first Israeli to refuse mandatory military service since Israel’s offensive began over three months ago. Last month, 18-year-old Tal Mitnick announced he would refuse military service in what he called a “revenge war” on Gaza, and was sentenced to 30 days in a military prison. Just released from jail, Mitnick faces another draft summons and says he will refuse “over and over until someone gives up, until the army gives me an exemption.” Mitnick says the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel broke the idea Israel could live with occupation. “We need to keep fighting for a just future,” he says, urging the younger generation of Israelis to use their voices for peace. “We’re the future, and we can change.”
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.
Israel is continuing its attacks across the Gaza Strip, from the north to the south, as the number of Palestinian casualties continues to soar. Over the last 24 hours, at least 142 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Nearly 25,000 Palestinians have been killed over the past three months, 10,000 of them children, thousands of others missing under the rubble presumed dead, making Israel’s assault one of the deadliest, most destructive military campaigns in recent history.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has again rejected calls to scale back Israel’s military assault on Gaza or take steps towards the establishment of a Palestinian state. In a nationally broadcast news conference, Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with the offensive until what he called a “decisive victory over Hamas.”
As Netanyahu vows to continue Israel’s assault on Gaza, we turn now to the first Israeli to refuse mandatory military service since Israel’s offensive began over three months ago. Tal Mitnick is an 18-year-old conscientious objector in Israel. Last month, he announced he would refuse military service, saying, quote, “I refuse to take part in a war of revenge.” He was sentenced to 30 days in a military prison, was just released yesterday morning. Tal Mitnick is joining us now from a studio in Tel Aviv.
Tal, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about why you are refusing?
TAL MITNICK: Thank you for having me on.
I am refusing because, like I said, I refuse to take part in this revenge war. I’m refusing because I want to make a statement about how we need to conduct ourselves in this land. I feel like there’s too much violence here. There’s too much revenge and talk about this side or that side. And we need to talk about how we need to go forward in a future of coexistence, where both Israelis and Palestinians can live together and live with security and peace.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about what exactly this means. How did you make this known? Talk about where you served time in prison. And is this just a brief period of days before you’re sent back to prison?
TAL MITNICK: Yes. I got sentenced for 30 days for my first sentencing, and I got another draft order for Monday morning, which means I have to get drafted on Monday morning, where I will go and refuse service once again and probably get sentenced again. And this will happen over and over until someone gives up, until the army gives me an exemption.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about the response of your friends, your family. And I was also just wondering — you’re an Israeli, but you have an American accent. Are you American, as well?
TAL MITNICK: My parents immigrated from the U.S., and we spoke English at home. But I’m Israeli and American, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So —
TAL MITNICK: The friends and family response — yes?
AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.
TAL MITNICK: My friends and family response was, thankfully, mostly very understanding, because people that know me and people that talk to me know that I come from a good place of nonviolence and coexistence. I feel like the people that got to talk to me also inside military prison, a lot of them, Ben-Gvir supporters, they support killing all Arabs. When they got to know me before they knew my political opinions, they understood. They understood that there are people that don’t support this. Sorry, I can hear myself twice.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can possibly blank that out, because we’re not sure how to fix that right now. But just continue to talk, because we don’t hear you twice, but we do hear you very clearly.
TAL MITNICK: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about your time —
TAL MITNICK: OK, yeah. So, the —
AMY GOODMAN: — in prison? And where are you —
TAL MITNICK: No, no, go ahead.
AMY GOODMAN: — being held?
TAL MITNICK: Yeah. So, I’m being held in a military prison, where other soldiers that have committed crimes inside the military and got sentenced to military prison are also being held. It’s not a fun experience, but it’s also not the worst experience imaginable. It’s not like the experience that Palestinian prisoners are being held under in the West Bank or inside Israel. Yeah, it’s very strict timing, very strict about what you’re allowed to do and when. But this is something that I’m willing to do to make an impact.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering if you feel the climate is changing among Israelis, and also what Israelis see about what’s happening in Gaza. I mean, we just reported we’re talking about now close to 25,000 Palestinians killed, over 10,000 children, over 7,000 women, many believed to be dead in the rubble. We don’t even know that count. If you watch something like Al Jazeera or you watch other media, since there are only Palestinian journalists there on the ground, you see endless pictures of carnage, of horror, of babies being pulled out of the rubble, dead or alive. What do you see on Israeli TV? We’re talking about people who are just 15 minutes away from Gaza.
TAL MITNICK: So, actually, inside prison, the only source of news that we got was one newspaper called Israel Hayom. And every day on the newspaper, there will be pictures of the soldiers that died. And I remember feeling like — I feel sad, very sad for the soldiers and the families that have to take this great burden of losing someone close to them, but I know that while seeing soldiers dying, I know that this means that there are much more Palestinian civilians dying, which we don’t see in the newspaper.
AMY GOODMAN: Who else are you serving time with in that prison? Who else is there?
TAL MITNICK: Sadly, a lot of the other people there don’t — they are deserters, which means that they served time in the military, and then at some point, for some reason, they went back home and did not come back. Most of these people desert because of socioeconomic reasons, if it’s having to take care of their siblings or go work for their family. And when they come back and turn themselves in, we’re now seeing a very heavy sentencing of those deserters as a part of the fascist persecution and the fog of war. People that went to work for three months to feed their family are now being sentenced to half a year in military prison.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the overall antiwar movement, if there is one in Israel? I mean, there were massive protests, up to a million people in the streets, which is massive for Israel, around the — Netanyahu wanting to gut the power of the judiciary. Of course, he is under charges himself, and that would help him remain out of prison. But at that point, many reservists said they would not serve in the military. Everything changed after October 7th Hamas attack on southern Israel. If you can talk about why that did not change you? And how large is the antiwar movement, and do you feel it’s growing?
TAL MITNICK: I feel like after the horrendous attack of October 7th against Israeli civilians, there was a very important conception that was broken in Israeli society: the conception that we can live with the siege and with the occupation and not feel it. Now, when that conception is broken, we have a vacuum. And there are two ideas that are trying to pull people: one idea that the right is offering, which is, “We can’t live with occupation. We can’t live with siege. This means we need to wipe all of them out,” and the other idea, the moderate one, the one that makes sense, is that “We can’t live with occupation. We can’t live with siege. We need to step forward for peace.”
Inside military prison, I got asked a lot, “What do you think? We should just stop the war and put our hands up and not do anything?” And I would answer, “No, we need to keep fighting. We need to keep fighting for a just future. We need to stop the physical fighting between us, and we need to very, very aggressively push for a better future.”
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering your response to Prime Minister Netanyahu once again saying “from the river to the sea.” When Palestinian advocates and their allies talk about “from the river to the sea,” the response of the Israeli government has been, “That means they’re for the genocide of Jews, because they don’t want Jews to be there,” the government says. Now you have Netanyahu saying — not that this hasn’t been said before by Likud — but, “From the river to the sea, Israel must control.” Your response to that, Tal? And if you can talk about the word “occupation”? Because in the U.S. media also, there is rarely that word used, that Israel occupies the West Bank and Gaza.
TAL MITNICK: The term “from the river to the sea” is very controversial inside of Israel. And I feel like some people that use it, there are people that use it that mean the genocide of Jews inside Israel. But just the term itself, I feel like, does not mean a genocide of Jews; it means freedom of all Palestinians from the river to the sea. When Benjamin Netanyahu uses this term, it does not mean freedom for all from the river to the sea; it means oppression of Palestinians, and it means Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Tal, I’m wondering your response to Jews around the world, particularly here in the United States, like Jewish Voice for Peace, these massive protests that have been held, from Grand Central Station to shutting down the bridges and the tunnels from New York, to highways in California, saying, “We want a ceasefire now.” How do you respond to that? And your final message to other 18-year-old Israelis?
TAL MITNICK: These protests are amazing. These organizations, like Jewish Voices for Peace and IfNotNow, do incredible work. And I support the continuation of these protests all around the world.
And a message to other people my age, other kids, I feel like it’s important to know that we have a voice. I used to think that talking to people is all we could do, but we can change, and people want to hear what we have to say because we’re the future. And this is — yeah, we’re the future, and we can change.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, might you spend months, more than a year in jail if you keep saying no to military service, since Netanyahu says this will go on for more than a year?
TAL MITNICK: Because there’s no policy set for jailing conscientious objectors, I don’t really know how much time I’ll spend in prison, but it could be months.
AMY GOODMAN: Tal Mitnick, 18-year-old Israeli activist, known as a refusenik. He’s refused mandatory military service in the Israeli army, the first conscientious objector in Israel since the Israeli assault on Gaza began over a hundred days ago. He’s just sentenced to 30 days in prison, which he served, for refusing to enlist, was released a few days ago, then will be called up again and says he will refuse again.
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Horrific Traumatic Injuries of Children: British Dr. Witnesses Israel’s Destruction of Gaza Hospitals
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
January 19, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/19/ ... transcript
Before Israel’s unprecedented assault on Gaza, the territory had 36 functioning hospitals. Now only 16 partially functioning health facilities remain. As Israeli bombs and ground troops approach Nasser Hospital, the largest remaining partially functioning health facility in Gaza, we speak with Dr. James Smith, an emergency medical doctor recently returned from Gaza, where he worked alongside Palestinian healthcare workers to treat patients at Al-Aqsa Hospital. “Every single day, without exception, there were multiple mass casualty incidents at the hospital,” says Smith. “They would include open chest wounds, open abdominal wounds, traumatic amputations, severe full-thickness burns … really some of the most horrific traumatic injuries that I have ever seen.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Israeli forces are pushing further into southern Gaza, with airstrikes and ground troops attacking areas that Israel had previously told Palestinians to flee to as safe zones. Over the past few days, Israel has bombed areas close to Nasser Hospital, the largest remaining semi-functioning health facility in Gaza, located in the southern city of Khan Younis. Gaza only has 16 partially functioning health facilities remaining. Before Israel’s assault, Gaza had 36 hospitals. The hospitals that are still working are operating far beyond their capacity, have been turned into makeshift refugee camps to house the displaced — and makeshift morgues — with health officials describing the situation as catastrophic. The Health Ministry estimates that over 60,000 people have been wounded in Gaza, with hundreds more casualties every day. The casualty count at this point is nearing 25,000, more than 10,000 of them children.
For more, we’re joined by Dr. James Smith, an emergency medical doctor who just returned from Gaza earlier this month, where he worked alongside Palestinian healthcare workers to treat patients at Al-Aqsa Hospital located in Deir al-Balah in the middle of the Gaza Strip. Dr. James was in Gaza with the organization Medical Aid for Palestinians. He’s joining us now from London.
Dr. James, welcome to Democracy Now! Describe what you saw, what you confronted, the work you were doing, what’s happening at Al-Aqsa Hospital.
DR. JAMES SMITH: Hi, Amy.
So, yes, as you say, I was working with a team. There were 10 of us. Myself, I was with the organization Medical Aid for Palestinians. We were accompanied by colleagues from the International Rescue Committee. And very importantly, we were — it’s important to really reiterate that we were working with our Palestinian colleagues, so doctors, nurses, other healthcare professionals, at Al — sorry, at Al-Aqsa Hospital. Al-Aqsa is a hospital based in the middle area of Gaza, so south of Gaza City and north of Khan Younis.
Myself, I was working in the emergency room. So, we would position ourselves in the ER every morning and, really, at that point, wait to see what the day would bring. Every single day, without exception, there were multiple mass casualty incidents at the hospital. So that’s several patients presenting at a time with traumatic injuries of varying severity. Those patients would require stabilization and then often transfer through to the operating room for surgical intervention. Some patients would require palliative care, if we were able to provide some form of palliative care, and in addition to many, many trauma patients. And by “many,” I mean several hundred over the time that we were working at Al-Aqsa. We were also treating patients presenting with complex medical problems, so people that had suffered heart attacks, for example, had suffered from strokes, and people whose hypertension or diabetes management had been negatively impacted, usually through a lack of access to their usual medication or because they hadn’t been able to see their usual doctor for several months. And then, furthermore, we were also seeing an even greater number of people with, effectively, primary healthcare-level problems.
So, the entirety of the primary healthcare or community care system in Gaza has completely collapsed. In fact, the entire healthcare system, the Ministry of Health has already announced several months ago, has completely collapsed. But that meant that anyone presenting with so-called, well, more minor complaints — coughs, colds, diarrheal illnesses — they were all also presenting to the emergency room to be seen by the doctors and nurses there.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about treating children, Dr. James?
DR. JAMES SMITH: Sure. So, as you’ve mentioned, a significant proportion of the people that have been killed since the start of this escalation are children. We certainly saw every mass casualty incident in the emergency room. There were several children also present. I remember very vividly some of the most traumatic injuries inflicted upon people were inflicted upon children. And they would include open chest wounds, open abdominal wounds, traumatic amputations, severe full-thickness burns to a substantial proportion of the body area — really some of the most horrific traumatic injuries that I have ever seen.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re actually showing images for our TV audience of Al-Aqsa Hospital and of the children and the adults who have been wounded there. You know, it’s really important to point out, if you’re talking about a hospital in normal times that has repeatedly been attacked, it would — and that’s severely compromised in its functioning, but we’re talking about this constant bombardment, where you have people coming in who have been severely wounded. You have people taking refuge there. And is it both like a refugee camp and a morgue?
DR. JAMES SMITH: So, there were several thousand people that had sought supposed sanctuary within the hospital compound itself. And we’ve seen this in several other hospitals across the Gaza Strip. There were reports, for example, of thousands of people sheltering in the Al-Shifa compound before that was surrounded and raided by the Israeli occupation forces. The same was the case at Al-Aqsa. So there were people staying in makeshift tents in and around the hospital buildings. Just up the main street adjacent to the hospital, sort of another IDP camp, internally displaced persons camp, had sort of formed very organically on open land. As the Israeli ground forces moved closer to the hospital and as the bombardment, the artillery and air bombardment, intensified, many of those — many thousands of those displaced people have displaced further south towards Rafah. And that also includes patients who were in the hospital at the time that we were working there. Many of them have also fled, along with many of the staff, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to a clip, and it’s really important to play these clips. Right now Gaza has experienced the longest communications blackout of this Israeli attack for the last three months. I think it’s something like seven days. So it’s really hard to get information inside this intense Israeli bombardment in the vicinity of Nasser Hospital, the main hospital in Khan Younis, the largest remaining semi-functioning health facility in Gaza, and tanks and armored vehicles are on the main road leading to the area. On Wednesday, Democracy Now! reached Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi, who works in Nasser Hospital. He described the situation on the ground and the difficulty in getting out any messages. This is what he had to say.
DR. AHMED MOGHRABI: Thank you, sister, for asking about us. Thank you for letting me speak out here. We don’t have internet at all. I managed to get a very weak signal. I can’t upload any of these videos. Here, 90% of people who are already evacuated at the hospital, they evacuated from the hospital. Ninety percent of medical personnel evacuated from the hospital.
And this is my little daughter, actually. She got head trauma Saturday. You know, hundreds of these evacuating people at the corridor, somebody pushed her, and she fell on her head. Now I’m taking care about my — this little girl. She needs medicine. She’s not well. So I stay at the hospital now, but I want to evacuate. The situation is catastrophic, sister. Really, I’m very tired. I’m very tired.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi, and the image we’ve been showing as he spoke was Dr. Moghrabi holding his own wounded daughter. I’m wondering, Dr. James, if you can talk about the significance, the medical significance, of a complete — almost complete telecommunications blackout, in terms of ambulances being reached, people being able to communicate to get help.
DR. JAMES SMITH: Absolutely. I mean, this is a catastrophic development. As you’ve mentioned, Amy, this, I think, is the seventh time that the Israelis have suspended access to telecommunications across almost the entirety of the Gaza Strip. This is now day six or seven of a complete sort of telecommunications blackout. It makes it almost impossible to do anything.
So, in the first instance, people can’t reach their families, their loved ones. They can’t communicate with colleagues. They can’t reassure family that they’re OK, or indeed relatives and friends can’t inform family members and so on when somebody has been killed or injured. There have been occasions where the emergency number has not been in use. So, as you say, it’s been difficult to call ambulances or mobilize ambulances to places where there has been an air or artillery strike. It makes it very difficult for health and humanitarian workers to do their essential work —
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Smith, we —
DR. JAMES SMITH: — so they can’t coordinate with each other.
AMY GOODMAN: We only have 10 seconds. What message do you have for the world, just having come out of Gaza? Ten seconds.
DR. JAMES SMITH: The violence needs to end immediately.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. James Smith, emergency medical doctor, just back from Gaza, where he worked to treat patients at Al-Aqsa Hospital.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Sun Jan 28, 2024 12:12 am
Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha Decries Israel’s “Inhumane” Assault as Gaza Death Toll Tops 25,000
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 22, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/22/ ... transcript
Transcript
Palestinian health authorities say the death toll in Gaza has passed 25,000. This comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly affirmed in recent days that he opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, saying Israel must maintain indefinite military control between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. We get an update and speak with Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, who was detained by Israeli authorities as he and his family fled Gaza in late November. He says that while there must be an immediate ceasefire to stop the suffering, only “a just solution to the Palestinian case” will bring long-term stability to the region. “If there is no peace, … we will unfortunately witness more and more of the killings of innocent people everywhere,” he says.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Gaza, where the death toll from Israel’s 15-week war has topped 25,000. There are reports Israel is blowing up entire neighborhoods of the besieged city of Khan Younis. Al Jazeera reports Israel has targeted hospitals, ambulances and schools in the city where thousands of civilians are sheltering.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports the United States, Qatar and Egypt are pushing Israel and Hamas to take part in what the paper describes as a “phased diplomatic process” involving the release of hostages held in Gaza and the eventual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. After the report was published, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he rejects the proposal because it calls for the war to end. On Thursday, Netanyahu also publicly rejected calls by the Biden administration for the future establishment of a Palestinian state and called for Israel to be in control of the region from the river to the sea.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] I clarify that in any arrangement in the foreseeable future, with an accord or without an accord, the state of Israel must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River. This is a necessary condition. It clashes with the principle of sovereignty. What can you do? I tell this truth to our American friends, and I also stopped the attempt to impose a reality on us that would harm Israel’s security. A prime minister in Israel should be able to say no even to our best friends, say no when necessary and say yes when possible.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Netanyahu faces growing domestic pressure to bring home the remaining 130 hostages held in Gaza. Earlier today, the Israel Knesset session was suspended after hostages’ families disrupted a committee meeting, demanding lawmakers do more to free their loved ones. Protesters also blocked entrances to the Knesset.
For more, we’re joined in Cairo, Egypt, by Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian poet and author, who was detained by Israeli authorities as he and his family fled Gaza. He wrote about his experience in a New Yorker article headlined “A Palestinian Poet’s Perilous Journey Out of Gaza.” He’s a columnist, a teacher, a founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, also the author of the award-winning book titled Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza.
Mosab, welcome back to Democracy Now! We talked to you just after you made it out of Gaza, following some of your family members. You had been detained. Can you describe that journey and the family members that are still left in Gaza, particularly your brother’s wife, who is about to give birth?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: [Inaudible] for having me, and thanks to Democracy Now! for the continued coverage of the massacres that are taking place in Gaza.
I was on the show a few weeks ago with you, and I describe the horrific experience that I went through. Just yesterday, I watched a video of merciless Israeli soldiers stripping naked fellow Palestinian civilians, and they were beating them in the face, beating them in the stomach. They are outside in the open in the cold weather. And I’m really surprised, because when some media outlets communicated with the Israeli army about my case, they said, “Well, we deny everything he says. It’s true we took him. We interrogated him. But we did not attack him.” But we can see on videos now that are coming out on social media by Israeli soldiers the merciless treatment of Palestinians. So, everything this army is doing is inhumane, is against whatever a child can think of doing. Even a child cannot do anything like that to a cat or to a mouse.
Yesterday, my wife told me that my son, every time he is going to sleep, he starts to weep and sob and cry out loud sometimes. And he asks about his friends in Gaza. Are they eating well? Do they have water? And what about his parents — his grandparents, sorry, about his cousins?
So, what is going on right now in Gaza is really unprecedented. I can’t think of another case in history where everything is taking place live. And the world leaders are supporting Israel with whatever they can. I was released, thankfully, after a lot of friends and media outlets wrote about my case. But there are still hundreds and hundreds of innocent people who are still under Israeli custody, who are being stripped naked, who are being beaten in the face and thrown outside in the cold.
My parents and my siblings are still back in Gaza. My parents and three of my siblings and their children are in north Gaza, a place where there are only six ambulances for about more than 500,000 Palestinians there. They are running out of food, running out of water. Yesterday, my brother sent me a voice message from his phone, about to cry. There is no bread for the children. There is no medicine for the cold and the flu, not to mention that there is no medicine for people with chronic diseases. And we have been telling the whole world about this on social media, on TV, and no one is listening.
I mean, Israel is accusing Egypt of closing the border with Gaza. But this is a big lie, because from day one, Israel bombed the Rafah border crossing, and they are bombing the aid trucks. And they are not allowing the UNRWA commission general from going to north Gaza. So, this is a very highly official person, and he is not allowed to go to Gaza, because they are saying, “Oh, Hamas is stealing the aid from the people.” But, OK, let international staff go into the north of Gaza and see what’s happening there. Why are you blocking the way between the northern part and the southern part? And they are still.
So, from day one, Israel asked people from the north of Gaza to go south. And now they are continuing to bomb the southern part of the Gaza Strip. So nowhere is safe, whether it’s north Gaza or south Gaza. And there was — yesterday I posted something on social media, and someone with — I don’t know what kind of people they are — and he said, “Why is your brother still in north Gaza?” I mean, do you mean that if he left — if he had left north Gaza, he would live in peace in south Gaza? My friends and my neighbors and my wife’s family are in north Gaza, and they are starving, and many of them were killed. So where do we go?
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the telecommunications blackout that went on for something like eight days, and what that means for someone like your sister-in-law when it comes to giving birth?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Well, Israel was really cruel enough not only to cut off water and food from the people in Gaza, but they also cut electricity. They cut off internet connection. They cut off mobile services and landline services also. So, this is not — I mean, this is not about me calling my brother: “Hi. How are you? Are you still alive?” No, it’s even when someone is being bombed — and many people are under the rubble, by the way, until now. They are under the rubble, and they send sometimes messages from their phone services. I mean, the only way people can communicate with the outside world is using an eSIM card that they could connect to networks outside of Gaza. So, some people would send, “Oh, they bombed my neighbors’ house, and they are under the rubble. Can someone please call the Red Cross? Can someone call the ambulances?” So it’s not only about disconnecting us from each other, but also when someone is wounded, is thrown in the street, and they try to reach out to an ambulance. There is no way they can do that. So, I don’t know what kind of cruelty that lead someone to cut water, food, to cut the connection, and also to cut their lives, for they are ending the lives of everyone in Gaza, especially children.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab Abu Toha —
MOSAB ABU TOHA: And now my sister, my brother’s wife, is pregnant. Yeah. Sorry.
AMY GOODMAN: And when is she expected to give birth? She’s in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yes, she is in the Jabaliya refugee camp. She was staying at a school, at an UNRWA school, with her husband and her three other children. But because the schools are very crowded and there is no water, no toilets to use, so they sometimes go back and forth between their family house and the school, the UNRWA school, in the Jabaliya refugee camp. And by the way, our house was bombed in October, on October 28th. And we were lucky because we were not there, so no one of us was harmed.
But still, they are under the threat of being killed any moment, under the — I mean, not only by the Israeli airstrikes, but also as a mother. My brother’s wife is now pregnant. There is no guarantee that she is going to give birth just like other mothers give birth to their children. There is no cleanliness. There are no clothes for the newborn. There is no formula milk, if needed. There is no medicine for the mother if she needs any treatment. So, many people are dying, not because of the Israeli airstrikes, not because of the bombs, but also because there is not any sign of good life there.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you, Mosab Abu Toha, about the significance of massive protests around the world and in the United States, particularly led by the Jewish community, what that means to you, and also South Africa bringing this case against Israel, charging it with genocide, to the International Court of Justice.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: I was invited to read during a rabbi event for ceasefire. And we have been seeing the South African attempt to prove Israel’s genocidal attempts to kill as many Gazans as possible. So we have African people who lived under the apartheid system, and we have Jews who were killed during the Holocaust in Europe, so they are now uniting together to stop these massacres. So this tells us, as Gazans, that we share the same suffering with other people. But, unfortunately, this suffering is brought to us by other people now in Israel, Zionists, who are bringing this cycle of violence in to us — and not for a year, for a year or two. It’s been happening even before the Nakba in 1948. So this tells us that suffering is colorless, doesn’t have to be — you don’t have to be a white or a Muslim or an Arab or a male or a female. It’s enough for you to be a human to sympathize with other people and to call for a ceasefire and to stand for your fellow human beings.
And I hope that we can hear similar pleas and similar — and we can see other attempts, not by the free people of the world, but also if there is any free leader in the world who can step in and say out loud to stop the massacres, the nonstop massacres of the Palestinian people, and to call for a just solution to the Palestinian case.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab, we spoke to you right before Refaat Alareer was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, the renowned Palestinian poet. I know he was a close friend of yours. I was wondering if you could share your remembrance of him. Talk about his significance and how he died.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Well, first of all, Refaat’s death is not a unique death. There are many other intelligent and wonderful and lovely people who were killed the same way. And by the way, many people don’t know this, but Refaat’s body is still under the rubble of the house that was bombed. So, I want everyone to imagine that your brother, that your father, that your neighbor was not only killed, but his body is still under the rubble, and the body is starting to decay. I don’t know what remains of Refaat’s body. This really breaks my heart.
I would like to remember Refaat as someone who was always ready to listen to our literary works. He likes — he liked to read some of Shakespeare’s sonnets, of John Donne’s poems. He was a huge fan of John Donne. I would like to remember Refaat as someone who loves — who loved to go to strawberry farms and pick strawberries with me and to play pun games.
Refaat is someone who didn’t want to die. And in his poem “If I Must Die,” he didn’t say, “If I die.” “If I must die,” if my death was a necessity, “Let it be a hope. Let it be a tale. Let it bring hope.” And it’s really very, very, very sympathetic and very, very beautiful to see that many people around the world are reading his poem and flying his kite. And I’m sure that Refaat is outside now, seeing — I mean, although his body is still under rubble, but his spirit, his soul is watching everything. He is watching the kites that are flying in the sky of the free world. And I think, I believe, that his only hope right now is that these kites will fly over Gaza to protect the children and mothers and fathers and everyone in Gaza from the Israeli airstrikes.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to end by asking about what you are calling for. The Wall Street Journal is reporting the U.S., Qatar and Egypt are pushing Israel and Hamas to take part in what the paper describes as a “phased diplomatic process” involving the release of hostages and the eventual withdrawal of Israeli forces. But following the report, Netanyahu said he rejects the proposal because it calls for the war to end. Your response, Mosab?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: OK. So, I don’t think that any ceasefire that is going to be signed between Hamas and Israel is going to end the Palestinians’ suffering. So, if this suffering does not end, I don’t think that there will be peace. What should be called for is a just solution to the Palestinian case. It’s not only about the hostages. It’s not about even the children who are being killed now. Because if there is no peace, if there is, I mean, not realistic peace, if peace is not been reached, I think that we will unfortunately witness more and more of the killings of innocent people everywhere.
What I call for is a ceasefire, because we want to save as many children and many family members as possible. What I’m calling for — I mean, if they can’t, I mean, impose a ceasefire right now, at least get some food and some water and some sanitary pads to the mothers and everyone in north Gaza at least. I mean, I don’t know what makes this world powerless in front of Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab Abu Toha, I want to thank you for being with us, Palestinian poet and author, detained by Israeli authorities as he and his family fled Gaza, a columnist, a teacher, founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, author of the award-winning book, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza. We’ll also link to his pieces in The New Yorker magazine.
***
“Israelism” on Tour: New Film Examines American Jews’ Growing Rejection of Israel’s Occupation
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 22, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/22/ ... transcript
Transcript
The new documentary Israelism examines the growing generational divide among Jewish Americans on the question of Palestine, with many younger Jews increasingly critical of Israel and less supportive of Zionism. Simone Zimmerman, one of the protagonists of the film and a co-founder of the group IfNotNow, says she grew up being told that supporting Israel was central to her Jewish identity, but that collapsed once she visited the Occupied Palestinian Territories and saw the system of apartheid under which millions live. “It’s so deeply contrary to our values as Jewish people to support this disgusting oppression and denial of freedom,” she says. We are also joined by Erin Axelman, co-director and one of the producers of Israelism, who says Zimmerman’s journey mirrors their own and those of many other young Jews who realize they “must fight for the freedom and equality of Palestinians while also fighting antisemitism.” The film is on a 40-city screening tour in Canada and the United States after previous efforts to ban the screenings on several campuses.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Six students have sued Harvard University, accusing it of becoming “a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment” and tolerating intensifying harassment of Jewish students since October 7th. This comes as reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia have soared nationwide, but there’s been a broader effort to restrict pro-Palestinian speech on college and university campuses and to conflate antisemitism with criticism of Israel’s occupation and demands for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The former Harvard President Claudine Gay was forced to resign earlier this month, just weeks after the University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill stepped down in the wake of a congressional hearing on antisemitism where they were grilled by lawmakers, including the far-right New York Congressmember Elise Stefanik.
The lawsuit against Harvard was filed by two law firms, including the New York-based Kasowitz Benson Torres, which filed similar lawsuits against New York University and the University of Pennsylvania. The firm also has ties to the Trump administration.
The lawsuit refers to student-led marches on Harvard’s campus in support of Palestinian rights as “mobs of pro-Hamas students and faculty” and singles out a screening at Harvard Divinity School in September of the new documentary Israelism, which examines the relationship between Jews in the United States and the state of Israel, and the disillusionment as they begin to question Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
In a minute, we’ll speak with one of the film’s directors and one of the main subjects. This is the film’s trailer.
UNIDENTIFIED: Some American Jews who come here say, “We came to Israel, and we left from Palestine.”
ABE FOXMAN: The non-Jewish community does not understand our obsession with Israel.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: I went to a Jewish day school.
EITAN: Summer camp, organized trips to Israel.
TEACHER: Do you want to go to Israel, too?
STUDENTS: Yeah! We want to go! We want to go!
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Israeli soldiers, they are hot. They’re awesome. They’re strong.
JACQUI SCHULEFAND: We actually have had quite a few of our former students join the IDF. These are kids. These are 18-, 19-year-olds. Amazing.
EITAN: I told my parents, “I don’t even need to apply to college. I am going to just join the Israeli military.”
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Ten percent of my graduating class joined the Israeli army.
EITAN: We were deployed to the West Bank.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: I don’t think I realized the extent to which what I would come to see on the ground would really shock me and horrify me.
LARA FRIEDMAN: When people look at the West Bank today and say this is an apartheid system, it’s not just throwing out a word.
UNIDENTIFIED: Palestinians living, day in, day out, without experiencing a day of freedom.
PETER BEINART: And you see what non-democracy looks like.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: What we’ve been told is that the only way that Jews can be safe is if Palestinians are not safe. The more I learned about that, the more I came to see that as a lie.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Within the Jewish community, there’s been a striking change.
JEREMY BEN-AMI: They’re really angry at the way they were indoctrinated, justifiably so.
ABE FOXMAN: When we talk about we’re losing the kids, we not — we lost them. I think they’re a little super naive.
CORNEL WEST: Any time you cut against the grain, you’re going to catch hell.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: “You are a self-loathing Jew. Go kill yourself. You’re an antisemitic Jew.”
SARAH ANNE MINKIN: The way that we talk about antisemitism isn’t about protecting Jews. It’s about protecting Israel. How dangerous is that?
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: They will do anything to preserve unconditional support for Israel.
LARA FRIEDMAN: The great irony is that there actually is a resurgent antisemitism.
WHITE SUPREMACISTS: Jews will not replace us!
LARA FRIEDMAN: History is not going to judge us kindly.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the trailer for the documentary Israelism.
For more, we’re joined in Toronto by Erin Axelman, co-director of Israelism. The film is now on a 40-city screening tour in Canada and the United States. Here in New York, we’re joined by Simone Zimmerman, Jewish American activist, co-founder of IfNotNow, one of the main protagonists of Israelism.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Erin, let’s begin with you. Why did you make this film?
ERIN AXELMAN: Yeah, this film is really based off my story. It’s based off a story of young American Jews learning a idealized and sanitized version of Israeli history, and really falling in love with that history, but, upon coming into contact with Palestinians and Palestinian narratives, having quite the rude awakening upon learning about the horrific oppression of the Palestinian people.
So, upon learning about the Nakba and the occupation as a young person, I wanted to do all I could in whatever way, big or small, to help change my own Jewish community, as well as to end the horrific oppression of the Palestinian people. And I began trying to come into contact with more and more people who had similar experiences,, and I began to realize that my own story was part of a much larger generational change, as hundreds of thousands of young American Jews begin to realize that to live out our Jewish values to the best of our ability, we must fight for the freedom and equality of Palestinians while also fighting against antisemitism.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the organizations that you chronicle, that you sort of depict in this film, those that are challenging the state of Israel and those that are supporting it, that the other groups are taking on.
ERIN AXELMAN: Definitely. We really — Simone is the main character and protagonist in the film. And we really try to tell a generational story, and I’m telling my own story through Simone, in many ways. We really chronicle a variety of progressive Jewish groups, including IfNotNow, Jewish Voice for Peace, J Street and many others.
And then we also, on the right, document a lot of pro-Israel groups. We had Abe Foxman as one of the main characters in the film, the director emeritus and former head of the Anti-Defamation League. We talk extensively about Birthright and AIPAC and other groups that have tried to keep the status quo of unconditional support for Israel alive and well.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s bring Simone Zimmerman into this conversation. Why don’t you tell us about your upbringing, Simone? Talk about your allegiance to the state of Israel, how it was instilled with you, and then talk about your transformation.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Absolutely. I grew up in a Jewish community where, you know, the Holocaust was a formative part of my upbringing, and I saw defending the state of Israel as a core part of what it meant to keep the Jewish people safe. It was a core Jewish commitment for me, so much so that when I actually met anti-Zionist Jews, anti-Zionist Israelis, people who were fighting occupation and apartheid when I was a college student at UC Berkeley, I couldn’t even believe that those people existed. They were an anomaly to me.
And the more I met those students and, more importantly, met Palestinian students, learned about their lives, about, you know, what it means, from the moment that you’re born, to live under a system that deems you lesser, less worthy, that you have to live under occupation and oppression and dispossession just because of who you are and where you were born, I very quickly ran out of answers that felt moral and logical to me to answer the hard questions that I was hearing from these students about how I could justify the oppression that they lived under.
AMY GOODMAN: Simone, I wanted to go to that moment at UC Berkeley — you’re a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley — a clip from Israelism, which features you in 2010 there, when the student Senate failed to override a veto of a bill calling on campus officials to divest from companies that supply weapons that Israel uses in the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: I just knew it was this bad thing that I had to fight.
BILL OPPONENT 1: It is antisemitism. It is.
BILL OPPONENT 2: You are trying to make me feel marginalized on my own campus.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: And I remember all of us going, “Well, you shouldn’t boycott Israel, because it’s applying a double standard. And you shouldn’t boycott Israel, because it’s unfair to single out Israel.”
BILL OPPONENT 3: Please, I beg of you. I beg you, please, to have compassion and to remember that we are alienating students. And I am devastated by this bill. I am a human being.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: I still remember you have these Palestinian students who get up and said, you know, “Jewish students, you are crying about feeling silenced and marginalized. You know, my aunts and cousins didn’t sleep for weeks while bombs were falling overhead in Gaza. What do you have to say to that?”
BILL SUPPORTER: If divestment is hostile, then where do we begin to describe the hostility of a military occupation?
AMY GOODMAN: Simone Zimmerman, if you can talk about that moment at UC Berkeley, what exactly was happening, and how you decided to explore further the kind of questioning that actually also came out of your Jewish education?
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Absolutely. Well, you know, first, I want to say it’s striking to have this conversation right now as the Israeli military has destroyed all the universities in Gaza right now. And for me, I remember when I was in that campus debate, the way that this narrative about Jewish students being unsafe on campus is actually, I think, a deep conflation between being unsafe and being uncomfortable. I was deeply uncomfortable. I did not know about the realities that Palestinians lived under. I was systematically denied an education about that reality. And to this day, we see pro-Israel organizations working to do everything they can to change the topic away from Palestinian suffering onto Jewish discomfort.
You know what? Occupation and apartheid are deeply uncomfortable. We should all be uncomfortable and outraged by what’s happening in Gaza right now. And again, as I already said, the more I listened to Palestinian students testify about their realities, the more it was undeniable to me that I was missing a huge part of the story, and I had to go find out more.
AMY GOODMAN: Erin Axelman, I wanted you to introduce us to Eitan, an American who decides not to go to college first, but to serve in the IDF. We’re about to play a clip of him.
EITAN: From our hands and threw him to the ground while he’s still blindfolded and hands tied behind his back, and they started kicking him for a good few minutes. I was responsible for this man’s well-being. I was responsible to bring him from the checkpoint to the detention center. That was my job. And right outside the fence of the detention center, they grabbed him from me, and they started beating him. I felt responsible, but my commander wasn’t saying anything, so how could I say anything? The entire time that this was happening, a military police officer was standing just inside the fence watching and smoking a cigarette. As soon as these guys were done kicking this Palestinian man, the military police officer tossed his cigarette, he came, brought him inside the detention center. And I didn’t even speak up. I didn’t speak up. And that’s just one of many stories that I have from my time in the West Bank.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Eitan. It reminds me of our previous guest, Mosab Abu Toha, describing being beaten by the IDF. Well, he, Eitan, came to serve in Israel in the IDF. Tell us more about him and his transformation.
ERIN AXELMAN: Yeah, many American Jews are told that to defend the Jewish people and to be a good Jewish person, one of the best things you can do is to join the Israeli military or support the Israeli military. In the film, we extensively interview Hillel educators and an Israel fellow at the University of Connecticut, and they openly brag about how many kids they’ve gotten to serve in the Israeli military. And that is deeply tragic.
And I have had friends, American Jewish friends, who have also served. And they join as young people, as 18-year-olds, thinking that they’re doing a great thing by defending the Jewish people. And then many of them are sent to the occupied West Bank, and they quickly realize that they are actually a cog in a system of apartheid, a system that places you in a different legal system based upon the race you are born into. And so many American Jews, and some Israelis, as well, when they actually realize that this is what they’re doing — they’re not defending the Jewish people; they’re actually defending a settlement expansionist program in the West Bank, that is very literally a system of apartheid — it is devastating, and it is heartbreaking.
Obviously, they’re not the greatest victims. The greatest victims, of course, are the Palestinians who have to face that apartheid. But it’s inspiring to see members of Breaking the Silence, both Israelis and Americans, speak out and say, “We thought we were joining to do something, and we found out that we were actually, again, a part of this apartheid system,” and they are going to do everything they can to end this system of occupation and apartheid. And so, we really wanted to include someone like him, because it’s a common story, and it’s also the story of many of my friends, who were — served in the Israeli military, realized that they were part of a system of apartheid, and are now doing all they can to end that system.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Simone Zimmerman, you didn’t serve in the IDF, but you did go to Israel and the Occupied Territories. You also, for a moment — what was it? For two days? — became the outreach coordinator for the Bernie Sanders campaign, before a campaign was waged against you. Talk about your trajectory, going to the Occupied Territories, coming back, founding IfNotNow.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Yeah, I went. You know, I had grown up spending time in Israel. I felt deeply connected to the place. I thought I knew — I thought I knew Israel. But the way that the apartheid system is actually built is such that Israeli Jews don’t actually have to see the reality that Palestinians live under. They can drive on roads. You know, they can drive on the side of the wall where they don’t have to see what is on the other side, the daily horrors and brutality and deep denial of dignity and freedom that Palestinians live under.
And once I saw those realities with my own eyes, once I met people who had been evicted from their homes, who were denied basic freedom of movement, people just like me who want to live in freedom and safety, whose every piece of their lives have been destroyed and constricted by a system of Jewish supremacy, I couldn’t unsee those things. And again, as Erin has already spoke about, this is a story that thousands of Jewish people around the world have encountered. And we know that it’s so deeply contrary to our values as Jewish people to support this disgusting oppression and denial of freedom from another people. And I’ve been part of this generation that includes IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace and many other groups that are taking on an outdated establishment that wants to enforce a pro-Israel orthodoxy and will do everything they can to attack and marginalize and silence anybody who dissents from that viewpoint.
You mentioned at the beginning of this segment the lawsuit going on at Harvard University. I can’t help but bring up right now the attacks that we’ve seen over the weekend on Derek Penslar, the director of a Jewish studies center at Harvard University, a world-renowned Jewish studies scholar. And he has been attacked for being named to an antisemitism task force at Harvard just because he criticizes the Israeli government.
So we’re seeing how far this establishment is willing to go to attack and marginalize anybody who doesn’t toe that very strict and narrow orthodoxy, and increasingly anybody who doesn’t defend this government’s genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip. And it’s absurd, but it’s also deeply dangerous and offensive to those of us who are acting out of a deep place of intellectual integrity, of Jewish values, of a commitment to justice, who want to build a world of genuine safety and freedom and dignity for Jewish people and for Palestinians. And that old guard is more and more desperate to keep any of us out of public life and political life, and certainly not to be legitimized as a legitimate Jewish voice.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Erin Axelman, you’re in Canada. Simone is here in New York. You’re starting yet another tour of the film. As Simone mentioned, Israelism is mentioned in the Harvard lawsuit, equating antisemitism with anti-Zionism or criticism of the Israeli state. Your final thoughts as the two of you travel both countries?
ERIN AXELMAN: Totally. You know, it’s ironic. You know, there was four attempted cancellations of screenings that we had in the fall. And at all of those screenings, it was actually Jewish groups, Jewish student groups or Jewish faculty, who were bringing this to the venue or university. So it’s very ironic that under the guise of protecting Jewish students or fighting antisemitism, administrations or venues are trying to cancel a film brought by Jewish people, made by Jewish people, about Jewish people. And it just shows how confused this moment is, and how all criticism of Israel, even if it’s being made by Jews, is often considered antisemitic, and which is totally absurd and really makes it much more difficult to fight real antisemitism.
And as we’re about to do this screening tour, we’re sure there’s going to be quite a few attempted cancellations. We just found out that Barnard’s president is attempting to unilaterally cancel a screening of Israelism in February. We’re working with the faculty, and we will make this screening happen. And we will fight all attempts to cancel our screenings. And we’ll also be part of the movement to fight back against attempted censorship of any pro-Palestinian or progressive Jewish voices.
AMY GOODMAN: Erin Axelman, co-director of Israelism, and Simone Zimmerman, Jewish American activist, co-founder of IfNotNow.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 22, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/22/ ... transcript
Transcript
Palestinian health authorities say the death toll in Gaza has passed 25,000. This comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly affirmed in recent days that he opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, saying Israel must maintain indefinite military control between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. We get an update and speak with Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, who was detained by Israeli authorities as he and his family fled Gaza in late November. He says that while there must be an immediate ceasefire to stop the suffering, only “a just solution to the Palestinian case” will bring long-term stability to the region. “If there is no peace, … we will unfortunately witness more and more of the killings of innocent people everywhere,” he says.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Gaza, where the death toll from Israel’s 15-week war has topped 25,000. There are reports Israel is blowing up entire neighborhoods of the besieged city of Khan Younis. Al Jazeera reports Israel has targeted hospitals, ambulances and schools in the city where thousands of civilians are sheltering.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports the United States, Qatar and Egypt are pushing Israel and Hamas to take part in what the paper describes as a “phased diplomatic process” involving the release of hostages held in Gaza and the eventual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. After the report was published, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he rejects the proposal because it calls for the war to end. On Thursday, Netanyahu also publicly rejected calls by the Biden administration for the future establishment of a Palestinian state and called for Israel to be in control of the region from the river to the sea.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] I clarify that in any arrangement in the foreseeable future, with an accord or without an accord, the state of Israel must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River. This is a necessary condition. It clashes with the principle of sovereignty. What can you do? I tell this truth to our American friends, and I also stopped the attempt to impose a reality on us that would harm Israel’s security. A prime minister in Israel should be able to say no even to our best friends, say no when necessary and say yes when possible.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Netanyahu faces growing domestic pressure to bring home the remaining 130 hostages held in Gaza. Earlier today, the Israel Knesset session was suspended after hostages’ families disrupted a committee meeting, demanding lawmakers do more to free their loved ones. Protesters also blocked entrances to the Knesset.
For more, we’re joined in Cairo, Egypt, by Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian poet and author, who was detained by Israeli authorities as he and his family fled Gaza. He wrote about his experience in a New Yorker article headlined “A Palestinian Poet’s Perilous Journey Out of Gaza.” He’s a columnist, a teacher, a founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, also the author of the award-winning book titled Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza.
Mosab, welcome back to Democracy Now! We talked to you just after you made it out of Gaza, following some of your family members. You had been detained. Can you describe that journey and the family members that are still left in Gaza, particularly your brother’s wife, who is about to give birth?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: [Inaudible] for having me, and thanks to Democracy Now! for the continued coverage of the massacres that are taking place in Gaza.
I was on the show a few weeks ago with you, and I describe the horrific experience that I went through. Just yesterday, I watched a video of merciless Israeli soldiers stripping naked fellow Palestinian civilians, and they were beating them in the face, beating them in the stomach. They are outside in the open in the cold weather. And I’m really surprised, because when some media outlets communicated with the Israeli army about my case, they said, “Well, we deny everything he says. It’s true we took him. We interrogated him. But we did not attack him.” But we can see on videos now that are coming out on social media by Israeli soldiers the merciless treatment of Palestinians. So, everything this army is doing is inhumane, is against whatever a child can think of doing. Even a child cannot do anything like that to a cat or to a mouse.
Yesterday, my wife told me that my son, every time he is going to sleep, he starts to weep and sob and cry out loud sometimes. And he asks about his friends in Gaza. Are they eating well? Do they have water? And what about his parents — his grandparents, sorry, about his cousins?
So, what is going on right now in Gaza is really unprecedented. I can’t think of another case in history where everything is taking place live. And the world leaders are supporting Israel with whatever they can. I was released, thankfully, after a lot of friends and media outlets wrote about my case. But there are still hundreds and hundreds of innocent people who are still under Israeli custody, who are being stripped naked, who are being beaten in the face and thrown outside in the cold.
My parents and my siblings are still back in Gaza. My parents and three of my siblings and their children are in north Gaza, a place where there are only six ambulances for about more than 500,000 Palestinians there. They are running out of food, running out of water. Yesterday, my brother sent me a voice message from his phone, about to cry. There is no bread for the children. There is no medicine for the cold and the flu, not to mention that there is no medicine for people with chronic diseases. And we have been telling the whole world about this on social media, on TV, and no one is listening.
I mean, Israel is accusing Egypt of closing the border with Gaza. But this is a big lie, because from day one, Israel bombed the Rafah border crossing, and they are bombing the aid trucks. And they are not allowing the UNRWA commission general from going to north Gaza. So, this is a very highly official person, and he is not allowed to go to Gaza, because they are saying, “Oh, Hamas is stealing the aid from the people.” But, OK, let international staff go into the north of Gaza and see what’s happening there. Why are you blocking the way between the northern part and the southern part? And they are still.
So, from day one, Israel asked people from the north of Gaza to go south. And now they are continuing to bomb the southern part of the Gaza Strip. So nowhere is safe, whether it’s north Gaza or south Gaza. And there was — yesterday I posted something on social media, and someone with — I don’t know what kind of people they are — and he said, “Why is your brother still in north Gaza?” I mean, do you mean that if he left — if he had left north Gaza, he would live in peace in south Gaza? My friends and my neighbors and my wife’s family are in north Gaza, and they are starving, and many of them were killed. So where do we go?
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the telecommunications blackout that went on for something like eight days, and what that means for someone like your sister-in-law when it comes to giving birth?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Well, Israel was really cruel enough not only to cut off water and food from the people in Gaza, but they also cut electricity. They cut off internet connection. They cut off mobile services and landline services also. So, this is not — I mean, this is not about me calling my brother: “Hi. How are you? Are you still alive?” No, it’s even when someone is being bombed — and many people are under the rubble, by the way, until now. They are under the rubble, and they send sometimes messages from their phone services. I mean, the only way people can communicate with the outside world is using an eSIM card that they could connect to networks outside of Gaza. So, some people would send, “Oh, they bombed my neighbors’ house, and they are under the rubble. Can someone please call the Red Cross? Can someone call the ambulances?” So it’s not only about disconnecting us from each other, but also when someone is wounded, is thrown in the street, and they try to reach out to an ambulance. There is no way they can do that. So, I don’t know what kind of cruelty that lead someone to cut water, food, to cut the connection, and also to cut their lives, for they are ending the lives of everyone in Gaza, especially children.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab Abu Toha —
MOSAB ABU TOHA: And now my sister, my brother’s wife, is pregnant. Yeah. Sorry.
AMY GOODMAN: And when is she expected to give birth? She’s in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yes, she is in the Jabaliya refugee camp. She was staying at a school, at an UNRWA school, with her husband and her three other children. But because the schools are very crowded and there is no water, no toilets to use, so they sometimes go back and forth between their family house and the school, the UNRWA school, in the Jabaliya refugee camp. And by the way, our house was bombed in October, on October 28th. And we were lucky because we were not there, so no one of us was harmed.
But still, they are under the threat of being killed any moment, under the — I mean, not only by the Israeli airstrikes, but also as a mother. My brother’s wife is now pregnant. There is no guarantee that she is going to give birth just like other mothers give birth to their children. There is no cleanliness. There are no clothes for the newborn. There is no formula milk, if needed. There is no medicine for the mother if she needs any treatment. So, many people are dying, not because of the Israeli airstrikes, not because of the bombs, but also because there is not any sign of good life there.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you, Mosab Abu Toha, about the significance of massive protests around the world and in the United States, particularly led by the Jewish community, what that means to you, and also South Africa bringing this case against Israel, charging it with genocide, to the International Court of Justice.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: I was invited to read during a rabbi event for ceasefire. And we have been seeing the South African attempt to prove Israel’s genocidal attempts to kill as many Gazans as possible. So we have African people who lived under the apartheid system, and we have Jews who were killed during the Holocaust in Europe, so they are now uniting together to stop these massacres. So this tells us, as Gazans, that we share the same suffering with other people. But, unfortunately, this suffering is brought to us by other people now in Israel, Zionists, who are bringing this cycle of violence in to us — and not for a year, for a year or two. It’s been happening even before the Nakba in 1948. So this tells us that suffering is colorless, doesn’t have to be — you don’t have to be a white or a Muslim or an Arab or a male or a female. It’s enough for you to be a human to sympathize with other people and to call for a ceasefire and to stand for your fellow human beings.
And I hope that we can hear similar pleas and similar — and we can see other attempts, not by the free people of the world, but also if there is any free leader in the world who can step in and say out loud to stop the massacres, the nonstop massacres of the Palestinian people, and to call for a just solution to the Palestinian case.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab, we spoke to you right before Refaat Alareer was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, the renowned Palestinian poet. I know he was a close friend of yours. I was wondering if you could share your remembrance of him. Talk about his significance and how he died.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Well, first of all, Refaat’s death is not a unique death. There are many other intelligent and wonderful and lovely people who were killed the same way. And by the way, many people don’t know this, but Refaat’s body is still under the rubble of the house that was bombed. So, I want everyone to imagine that your brother, that your father, that your neighbor was not only killed, but his body is still under the rubble, and the body is starting to decay. I don’t know what remains of Refaat’s body. This really breaks my heart.
I would like to remember Refaat as someone who was always ready to listen to our literary works. He likes — he liked to read some of Shakespeare’s sonnets, of John Donne’s poems. He was a huge fan of John Donne. I would like to remember Refaat as someone who loves — who loved to go to strawberry farms and pick strawberries with me and to play pun games.
Refaat is someone who didn’t want to die. And in his poem “If I Must Die,” he didn’t say, “If I die.” “If I must die,” if my death was a necessity, “Let it be a hope. Let it be a tale. Let it bring hope.” And it’s really very, very, very sympathetic and very, very beautiful to see that many people around the world are reading his poem and flying his kite. And I’m sure that Refaat is outside now, seeing — I mean, although his body is still under rubble, but his spirit, his soul is watching everything. He is watching the kites that are flying in the sky of the free world. And I think, I believe, that his only hope right now is that these kites will fly over Gaza to protect the children and mothers and fathers and everyone in Gaza from the Israeli airstrikes.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to end by asking about what you are calling for. The Wall Street Journal is reporting the U.S., Qatar and Egypt are pushing Israel and Hamas to take part in what the paper describes as a “phased diplomatic process” involving the release of hostages and the eventual withdrawal of Israeli forces. But following the report, Netanyahu said he rejects the proposal because it calls for the war to end. Your response, Mosab?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: OK. So, I don’t think that any ceasefire that is going to be signed between Hamas and Israel is going to end the Palestinians’ suffering. So, if this suffering does not end, I don’t think that there will be peace. What should be called for is a just solution to the Palestinian case. It’s not only about the hostages. It’s not about even the children who are being killed now. Because if there is no peace, if there is, I mean, not realistic peace, if peace is not been reached, I think that we will unfortunately witness more and more of the killings of innocent people everywhere.
What I call for is a ceasefire, because we want to save as many children and many family members as possible. What I’m calling for — I mean, if they can’t, I mean, impose a ceasefire right now, at least get some food and some water and some sanitary pads to the mothers and everyone in north Gaza at least. I mean, I don’t know what makes this world powerless in front of Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab Abu Toha, I want to thank you for being with us, Palestinian poet and author, detained by Israeli authorities as he and his family fled Gaza, a columnist, a teacher, founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, author of the award-winning book, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza. We’ll also link to his pieces in The New Yorker magazine.
***
“Israelism” on Tour: New Film Examines American Jews’ Growing Rejection of Israel’s Occupation
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 22, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/22/ ... transcript
Transcript
The new documentary Israelism examines the growing generational divide among Jewish Americans on the question of Palestine, with many younger Jews increasingly critical of Israel and less supportive of Zionism. Simone Zimmerman, one of the protagonists of the film and a co-founder of the group IfNotNow, says she grew up being told that supporting Israel was central to her Jewish identity, but that collapsed once she visited the Occupied Palestinian Territories and saw the system of apartheid under which millions live. “It’s so deeply contrary to our values as Jewish people to support this disgusting oppression and denial of freedom,” she says. We are also joined by Erin Axelman, co-director and one of the producers of Israelism, who says Zimmerman’s journey mirrors their own and those of many other young Jews who realize they “must fight for the freedom and equality of Palestinians while also fighting antisemitism.” The film is on a 40-city screening tour in Canada and the United States after previous efforts to ban the screenings on several campuses.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Six students have sued Harvard University, accusing it of becoming “a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment” and tolerating intensifying harassment of Jewish students since October 7th. This comes as reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia have soared nationwide, but there’s been a broader effort to restrict pro-Palestinian speech on college and university campuses and to conflate antisemitism with criticism of Israel’s occupation and demands for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The former Harvard President Claudine Gay was forced to resign earlier this month, just weeks after the University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill stepped down in the wake of a congressional hearing on antisemitism where they were grilled by lawmakers, including the far-right New York Congressmember Elise Stefanik.
The lawsuit against Harvard was filed by two law firms, including the New York-based Kasowitz Benson Torres, which filed similar lawsuits against New York University and the University of Pennsylvania. The firm also has ties to the Trump administration.
The lawsuit refers to student-led marches on Harvard’s campus in support of Palestinian rights as “mobs of pro-Hamas students and faculty” and singles out a screening at Harvard Divinity School in September of the new documentary Israelism, which examines the relationship between Jews in the United States and the state of Israel, and the disillusionment as they begin to question Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
In a minute, we’ll speak with one of the film’s directors and one of the main subjects. This is the film’s trailer.
UNIDENTIFIED: Some American Jews who come here say, “We came to Israel, and we left from Palestine.”
ABE FOXMAN: The non-Jewish community does not understand our obsession with Israel.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: I went to a Jewish day school.
EITAN: Summer camp, organized trips to Israel.
TEACHER: Do you want to go to Israel, too?
STUDENTS: Yeah! We want to go! We want to go!
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Israeli soldiers, they are hot. They’re awesome. They’re strong.
JACQUI SCHULEFAND: We actually have had quite a few of our former students join the IDF. These are kids. These are 18-, 19-year-olds. Amazing.
EITAN: I told my parents, “I don’t even need to apply to college. I am going to just join the Israeli military.”
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Ten percent of my graduating class joined the Israeli army.
EITAN: We were deployed to the West Bank.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: I don’t think I realized the extent to which what I would come to see on the ground would really shock me and horrify me.
LARA FRIEDMAN: When people look at the West Bank today and say this is an apartheid system, it’s not just throwing out a word.
UNIDENTIFIED: Palestinians living, day in, day out, without experiencing a day of freedom.
PETER BEINART: And you see what non-democracy looks like.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: What we’ve been told is that the only way that Jews can be safe is if Palestinians are not safe. The more I learned about that, the more I came to see that as a lie.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Within the Jewish community, there’s been a striking change.
JEREMY BEN-AMI: They’re really angry at the way they were indoctrinated, justifiably so.
ABE FOXMAN: When we talk about we’re losing the kids, we not — we lost them. I think they’re a little super naive.
CORNEL WEST: Any time you cut against the grain, you’re going to catch hell.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: “You are a self-loathing Jew. Go kill yourself. You’re an antisemitic Jew.”
SARAH ANNE MINKIN: The way that we talk about antisemitism isn’t about protecting Jews. It’s about protecting Israel. How dangerous is that?
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: They will do anything to preserve unconditional support for Israel.
LARA FRIEDMAN: The great irony is that there actually is a resurgent antisemitism.
WHITE SUPREMACISTS: Jews will not replace us!
LARA FRIEDMAN: History is not going to judge us kindly.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the trailer for the documentary Israelism.
For more, we’re joined in Toronto by Erin Axelman, co-director of Israelism. The film is now on a 40-city screening tour in Canada and the United States. Here in New York, we’re joined by Simone Zimmerman, Jewish American activist, co-founder of IfNotNow, one of the main protagonists of Israelism.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Erin, let’s begin with you. Why did you make this film?
ERIN AXELMAN: Yeah, this film is really based off my story. It’s based off a story of young American Jews learning a idealized and sanitized version of Israeli history, and really falling in love with that history, but, upon coming into contact with Palestinians and Palestinian narratives, having quite the rude awakening upon learning about the horrific oppression of the Palestinian people.
So, upon learning about the Nakba and the occupation as a young person, I wanted to do all I could in whatever way, big or small, to help change my own Jewish community, as well as to end the horrific oppression of the Palestinian people. And I began trying to come into contact with more and more people who had similar experiences,, and I began to realize that my own story was part of a much larger generational change, as hundreds of thousands of young American Jews begin to realize that to live out our Jewish values to the best of our ability, we must fight for the freedom and equality of Palestinians while also fighting against antisemitism.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the organizations that you chronicle, that you sort of depict in this film, those that are challenging the state of Israel and those that are supporting it, that the other groups are taking on.
ERIN AXELMAN: Definitely. We really — Simone is the main character and protagonist in the film. And we really try to tell a generational story, and I’m telling my own story through Simone, in many ways. We really chronicle a variety of progressive Jewish groups, including IfNotNow, Jewish Voice for Peace, J Street and many others.
And then we also, on the right, document a lot of pro-Israel groups. We had Abe Foxman as one of the main characters in the film, the director emeritus and former head of the Anti-Defamation League. We talk extensively about Birthright and AIPAC and other groups that have tried to keep the status quo of unconditional support for Israel alive and well.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s bring Simone Zimmerman into this conversation. Why don’t you tell us about your upbringing, Simone? Talk about your allegiance to the state of Israel, how it was instilled with you, and then talk about your transformation.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Absolutely. I grew up in a Jewish community where, you know, the Holocaust was a formative part of my upbringing, and I saw defending the state of Israel as a core part of what it meant to keep the Jewish people safe. It was a core Jewish commitment for me, so much so that when I actually met anti-Zionist Jews, anti-Zionist Israelis, people who were fighting occupation and apartheid when I was a college student at UC Berkeley, I couldn’t even believe that those people existed. They were an anomaly to me.
And the more I met those students and, more importantly, met Palestinian students, learned about their lives, about, you know, what it means, from the moment that you’re born, to live under a system that deems you lesser, less worthy, that you have to live under occupation and oppression and dispossession just because of who you are and where you were born, I very quickly ran out of answers that felt moral and logical to me to answer the hard questions that I was hearing from these students about how I could justify the oppression that they lived under.
AMY GOODMAN: Simone, I wanted to go to that moment at UC Berkeley — you’re a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley — a clip from Israelism, which features you in 2010 there, when the student Senate failed to override a veto of a bill calling on campus officials to divest from companies that supply weapons that Israel uses in the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: I just knew it was this bad thing that I had to fight.
BILL OPPONENT 1: It is antisemitism. It is.
BILL OPPONENT 2: You are trying to make me feel marginalized on my own campus.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: And I remember all of us going, “Well, you shouldn’t boycott Israel, because it’s applying a double standard. And you shouldn’t boycott Israel, because it’s unfair to single out Israel.”
BILL OPPONENT 3: Please, I beg of you. I beg you, please, to have compassion and to remember that we are alienating students. And I am devastated by this bill. I am a human being.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: I still remember you have these Palestinian students who get up and said, you know, “Jewish students, you are crying about feeling silenced and marginalized. You know, my aunts and cousins didn’t sleep for weeks while bombs were falling overhead in Gaza. What do you have to say to that?”
BILL SUPPORTER: If divestment is hostile, then where do we begin to describe the hostility of a military occupation?
AMY GOODMAN: Simone Zimmerman, if you can talk about that moment at UC Berkeley, what exactly was happening, and how you decided to explore further the kind of questioning that actually also came out of your Jewish education?
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Absolutely. Well, you know, first, I want to say it’s striking to have this conversation right now as the Israeli military has destroyed all the universities in Gaza right now. And for me, I remember when I was in that campus debate, the way that this narrative about Jewish students being unsafe on campus is actually, I think, a deep conflation between being unsafe and being uncomfortable. I was deeply uncomfortable. I did not know about the realities that Palestinians lived under. I was systematically denied an education about that reality. And to this day, we see pro-Israel organizations working to do everything they can to change the topic away from Palestinian suffering onto Jewish discomfort.
You know what? Occupation and apartheid are deeply uncomfortable. We should all be uncomfortable and outraged by what’s happening in Gaza right now. And again, as I already said, the more I listened to Palestinian students testify about their realities, the more it was undeniable to me that I was missing a huge part of the story, and I had to go find out more.
AMY GOODMAN: Erin Axelman, I wanted you to introduce us to Eitan, an American who decides not to go to college first, but to serve in the IDF. We’re about to play a clip of him.
EITAN: From our hands and threw him to the ground while he’s still blindfolded and hands tied behind his back, and they started kicking him for a good few minutes. I was responsible for this man’s well-being. I was responsible to bring him from the checkpoint to the detention center. That was my job. And right outside the fence of the detention center, they grabbed him from me, and they started beating him. I felt responsible, but my commander wasn’t saying anything, so how could I say anything? The entire time that this was happening, a military police officer was standing just inside the fence watching and smoking a cigarette. As soon as these guys were done kicking this Palestinian man, the military police officer tossed his cigarette, he came, brought him inside the detention center. And I didn’t even speak up. I didn’t speak up. And that’s just one of many stories that I have from my time in the West Bank.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Eitan. It reminds me of our previous guest, Mosab Abu Toha, describing being beaten by the IDF. Well, he, Eitan, came to serve in Israel in the IDF. Tell us more about him and his transformation.
ERIN AXELMAN: Yeah, many American Jews are told that to defend the Jewish people and to be a good Jewish person, one of the best things you can do is to join the Israeli military or support the Israeli military. In the film, we extensively interview Hillel educators and an Israel fellow at the University of Connecticut, and they openly brag about how many kids they’ve gotten to serve in the Israeli military. And that is deeply tragic.
And I have had friends, American Jewish friends, who have also served. And they join as young people, as 18-year-olds, thinking that they’re doing a great thing by defending the Jewish people. And then many of them are sent to the occupied West Bank, and they quickly realize that they are actually a cog in a system of apartheid, a system that places you in a different legal system based upon the race you are born into. And so many American Jews, and some Israelis, as well, when they actually realize that this is what they’re doing — they’re not defending the Jewish people; they’re actually defending a settlement expansionist program in the West Bank, that is very literally a system of apartheid — it is devastating, and it is heartbreaking.
Obviously, they’re not the greatest victims. The greatest victims, of course, are the Palestinians who have to face that apartheid. But it’s inspiring to see members of Breaking the Silence, both Israelis and Americans, speak out and say, “We thought we were joining to do something, and we found out that we were actually, again, a part of this apartheid system,” and they are going to do everything they can to end this system of occupation and apartheid. And so, we really wanted to include someone like him, because it’s a common story, and it’s also the story of many of my friends, who were — served in the Israeli military, realized that they were part of a system of apartheid, and are now doing all they can to end that system.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Simone Zimmerman, you didn’t serve in the IDF, but you did go to Israel and the Occupied Territories. You also, for a moment — what was it? For two days? — became the outreach coordinator for the Bernie Sanders campaign, before a campaign was waged against you. Talk about your trajectory, going to the Occupied Territories, coming back, founding IfNotNow.
SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Yeah, I went. You know, I had grown up spending time in Israel. I felt deeply connected to the place. I thought I knew — I thought I knew Israel. But the way that the apartheid system is actually built is such that Israeli Jews don’t actually have to see the reality that Palestinians live under. They can drive on roads. You know, they can drive on the side of the wall where they don’t have to see what is on the other side, the daily horrors and brutality and deep denial of dignity and freedom that Palestinians live under.
And once I saw those realities with my own eyes, once I met people who had been evicted from their homes, who were denied basic freedom of movement, people just like me who want to live in freedom and safety, whose every piece of their lives have been destroyed and constricted by a system of Jewish supremacy, I couldn’t unsee those things. And again, as Erin has already spoke about, this is a story that thousands of Jewish people around the world have encountered. And we know that it’s so deeply contrary to our values as Jewish people to support this disgusting oppression and denial of freedom from another people. And I’ve been part of this generation that includes IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace and many other groups that are taking on an outdated establishment that wants to enforce a pro-Israel orthodoxy and will do everything they can to attack and marginalize and silence anybody who dissents from that viewpoint.
You mentioned at the beginning of this segment the lawsuit going on at Harvard University. I can’t help but bring up right now the attacks that we’ve seen over the weekend on Derek Penslar, the director of a Jewish studies center at Harvard University, a world-renowned Jewish studies scholar. And he has been attacked for being named to an antisemitism task force at Harvard just because he criticizes the Israeli government.
So we’re seeing how far this establishment is willing to go to attack and marginalize anybody who doesn’t toe that very strict and narrow orthodoxy, and increasingly anybody who doesn’t defend this government’s genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip. And it’s absurd, but it’s also deeply dangerous and offensive to those of us who are acting out of a deep place of intellectual integrity, of Jewish values, of a commitment to justice, who want to build a world of genuine safety and freedom and dignity for Jewish people and for Palestinians. And that old guard is more and more desperate to keep any of us out of public life and political life, and certainly not to be legitimized as a legitimate Jewish voice.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Erin Axelman, you’re in Canada. Simone is here in New York. You’re starting yet another tour of the film. As Simone mentioned, Israelism is mentioned in the Harvard lawsuit, equating antisemitism with anti-Zionism or criticism of the Israeli state. Your final thoughts as the two of you travel both countries?
ERIN AXELMAN: Totally. You know, it’s ironic. You know, there was four attempted cancellations of screenings that we had in the fall. And at all of those screenings, it was actually Jewish groups, Jewish student groups or Jewish faculty, who were bringing this to the venue or university. So it’s very ironic that under the guise of protecting Jewish students or fighting antisemitism, administrations or venues are trying to cancel a film brought by Jewish people, made by Jewish people, about Jewish people. And it just shows how confused this moment is, and how all criticism of Israel, even if it’s being made by Jews, is often considered antisemitic, and which is totally absurd and really makes it much more difficult to fight real antisemitism.
And as we’re about to do this screening tour, we’re sure there’s going to be quite a few attempted cancellations. We just found out that Barnard’s president is attempting to unilaterally cancel a screening of Israelism in February. We’re working with the faculty, and we will make this screening happen. And we will fight all attempts to cancel our screenings. And we’ll also be part of the movement to fight back against attempted censorship of any pro-Palestinian or progressive Jewish voices.
AMY GOODMAN: Erin Axelman, co-director of Israelism, and Simone Zimmerman, Jewish American activist, co-founder of IfNotNow.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
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“Many of My Shows Have Been Canceled”: Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei on Israel, Gaza & Censorship
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 23, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/23/ ... transcript
Transcript
We speak with acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who recently had an exhibition in London canceled after he publicly criticized Israel’s assault on Gaza. “We are gradually losing the ground of democracy or personal freedom,” says Ai, whose show in London was indefinitely postponed after he posted a controversial tweet about Israel in November. He joins Democracy Now! to discuss his longtime support of Palestine and Western hypocrisy over human rights and free speech. Ai Weiwei also describes his new graphic novel Zodiac, about his experiences as a Chinese dissident.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We turn now to the acclaimed Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei. In November, he had an exhibit in London canceled after he wrote a social media post where he criticized the United States for its longtime financial support of Israel. Ai Weiwei has previously expressed support for Palestinians. He made a 2016 documentary, that includes Gaza in the global refugee crisis, called Human Flow.
Ai Weiwei is one of the world’s most acclaimed artists. In 2011, he was arrested at the Beijing airport, held for 81 days without charge. He’s been living in exile since 2015. He’s joining us here in New York City ahead of his event tonight at Town Hall that’s part of PEN America’s PEN Out Loud series, when he’ll discuss his new graphic memoir, Zodiac.
Ai Weiwei, welcome back to Democracy Now! Let’s start with that canceled London exhibit. What happened?
AI WEIWEI: Well, after I post, you know, a single line on Twitter, I never noticed people really become so sensitive or so crazy about my posts. Basically, post described the situation about the Israelis’ relations with U.S., and which is very, very — you know, it’s very subjective. It’s not from my point of view, but it’s really general facts.
So, then, you know, the galleries— actually, not one gallery, but galleries in Paris and in London — they got very worried. And I still don’t know exactly the reason why they have to worry about an artist’s single line, you know, but, rather, they said they want to avoid this kind of argument, and they’re trying to protect my interest, so they postponed my shows — not one, but altogether four shows.
So, I guess that proved what I’m saying on Twitter is correct, because there is all over the world, you know, this strong censorship about different voices towards these kind of conflicts, and the conflict continues getting so massive and also seems it’s not going to stop. So, by doing that, yes, many of my shows have been canceled, so…
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Were you surprised by the reaction, given that you’ve been — not only are you one of the most celebrated artists from China in the West, but also you’ve been a vocal supporter of the Palestinians for years?
AI WEIWEI: I am surprised. I think we are — should live in a more free society and which carry a lot of different opinions and voice. But to have this kind of devastating case in dealing with the art community, not only art community, but also films or literature, I think it shows a really very bad and a backwards in terms of freedom of expression, human rights and, you know, all those issues.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, there are not many Chinese artists as celebrated and embraced by the West as you are, Ai Weiwei. Were you surprised by the swift retaliation against your position, which is really critiquing the West, in London, Britain and the U.S., when it comes to supporting the Israeli government, when it comes to the assault on Gaza?
AI WEIWEI: I think maybe I was celebrated for the wrong reason. But still, as the artist, I have to fight for the human dignity and also basic human rights, freedom of speech. And that’s why I’m here, so…
AMY GOODMAN: Can I ask about your graphic novel, Ai Weiwei? Talk about Zodiac and the message you’re conveying in this graphic memoir.
AI WEIWEI: Well, thanks for asking that. I came to New York to be part of this graphic novel — how do you say? — the promotion. And the novel take us about two, three years, with two other persons involved. And so, we made the drawing and the storyline, and, you know, it’s very — I think it’s pretty unique and also charming in telling my personal stories in relating to Chinese classic stories, but also in relating to current events both in China and in the West. So, it’s very detailed and, you know, very visual narratives about the stories.
AMY GOODMAN: Ai Weiwei, your message to the world right now? You are a dissident when it comes to China. You cannot live inside China. You’re in exile. And now, when you come and are embraced by the West, you find yourself canceled again and again. Your thoughts?
AI WEIWEI: Well, I think we are living in a very crucial time globally. We have to rethink about our values or what we are really defending for. It’s not only a challenge for individual artists, but also for the states. And we are gradually losing the ground of democracy or personal freedom, or even we are still facing crisis — economic crisis, immigration crisis. Also, we are possibly at the edge of the World War III. You know, this is not an exaggeration. It can happen. And I’m afraid this is the facts. But that would calling for every individual to defend the humanity and human rights.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us, Ai Weiwei, world-renowned Chinese artist and activist, has a new graphic memoir called Zodiac. He’ll be speaking tonight at Town Hall in New York.
***
Marianne Williamson on Running for President, Challenging Biden & Calling for a Gaza Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 23, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/23/ ... transcript
Transcript
It’s primary day in New Hampshire. As Donald Trump and Nikki Haley square off in the Republican race, we speak to 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson on her longshot campaign against President Biden. In an unusual twist, Williamson’s name is on today’s ballot, but Biden’s is not. Biden opted out of running in New Hampshire after the state refused to move its primary until after South Carolina’s. Williamson discusses why she’s running for president, her antiwar platform, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, immigration reform and the New Hampshire primary election. “Just like with health and sickness, you don’t just treat sickness, you learn to cultivate health,” she says. “We need to not just drop bombs and put people in prison when there is conflict. We need to learn to prevent conflict. We need to proactively create peace.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Voting has begun in New Hampshire in the nation’s first primary. On the Republican side, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is hoping to pull off an upset over former President Donald Trump, who won last week’s caucus in Iowa by a record margin. On the Democratic side, there is a primary today in New Hampshire, but it’s received little attention, in part because President Joe Biden’s name will not be on the ballot, though supporters are organizing an unofficial write-in campaign.
The Democratic National Committee stripped New Hampshire of its delegates after it refused to move its primary until after South Carolina. Historically, Iowa and New Hampshire have held the first contests, giving two of the whitest states in the nation considerable clout in the nominating process. In 2022, the DNC voted to hold the first primary in South Carolina, which has a significant population of color. Iowa agreed to the changes; the Democratic Iowa caucus will take place later. But New Hampshire did not and went ahead anyway with the primary of the Democratic Party, as well as the Republicans.
Over two dozen other candidates will be on the Democratic ballot in New Hampshire, most prominently Congressmember Dean Phillips of Minnesota and our next guest, Marianne Williamson, a best-selling author, self-described spiritual thought leader, who also ran for president in 2020. Williamson has campaigned for a single-payer healthcare system, cutting the Pentagon’s budget, creating a U.S. Department of Peace, and boldly addressing the climate crisis. She has also supported a ceasefire in Gaza. Marianne Williamson is joining us now from Manchester, New Hampshire.
Marianne Williamson, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the fact that you are the only person on the Democratic ticket right now, of the major Democratic candidates, who is supporting a Gaza ceasefire? And then go into your call for a Department of Peace.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: The ceasefire — even before the invasion of Gaza by the Israelis, I was on a video saying I thought it was a bad idea. And I have been calling for a ceasefire since the moment it began. You know, obviously, there’s a big difference between supporting Israel and supporting the Israeli government. There’s a big difference between supporting Israel and supporting the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu. And I’ve been very sorry to see the U.S. government go along with his policy and this war. I think it’s a terrible idea. It’s terrible for Israel, obviously terrible for the Palestinians, for the region and, I think, for the world.
In terms of the Department of Peace, you know, Franklin Roosevelt said we need to do more than end wars. We need to end the beginnings of all wars. Just like with health and sickness, you don’t just treat sickness. You learn to cultivate health. And we need to not just, you know, drop bombs and put people in prison when there is conflict. We need to learn to prevent conflict. We need to learn to proactively create peace.
And there are four — there are four main factors involved in what’s called peacebuilding. And when these factors are present, statistically, that means there’s going to be a higher incidence of peace and a lower incidence of conflict. And this is true whether it’s a corner of an American city or another place in the world. And those factors are greater economic opportunities for women, greater educational opportunities for children, a reduction of violence against women, and an amelioration of unnecessary human despair.
So, just like they play war games, we need to play peace games. Just like we have a military academy, we need to have a peace academy. Just like we have an army of military personnel, we need armies of peace builders. And we need to have that same kind of serious focus and resources placed in creating peace that we now have on fighting wars. This forever war machine that the United States has is a path to disaster in this century.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Marianne Williamson, can you talk about your decision to run as a Democrat rather than as an independent, given how much you diverge in many of your positions from the — against the Democratic Party elite?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Well, that’s the point. I don’t diverge from the traditional values of the Democratic Party. They do. I’m a Roosevelt Democrat. I believe that the policies of the U.S. government should be used to help people. Now, that Democratic establishment elite that you just referred to look at someone like myself or any progressive as though we are trying to hijack the party. In fact, they hijacked the party. We’re Franklin and Eleanor, and they’re the DuPonts and the Whitneys and the Morgans. They’re a bunch of economic royalists. You know, that Democratic elite that you’re talking about in the Democratic Party, when I was growing up, they would have been called Republicans. So, I’m where in — you know, in my youth and in my growing up and just sort of my perspective, I’m where the center of the Democratic Party should and would have been, had it not been for this profound influx of corporate money that has infused both parties.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you often invoke the idea of traditional values in your speeches. Could you talk a little bit more about what you mean by those traditional values?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Well, I think that there’s common sense involved in our trying to be better people. I think no matter whether someone is approaching this from a religious perspective or a secular perspective, we all know that if you try to be a person of integrity, of generosity, of forgiveness, owning your own mistakes but forgiving other people for theirs, your life works better. And I think that those same values and those same considerations, those same reflections on what it means to be good, should apply to public policy as much as it applies to our personal behavior.
Our public policy is guided by an essentially bankrupt, on a moral level, economic paradigm. There’s no sense of ethics. There’s no sense of owing anything to anyone. It’s all fiduciary responsibility to the stockholder. And that has been going on for 50 years now, and it has devastated this country. It has completely hollowed out our middle class. It has led to a $50 trillion transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. If all you care about is stockholder value, at the expense of every other stakeholder’s interest, at the expense of the workers, at the expense of the community, at the expense of the environment, what happens? What happens is what has happened to this country, where a majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. A majority of Americans cannot absorb a $500 unexpected expenditure. And now 39% of Americans claim that they regularly skip meals in order to pay their rent. This is intolerable. It is unacceptable. And we need a president who will say so.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to talk about you being on the Democratic primary ballot. At a presidential forum you were at, that I co-moderated, in South Carolina in 2019 —
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: I remember.
AMY GOODMAN: — I questioned then-Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren during that forum at South Carolina State about the primary calendar.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Warren, just 30 seconds left. But speaking about racial injustice, do you think the order of the primary states should change? You have Iowa and New Hampshire —
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: Wait, let me make — let me just — before you finish, are you actually going to ask me to sit here and criticize Iowa and New Hampshire?
AMY GOODMAN: No, I’m asking about the order.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: No, that is what Iowa and New Hampshire are all about.
AMY GOODMAN: But let me just ask. They’re two of the whitest states in the country, and then we move to South Carolina with a very significant population of people of color, and it means the candidates spend so much of their time catering to those first two states. Overall, do you think that should change?
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: Look, I’m just a player in the game on this one. And I am delighted to be in South Carolina. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you so much.
MUSTAFA ALI: Thank you, Senator.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: It’s good to see you.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Massachusetts senator and then-presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren. If you could respond to that question, Marianne Williamson? I mean, the reason the DNC — they weren’t canceling the New Hampshire primary. They just said Iowa and New Hampshire should come after, later, especially South Carolina, which has a larger community of color. Talk about your decision to be on the New Hampshire ballot.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Well, if the DNC was honestly, authentically and sincerely coming from a place of concern about racial diversity, that would be one thing. I don’t think that’s what happened here, and I don’t even think — I don’t know anyone in South Carolina who really thinks that’s what happened here. What happened here is that Joe Biden came in fourth place or fifth place last time, and they wanted to avoid an embarrassment.
Obviously, racial diversity matters. But let me tell you what else matters, and that is economic diversity. And when you want to talk about the actual experience of the average American, the working-class Americans in the United States, New Hampshire is as much a ground zero as is any other state. I don’t think that any of us should be thinking in terms of playing favorites with the states. And I’m just showing up where there are people. New Hampshire responded to the DNC by saying, “No, our state Constitution says we’re having a primary, and that’s just the way it is.” And so, I’m here because they’re having a primary. And I’m taking my cue from the people, and not from the DNC.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Marianne Williamson, I wanted to ask you about your position on supporting the ceasefire in Gaza. You’ve supported that since October. Do you think that the failure of the Democratic Party leadership and President Biden to take a clearer stand in defense of the Palestinian people is going to result in large numbers of young people, especially, turning away from this election?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: I think it’s a risk, unless we nominate someone, like myself, who’s been very clear about all this from the beginning. You know, the president showed great moral clarity on October 7th, but he needs to show the same moral clarity regarding what has happened to the Palestinians. And yeah, I think young people, particularly, see a deep injustice there. And yeah, I think that’s a good reason for the Democrats to nominate somebody who represents a stand for not just greater justice for the Palestinians, but for bold American leadership, to make sure that we are robustly and equally committed to the peace, safety, security and sovereignty of both peoples, both Israeli and Palestinian.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the New Hampshire’s “Vote Ceasefire” campaign? Even though President Biden isn’t on the ballot, there is a write-in campaign for him, but there’s also a write-in campaign to just say “ceasefire.” Your thoughts on this, Marianne Williamson?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Well, I believe that if we’re really concerned about the citizens of Gaza, if we’re most deeply concerned about what action would most get Joe Biden’s attention and make him actually reconsider his policies, I think it would be voting for a candidate who actually stands for a ceasefire. I would think that my getting a lot of votes, given the fact that I, in fact, do stand for a ceasefire, would get more of a raised eyebrow from the president than would a write-in campaign for “ceasefire.” But like in all of these things, the average — not the average — the citizen, the voter gets to make their decision for themselves. I hope that people who are considering writing in “ceasefire” from that position, which I know is a sincere desire to help the people of Gaza, I hope they will consider the possibility, which I believe is the reality, that a vote for me would be a stronger statement.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you what happened at Davos. The government-corporate elite there seemed to say that they think that President Trump is going to win this next election. When the stakes are this high, the two main contenders, Biden versus Trump, of course, always thrown around in the United States for any third party or another Democratic presidential candidate, like yourself, is you could be the spoiler in this high-stakes election. Your response to that?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Well, first of all, it’s important to remember that this, today, is a primary. You cannot be a spoiler in a primary. In terms of the general election, I think all of us who are committed to Donald Trump not returning to the White House have a lot to think about there. I would never do anything that I felt would increase the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the presidency.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We have less than a minute left, but I wanted to ask you about immigration, which has become a major, major issue once again in this presidential race. Your stance on the whole issue of sealing the border and reducing undocumented migration into the country and limiting the number of asylum seekers?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Asylum, to me, is a sacrosanct principle. Obviously, Congress has failed us, obviously, on the level of the symptom. We simply need greater infrastructure. We need more judges. We need more interviewers. We need more people who can establish credible fear, move people on in the process of integrating into American society, if they do meet that standard. Others need to go back to their home countries and begin the process legally from there.
However, in this issue as in so many others, my candidacy represents an intention to look at root cause and not just symptom. We need to ask ourselves: Why do so many people feel such a desperate need to make their way to the United States, from Latin America particularly? And if we look at that, we see America’s fingerprints in far too many ways.
I want to help the American people wisely and compassionately look in the mirror. If you look at the ways that our own foreign policy over the last 40, 50, 60 years have contributed to the economic destabilization of so many of these countries, I want to see the United States help restabilize what we, in too many ways, helped destabilize. That will include removing the sanctions on Venezuela, removing the sanctions on Cuba, removing Cuba from the terrorist list, obviously, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: And in addition to that, we should be giving far more aid. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Marianne Williamson, 2024 Democratic presidential candidate, on the ballot in New Hampshire. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 23, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/23/ ... transcript
Transcript
We speak with acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who recently had an exhibition in London canceled after he publicly criticized Israel’s assault on Gaza. “We are gradually losing the ground of democracy or personal freedom,” says Ai, whose show in London was indefinitely postponed after he posted a controversial tweet about Israel in November. He joins Democracy Now! to discuss his longtime support of Palestine and Western hypocrisy over human rights and free speech. Ai Weiwei also describes his new graphic novel Zodiac, about his experiences as a Chinese dissident.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We turn now to the acclaimed Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei. In November, he had an exhibit in London canceled after he wrote a social media post where he criticized the United States for its longtime financial support of Israel. Ai Weiwei has previously expressed support for Palestinians. He made a 2016 documentary, that includes Gaza in the global refugee crisis, called Human Flow.
Ai Weiwei is one of the world’s most acclaimed artists. In 2011, he was arrested at the Beijing airport, held for 81 days without charge. He’s been living in exile since 2015. He’s joining us here in New York City ahead of his event tonight at Town Hall that’s part of PEN America’s PEN Out Loud series, when he’ll discuss his new graphic memoir, Zodiac.
Ai Weiwei, welcome back to Democracy Now! Let’s start with that canceled London exhibit. What happened?
AI WEIWEI: Well, after I post, you know, a single line on Twitter, I never noticed people really become so sensitive or so crazy about my posts. Basically, post described the situation about the Israelis’ relations with U.S., and which is very, very — you know, it’s very subjective. It’s not from my point of view, but it’s really general facts.
So, then, you know, the galleries— actually, not one gallery, but galleries in Paris and in London — they got very worried. And I still don’t know exactly the reason why they have to worry about an artist’s single line, you know, but, rather, they said they want to avoid this kind of argument, and they’re trying to protect my interest, so they postponed my shows — not one, but altogether four shows.
So, I guess that proved what I’m saying on Twitter is correct, because there is all over the world, you know, this strong censorship about different voices towards these kind of conflicts, and the conflict continues getting so massive and also seems it’s not going to stop. So, by doing that, yes, many of my shows have been canceled, so…
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Were you surprised by the reaction, given that you’ve been — not only are you one of the most celebrated artists from China in the West, but also you’ve been a vocal supporter of the Palestinians for years?
AI WEIWEI: I am surprised. I think we are — should live in a more free society and which carry a lot of different opinions and voice. But to have this kind of devastating case in dealing with the art community, not only art community, but also films or literature, I think it shows a really very bad and a backwards in terms of freedom of expression, human rights and, you know, all those issues.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, there are not many Chinese artists as celebrated and embraced by the West as you are, Ai Weiwei. Were you surprised by the swift retaliation against your position, which is really critiquing the West, in London, Britain and the U.S., when it comes to supporting the Israeli government, when it comes to the assault on Gaza?
AI WEIWEI: I think maybe I was celebrated for the wrong reason. But still, as the artist, I have to fight for the human dignity and also basic human rights, freedom of speech. And that’s why I’m here, so…
AMY GOODMAN: Can I ask about your graphic novel, Ai Weiwei? Talk about Zodiac and the message you’re conveying in this graphic memoir.
AI WEIWEI: Well, thanks for asking that. I came to New York to be part of this graphic novel — how do you say? — the promotion. And the novel take us about two, three years, with two other persons involved. And so, we made the drawing and the storyline, and, you know, it’s very — I think it’s pretty unique and also charming in telling my personal stories in relating to Chinese classic stories, but also in relating to current events both in China and in the West. So, it’s very detailed and, you know, very visual narratives about the stories.
AMY GOODMAN: Ai Weiwei, your message to the world right now? You are a dissident when it comes to China. You cannot live inside China. You’re in exile. And now, when you come and are embraced by the West, you find yourself canceled again and again. Your thoughts?
AI WEIWEI: Well, I think we are living in a very crucial time globally. We have to rethink about our values or what we are really defending for. It’s not only a challenge for individual artists, but also for the states. And we are gradually losing the ground of democracy or personal freedom, or even we are still facing crisis — economic crisis, immigration crisis. Also, we are possibly at the edge of the World War III. You know, this is not an exaggeration. It can happen. And I’m afraid this is the facts. But that would calling for every individual to defend the humanity and human rights.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us, Ai Weiwei, world-renowned Chinese artist and activist, has a new graphic memoir called Zodiac. He’ll be speaking tonight at Town Hall in New York.
***
Marianne Williamson on Running for President, Challenging Biden & Calling for a Gaza Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 23, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/23/ ... transcript
Transcript
It’s primary day in New Hampshire. As Donald Trump and Nikki Haley square off in the Republican race, we speak to 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson on her longshot campaign against President Biden. In an unusual twist, Williamson’s name is on today’s ballot, but Biden’s is not. Biden opted out of running in New Hampshire after the state refused to move its primary until after South Carolina’s. Williamson discusses why she’s running for president, her antiwar platform, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, immigration reform and the New Hampshire primary election. “Just like with health and sickness, you don’t just treat sickness, you learn to cultivate health,” she says. “We need to not just drop bombs and put people in prison when there is conflict. We need to learn to prevent conflict. We need to proactively create peace.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Voting has begun in New Hampshire in the nation’s first primary. On the Republican side, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is hoping to pull off an upset over former President Donald Trump, who won last week’s caucus in Iowa by a record margin. On the Democratic side, there is a primary today in New Hampshire, but it’s received little attention, in part because President Joe Biden’s name will not be on the ballot, though supporters are organizing an unofficial write-in campaign.
The Democratic National Committee stripped New Hampshire of its delegates after it refused to move its primary until after South Carolina. Historically, Iowa and New Hampshire have held the first contests, giving two of the whitest states in the nation considerable clout in the nominating process. In 2022, the DNC voted to hold the first primary in South Carolina, which has a significant population of color. Iowa agreed to the changes; the Democratic Iowa caucus will take place later. But New Hampshire did not and went ahead anyway with the primary of the Democratic Party, as well as the Republicans.
Over two dozen other candidates will be on the Democratic ballot in New Hampshire, most prominently Congressmember Dean Phillips of Minnesota and our next guest, Marianne Williamson, a best-selling author, self-described spiritual thought leader, who also ran for president in 2020. Williamson has campaigned for a single-payer healthcare system, cutting the Pentagon’s budget, creating a U.S. Department of Peace, and boldly addressing the climate crisis. She has also supported a ceasefire in Gaza. Marianne Williamson is joining us now from Manchester, New Hampshire.
Marianne Williamson, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the fact that you are the only person on the Democratic ticket right now, of the major Democratic candidates, who is supporting a Gaza ceasefire? And then go into your call for a Department of Peace.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: The ceasefire — even before the invasion of Gaza by the Israelis, I was on a video saying I thought it was a bad idea. And I have been calling for a ceasefire since the moment it began. You know, obviously, there’s a big difference between supporting Israel and supporting the Israeli government. There’s a big difference between supporting Israel and supporting the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu. And I’ve been very sorry to see the U.S. government go along with his policy and this war. I think it’s a terrible idea. It’s terrible for Israel, obviously terrible for the Palestinians, for the region and, I think, for the world.
In terms of the Department of Peace, you know, Franklin Roosevelt said we need to do more than end wars. We need to end the beginnings of all wars. Just like with health and sickness, you don’t just treat sickness. You learn to cultivate health. And we need to not just, you know, drop bombs and put people in prison when there is conflict. We need to learn to prevent conflict. We need to learn to proactively create peace.
And there are four — there are four main factors involved in what’s called peacebuilding. And when these factors are present, statistically, that means there’s going to be a higher incidence of peace and a lower incidence of conflict. And this is true whether it’s a corner of an American city or another place in the world. And those factors are greater economic opportunities for women, greater educational opportunities for children, a reduction of violence against women, and an amelioration of unnecessary human despair.
So, just like they play war games, we need to play peace games. Just like we have a military academy, we need to have a peace academy. Just like we have an army of military personnel, we need armies of peace builders. And we need to have that same kind of serious focus and resources placed in creating peace that we now have on fighting wars. This forever war machine that the United States has is a path to disaster in this century.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Marianne Williamson, can you talk about your decision to run as a Democrat rather than as an independent, given how much you diverge in many of your positions from the — against the Democratic Party elite?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Well, that’s the point. I don’t diverge from the traditional values of the Democratic Party. They do. I’m a Roosevelt Democrat. I believe that the policies of the U.S. government should be used to help people. Now, that Democratic establishment elite that you just referred to look at someone like myself or any progressive as though we are trying to hijack the party. In fact, they hijacked the party. We’re Franklin and Eleanor, and they’re the DuPonts and the Whitneys and the Morgans. They’re a bunch of economic royalists. You know, that Democratic elite that you’re talking about in the Democratic Party, when I was growing up, they would have been called Republicans. So, I’m where in — you know, in my youth and in my growing up and just sort of my perspective, I’m where the center of the Democratic Party should and would have been, had it not been for this profound influx of corporate money that has infused both parties.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you often invoke the idea of traditional values in your speeches. Could you talk a little bit more about what you mean by those traditional values?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Well, I think that there’s common sense involved in our trying to be better people. I think no matter whether someone is approaching this from a religious perspective or a secular perspective, we all know that if you try to be a person of integrity, of generosity, of forgiveness, owning your own mistakes but forgiving other people for theirs, your life works better. And I think that those same values and those same considerations, those same reflections on what it means to be good, should apply to public policy as much as it applies to our personal behavior.
Our public policy is guided by an essentially bankrupt, on a moral level, economic paradigm. There’s no sense of ethics. There’s no sense of owing anything to anyone. It’s all fiduciary responsibility to the stockholder. And that has been going on for 50 years now, and it has devastated this country. It has completely hollowed out our middle class. It has led to a $50 trillion transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. If all you care about is stockholder value, at the expense of every other stakeholder’s interest, at the expense of the workers, at the expense of the community, at the expense of the environment, what happens? What happens is what has happened to this country, where a majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. A majority of Americans cannot absorb a $500 unexpected expenditure. And now 39% of Americans claim that they regularly skip meals in order to pay their rent. This is intolerable. It is unacceptable. And we need a president who will say so.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to talk about you being on the Democratic primary ballot. At a presidential forum you were at, that I co-moderated, in South Carolina in 2019 —
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: I remember.
AMY GOODMAN: — I questioned then-Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren during that forum at South Carolina State about the primary calendar.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Warren, just 30 seconds left. But speaking about racial injustice, do you think the order of the primary states should change? You have Iowa and New Hampshire —
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: Wait, let me make — let me just — before you finish, are you actually going to ask me to sit here and criticize Iowa and New Hampshire?
AMY GOODMAN: No, I’m asking about the order.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: No, that is what Iowa and New Hampshire are all about.
AMY GOODMAN: But let me just ask. They’re two of the whitest states in the country, and then we move to South Carolina with a very significant population of people of color, and it means the candidates spend so much of their time catering to those first two states. Overall, do you think that should change?
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: Look, I’m just a player in the game on this one. And I am delighted to be in South Carolina. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you so much.
MUSTAFA ALI: Thank you, Senator.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: It’s good to see you.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Massachusetts senator and then-presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren. If you could respond to that question, Marianne Williamson? I mean, the reason the DNC — they weren’t canceling the New Hampshire primary. They just said Iowa and New Hampshire should come after, later, especially South Carolina, which has a larger community of color. Talk about your decision to be on the New Hampshire ballot.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Well, if the DNC was honestly, authentically and sincerely coming from a place of concern about racial diversity, that would be one thing. I don’t think that’s what happened here, and I don’t even think — I don’t know anyone in South Carolina who really thinks that’s what happened here. What happened here is that Joe Biden came in fourth place or fifth place last time, and they wanted to avoid an embarrassment.
Obviously, racial diversity matters. But let me tell you what else matters, and that is economic diversity. And when you want to talk about the actual experience of the average American, the working-class Americans in the United States, New Hampshire is as much a ground zero as is any other state. I don’t think that any of us should be thinking in terms of playing favorites with the states. And I’m just showing up where there are people. New Hampshire responded to the DNC by saying, “No, our state Constitution says we’re having a primary, and that’s just the way it is.” And so, I’m here because they’re having a primary. And I’m taking my cue from the people, and not from the DNC.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Marianne Williamson, I wanted to ask you about your position on supporting the ceasefire in Gaza. You’ve supported that since October. Do you think that the failure of the Democratic Party leadership and President Biden to take a clearer stand in defense of the Palestinian people is going to result in large numbers of young people, especially, turning away from this election?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: I think it’s a risk, unless we nominate someone, like myself, who’s been very clear about all this from the beginning. You know, the president showed great moral clarity on October 7th, but he needs to show the same moral clarity regarding what has happened to the Palestinians. And yeah, I think young people, particularly, see a deep injustice there. And yeah, I think that’s a good reason for the Democrats to nominate somebody who represents a stand for not just greater justice for the Palestinians, but for bold American leadership, to make sure that we are robustly and equally committed to the peace, safety, security and sovereignty of both peoples, both Israeli and Palestinian.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the New Hampshire’s “Vote Ceasefire” campaign? Even though President Biden isn’t on the ballot, there is a write-in campaign for him, but there’s also a write-in campaign to just say “ceasefire.” Your thoughts on this, Marianne Williamson?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Well, I believe that if we’re really concerned about the citizens of Gaza, if we’re most deeply concerned about what action would most get Joe Biden’s attention and make him actually reconsider his policies, I think it would be voting for a candidate who actually stands for a ceasefire. I would think that my getting a lot of votes, given the fact that I, in fact, do stand for a ceasefire, would get more of a raised eyebrow from the president than would a write-in campaign for “ceasefire.” But like in all of these things, the average — not the average — the citizen, the voter gets to make their decision for themselves. I hope that people who are considering writing in “ceasefire” from that position, which I know is a sincere desire to help the people of Gaza, I hope they will consider the possibility, which I believe is the reality, that a vote for me would be a stronger statement.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you what happened at Davos. The government-corporate elite there seemed to say that they think that President Trump is going to win this next election. When the stakes are this high, the two main contenders, Biden versus Trump, of course, always thrown around in the United States for any third party or another Democratic presidential candidate, like yourself, is you could be the spoiler in this high-stakes election. Your response to that?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Well, first of all, it’s important to remember that this, today, is a primary. You cannot be a spoiler in a primary. In terms of the general election, I think all of us who are committed to Donald Trump not returning to the White House have a lot to think about there. I would never do anything that I felt would increase the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the presidency.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We have less than a minute left, but I wanted to ask you about immigration, which has become a major, major issue once again in this presidential race. Your stance on the whole issue of sealing the border and reducing undocumented migration into the country and limiting the number of asylum seekers?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Asylum, to me, is a sacrosanct principle. Obviously, Congress has failed us, obviously, on the level of the symptom. We simply need greater infrastructure. We need more judges. We need more interviewers. We need more people who can establish credible fear, move people on in the process of integrating into American society, if they do meet that standard. Others need to go back to their home countries and begin the process legally from there.
However, in this issue as in so many others, my candidacy represents an intention to look at root cause and not just symptom. We need to ask ourselves: Why do so many people feel such a desperate need to make their way to the United States, from Latin America particularly? And if we look at that, we see America’s fingerprints in far too many ways.
I want to help the American people wisely and compassionately look in the mirror. If you look at the ways that our own foreign policy over the last 40, 50, 60 years have contributed to the economic destabilization of so many of these countries, I want to see the United States help restabilize what we, in too many ways, helped destabilize. That will include removing the sanctions on Venezuela, removing the sanctions on Cuba, removing Cuba from the terrorist list, obviously, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: And in addition to that, we should be giving far more aid. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Marianne Williamson, 2024 Democratic presidential candidate, on the ballot in New Hampshire. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
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Report from Gaza: Palestinian Journalist Akram al-Satarri on “The Struggle to Survive, Stay Sane”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 25, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/25/ ... transcript
Transcript
We go to Rafah to speak with Palestinian journalist Akram al-Satarri in Gaza as the death toll continues to climb amid Israel’s relentless assault on the territory. The Health Ministry says at least 20 people were killed Thursday as they lined up to receive humanitarian aid, and at least 12 others were killed a day earlier at a U.N. shelter hit by tank shells. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have surrounded the two main hospitals in Khan Younis, stranding thousands of patients and displaced people inside, and evacuated a third hospital. Over 1.7 million people have been displaced in Gaza and more than 25,000 have been killed in Israel’s assault over the past three months, as the population continues to move further south in a desperate search for safety. “People are dying. People are scared,” says al-Satarri. “There is an eradication attempt that is taking place in Gaza.”
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Gaza, where the death toll continues to climb and Israel’s relentless assault continues. At least 20 Palestinians were killed today and 150 injured as they were lining up for humanitarian aid in Gaza City, this according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, with the number of casualties expected to rise.
The attack comes one day after a crowded U.N. shelter housing tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis was struck on Wednesday, setting the building on fire. At least 12 people were killed, over 75 wounded, when two tank shells hit the site, according to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA. The Israeli military, the only actor on the ground that has tanks, denied it carried out the strike.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army has surrounded and isolated the two main hospitals in Khan Younis, Nasser and al-Amal, stranding hundreds of patients and thousands of displaced people inside, that again according to UNRWA. A third hospital was evacuated overnight.
In recent days, thousands more Palestinians have rushed to escape further south, crowding into shelters and tent camps near the border with Egypt. Over 1.7 million people have been displaced in Gaza, and more than 25,000 have been killed in Israel’s assault over the past three months.
We go now to Rafah, where we’re joined by Akram al-Satarri, a journalist who’s been covering developments on the ground. He’s joining us from just outside the Yousef al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza.
Akram, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you describe what’s happening in Rafah and the reports of what’s happening in Khan Younis?
AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Well, the situation in Khan Younis is aggravating in such a very serious way. The bombardment and the targeting around the hospitals that you have just mentioned — al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, in the Khan Younis al-Amal neighborhood; Al-Khair Hospital, that was stormed by the Israeli occupation forces, and people there who are staff were interrogated, and people who are internally displaced people were arrested. Nasser Hospital has been the subject to some massive attacks, and some of those attacks targeted also UNRWA-designated shelters that are located in the immediate vicinity of the Nasser Hospital. The clinic, the UNRWA clinic that is in the heart of Khan Younis refugee camp, was — the area of its vicinity was also targeted.
People were asked to leave their homes. And some of the people who were leaving their homes were reporting about a journey of horror, devastation and imminent death that they have been seeing. They have been reporting about them seeing the people who are dead on the ground, without anyone daring to reach them or to collect their bodies or to try to extend a helping hand for the people who are screaming for help because of their lethal and bloody injuries.
The KYTC, that is run by the UNRWA, and that is also recognized by Israel as a designated shelter and protected shelter, was targeted once again. And now people who are staying in there, who are in thousands, are asked by the Israeli occupation to move from that area towards Rafah area in the very south, which means that there is more targeting underway, which means that they would be afraid and the ones who were killed and injured who were taken to Rafah rather than to Khan Younis because of the fact that the Israeli occupation closed the way between Khan Younis coastal area and Khan Younis refugee camp and Khan Younis downtown. So the situation is aggravating in that way. Hundreds of people are injured. Tens of people are killed.
Also, not far away from Khan Younis, in Gaza City, the people who were waiting in al-Kuwait roundabout were targeted. They were waiting for the humanitarian assistance because the situation in Gaza City and the north is extremely dire. People are already suffering from famine, very lacking situation when it comes to the food supplies and drinkable water. They’re waiting there. Twenty — as you said, 20 were killed, 150 others were injured. The new about this report is that among those 150, there is a very large number of people who are sustaining very critical, life-threatening injuries and who might be reported as killed, which means the number of victims of this bloody attack is expected to rise significantly in the coming hours.
So, the situation continues to feature large-scale bombardment in Khan Younis, displacement of people, destroying of whole blocks and houses, people moving, and they end up targeted when they are moving. Designated shelters that are supposed to be protected, now the people in them are asked to be IDPs once again, given that the IDPs in that area are coming mainly from the north, people who moved from the north to Gaza City, then moved from Gaza City to Gaza central area, then moved from Gaza central area to Khan Younis area. And then, from Khan Younis, they moved to the KYTC, and they are now asked for the fifth or sixth time to leave the area that they were seeking safety in, and to move in a very unsafe path towards the unknown in southern Gaza, in Rafah, which the targeting is still continuous. Number of people who are killed in Rafah is still increasing. And the Gazans, at large, are not aware what the future holds of them, with the number of IDPs reaching 1.9 million Gazans in all different areas, including the coastal area in Khan Younis and the already heavy-populated area in Rafah.
AMY GOODMAN: ”IDP” is, of course, internally displaced people. Akram, if you can describe the telecommunications blackout and the effect it has on people trying to communicate with each other, find each other, get to hospitals, reporting of injuries? And also, I don’t take for granted that we’re able even to speak to you today in Rafah, in Gaza. And if you can talk about how you both report and take care of your own family?
AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Well, if I may speak from a very personal perspective, I personally was under that imminent threat of death in Khan Younis. I lost communication with my family, with my sister, with my nephews and nieces who lost their father. I lost contact with my son. I was wondering how can I possibly survive under the imminent threat of fire.
And when I say an imminent threat of fire and death, I mean that seven people were targeted at the door of our home, the home that was hosting us. And the seven people, no one ambulance could reach them. We were trying to call 111, which is the ambulance services — sorry, 101, which is the ambulance services. We could not get through to them.
The communication blackout looks — it looks like it was intentional for the sake of cutting all communication and cutting the coverage and trying to keep Gaza isolated from the world and keep Gaza voiceless at the time that the Israeli occupation was developing the ground operation and was targeting the different areas in Khan Younis and throughout the Gaza Strip. I lost communication, and I was — and am still — facing significant challenges reporting, moving. And you never know. When you are just driving a car or just driving a taxi, or just even riding an animal-pulled cart, you don’t know whether they are going to target someone who’s walking down the street, someone who’s next to you on that animal-pulled cart, or maybe they would target you. So, it’s very difficult to understand in Gaza what’s coming next. It’s very difficult to predict who they are going to target. It’s very difficult to predict why they are targeting people.
But the bottom line, and the conclusion that we see with our own eyes, that the targeting is thorough, the destruction is larger than ever, and the suffering of the people because of that ongoing policy is unconceivable, unconceivable in the sense that I personally had to move and see the people who are dead and to try to move, and while five or six other houses around me were targeted, while I could see the artillery fire taking out whole house when I was moving in the Khan Younis area and was staying in the area that I was waiting for the situation to be a little bit safer to move, but it turned out the situation was getting from bad to worse, and the targeting was getting heavier. I was staying in the area that is called 111 area, which is a block that was designated by Israel as a safe area. And across from our area was 112 block. But the bombardment was in 111, 112, 107, 48, 86. All the blocks were targeted all at once. And that ground operation seemed to be indiscriminately sending death and destruction all over the area.
So, with that comes, as you have just said, the struggle to survive, to struggle to stay sane under this ever-escalating situation and to look for one minute of peace. I was personally thinking just yesterday that we are wanting some one second of rest and peace, even if that means we would die, even if that means they would take us, even if that means they take our life for the sake of just keeping us peaceful.
So, this is how it unfolded in Gaza, and this is how it continues to unfold. People are dying. People are scared. People are displaced. And they think they are even uprooted intentionally and there is an eradication attempt that is taking place in Gaza. The Israeli occupation has been targeting every single corner in Khan Younis. Khan Younis refugee camp, that is extremely populated and overcrowded, was targeted. When you target one house in one specific area, that means you are likely to affect around 20 to 30 houses, because the areas are very narrow, and the space, that is limited for every house. And targeting one place, explosion in one place means that this explosion, the implication of that explosion, would reach — or, the secondary wave of the explosion would reach around 20 to 30 houses.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you know the reporters that were killed most recently? I mean, the numbers are just astonishing. The Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders are all decrying the number, ranging between 80 and 120. But the latest killing of journalists, for example, Wael al-Dahdouh’s son, Hamza al-Dahdouh — did you know Mustafa Thuraya? Did you — I know that Wael has just gotten out of Gaza. He’s head of the —
AKRAM AL-SATARRI: I think we lost the connection.
AMY GOODMAN: — Al Jazeera — and he has now been operated on in Qatar. He’s now at Al Jazeera headquarters. His cameraman, Samer Abudaqa, who died in the attack. These reporters, were they friends of yours?
I think we have just lost Akram. Absolutely amazing that we were able to maintain that length of time in speaking to him in Gaza. He was speaking to us from Rafah. Akram al-Satarri is a Gaza-based journalist, joining us from southern Gaza.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, Palestinian tax revenue, Israel is refusing to release it but has made an agreement with Norway to hold it in escrow. What’s happening to Palestinians’ money? We’ll speak with a leading economist in Ramallah. Stay with us.
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Palestinian Economist Raja Khalidi on Israel’s “Economic Warfare” on Gaza and the West Bank
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 25, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/25/ ... transcript
Transcript
Among the consequences of Israel’s war on Gaza is the destruction of the local economy. Even before the latest Israeli assault, daily life and commerce in Gaza were crumbling as a result of a 15-year siege on the territory enforced by Israel and Egypt. Meanwhile, Israel is withholding millions in taxes collected on behalf of Palestinians, leaving the Palestinian Authority unable to distribute wages to many public sector employees, while more than 150,000 Palestinian workers from the West Bank are now unable to work inside Israel due to new restrictions imposed after October 7. We go to Ramallah to speak with economist Raja Khalidi, director general of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute. Khalidi says Israel is using a range of tools in its “economic warfare” against Palestinians, and warns, “We are on the precipice of a warlike situation in the West Bank.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has exacted a devastating toll, with over 25,000 people killed, 63,000 wounded, 1.7 million, at least, displaced. And among the consequences of the offensive is the decimation of Gaza’s economy. Even before the latest Israeli assault on Gaza began over three months ago, Gaza’s economy was already crumbling, the result of a 15-year-long siege on the territory enforced by Israel and Egypt. Now with vast swaths of Gaza destroyed by the Israeli military and severe restrictions on humanitarian aid coming in, more than half a million people are facing catastrophic hunger. That’s according to the United Nations.
Meanwhile, Israel is withholding millions in taxes collected on behalf of Palestinians earmarked for Gaza. On Sunday, Israel approved a plan to send those tax revenues it’s frozen since November to Norway to be held in escrow, instead of the Palestinian Authority. While the PA was ousted from Gaza in 2007, many of its public sector workers kept their jobs and continue to be paid with transferred tax revenues that are being held by Israel, further exacerbating the crisis in Gaza.
For more, we’re joined by Raja Khalidi. He’s the director general of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute, joining us from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
Raja, thanks so much for being with us. If you can start off by talking about whose money is this? And talk about the amount that’s supposed to go to Gaza and to the West Bank, and how Israel has control over it. Why do they have control over it?
RAJA KHALIDI: Thanks a lot, Amy, and for this chance to talk with you.
Before plunging into the dirty details of the economics of this war, I just want to just say a word of tribute to the journalists, like Akram, so many of them who have been reporting, who have been shocking us every day. And what is more shocking — and we’re talking about millions of us watching, listening around the world, here and the rest of Palestine. What is most shocking is that they’re able to still do their job so well and so professionally. So, I mean, we’ll come back to Gaza, but, really, you know, you don’t need an economist to tell you to what’s happened to the economy of Gaza. We just heard a lot. It tells so much of a story.
The entanglement of Palestinian Authority’s public finances with Israel goes back to Oslo. Funnily enough, it’s come back home to Oslo, in the sense that this was all part of an arrangement made for a five-year period whereby Israel was allowed, because of — de facto, when Oslo agreements were signed, to control the collection of Palestinian external trade taxes at its borders, because it, of course, controls all the Palestinian trade, both that trade that comes from the Israeli economy, as well as from around the world. So, that set up a mechanism called the clearance mechanism, whereby all of the recorded imports, through Israel or from Israel to the PA, are calculated and handed over on a monthly basis to the Palestinian Authority. Now, this was a suitable arrangement in the interim period that was supposed to end in 2000, but then it was perpetuated because nothing else took its place since then, but gradually interpreted unilaterally by Israel in its own — according to its own financial security and political interests.
So, from early on, this mechanism became one of the weapons, if you wish, of economic warfare, and pacification or warfare, so carrot or stick, that Israel has used in its relationship with the Palestinian economy, with Palestine, with the Palestinian people. Now, that has entailed, over the years, especially in the last five or six years, unilateral deductions that Israel makes. So, it makes deductions for electricity consumption that it claims has not been paid, for water, sewage, etc., treatment, and for other, medical referrals to Israeli hospitals, and then — which is something the PA came to accept, because it had no fiscal leverage against Israel. And then, in the last five years, Israel, of course, has been deducting sums equivalent to what the PA pays to the prisoners’ and martyrs’ families — again, at loud protest by the PA, but with little effect. This is an issue that the, you know, Norwegians, the AHLC, the IMF have been seized with for years, but nobody has done anything about. So, you know, this most recent unilateral decision by an extremist settler government to deduct what they claim is the equivalent of what the PA continues to pay salaries to its former, I mean, employees, but who are now actually not mainly working in the West Bank [inaudible], you know, is something that — what can we expect the PA to do? I mean, it tried to reject it out of principle, but, on the other hand, it’s collapsing. Its fiscal situation is near disastrous.
So, exactly what this entails, this escrow account, I mean, if it means that the PA can say, “Well, at least Israel is not holding the money that it illegally deducted, and we reject totally its deduction, hence we’ll take the rest,” OK, that’s going to allow it to stumble through the next couple months perhaps, make some new, you know, refinancing — debt refinancing deals, etc., with the banking system, and eventually hope that when things calm down, Smotrich will allow the Norwegians to release the funds, which, again, is perhaps somewhat fantastical. Perhaps it’s better to say it’s better to have the Norwegians holding it than — but that’s it. I mean, it doesn’t really change the equation, except that it deblocks a certain amount of Palestinian trade revenue. On the other hand, we’ve got to realize that this trade revenue is directly linked to the level of economic activity, and the level of economic activity in the West Bank has collapsed — I mean, not as much, of course, as Gaza, which is now a — is a non-economy, in fact. But in the West Bank it’s been more about the return of workers from Israel and what they are no longer spending in the local economy for four months, the cutoff of clearance revenues. But most importantly is the general reduction in economic activity means that we’re importing less. So, if we’re importing less, there’s less revenue. So, the average monthly revenue is going down regardless of Israeli deductions.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about the effects on the ground of not having this money. And who exactly in the current government is deciding who gets what? I mean, you talk about Smotrich. There’s Ben-Gvir. Of course, there’s Netanyahu. What’s happening with — what’s happening in the West Bank? What’s happening in Gaza? And where does the U.S. stand on this? And that’s a critical question, because the U.S. actually can exert so much control, given, as one Israeli general said, that almost all of their weapons are from the United States, that they could not move ahead with what they’re doing with Gaza without U.S. support.
RAJA KHALIDI: It’s arguable as to how much control the United States actually has on this government, to begin with. But regardless of that, we know that it doesn’t want — the United States does not want to exercise any serious influence on this file, for example. All it was able to do is to come up with this Norway escrow account deal, which doesn’t really do anything, because it’s not going to be compensated to — it says that money can neither be transferred to the PA nor used as a loan to the PA. Now, maybe it’s going to mean that the PA can borrow — which it should be able to do, because it’s supposedly a government — on, you know, internationally, to fund part of its deficit. But that’s, again, another stopgap measure. So, the PA, there’s very few decision-makers on this in the Palestinian Authority. There’s the president and the prime minister and the minister of finance. And they’re going and coming, I presume, with the different interlocutors, trying to come up with something that keeps the treasury able to pay part of its salaries bill.
The salary bill in the West Bank is about $4 billion a year, which is about 80% of the public budget. So, you know, that has already been cut prior to the war, because of other reasons, because of the deductions that we mentioned. So, salaried employees are receiving less, paying less, less able to repay their debts, which they’ve taken out in, you know, extreme ways, or private consumption debts over the last five, six years, in the good times, so to speak. And then you have — so, you have all of that reduction in aggregate demand from — purchasing power and aggregate demand.
And then you have the workers who have returned from Israel, 180,000 people, maybe 150,000 of whom were sitting in their villages and camps waiting for something to happen, and nothing is happening. I mean, you know, there’s very few alternative jobs in the local market, to begin with. They had become lazy, if you wish, or the labor force had become, you know, dependent, let’s say, on this option of working in Israel, which brings in two to three times local wages.
So there’s a major transformation undergoing in the local economy. We’re going to see extreme poverty increasing in the West Bank, which it was less severe incidents in the past than Gaza, for example. We’re going to see growing social deprivation and inability of the PA, because it doesn’t have any money, hardly, to pay its salaries, much less to provide services to the poor. I mean, education system is continuing, but it’s starting to be hobbled, and so on and so forth. So there’s a gradual — I don’t want to call it a collapse of the Palestinian Authority’s ability to deliver its services, but certainly a retraction and entrenchment.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about the labor situation, because so many thousands of Palestinians worked in Israel proper. Israel is looking to address the major labor shortage because they’re not allowing Palestinians from the Occupied Territories to work in Israel, but by recruiting tens of thousands of people from India, at a time when Palestinians have long played a crucial role in Israeli construction and other sectors, who are now barred. Israeli authorities say they’re hoping to see 10,000 to 20,000 Indian migrant workers in the coming months, a deal that’s being worked out with Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India. What about this?
RAJA KHALIDI: Well, look, I mean, 10,000 to 20,000 is not going to really do anything except perhaps get the next agricultural season crop in and build a few buildings that have been waiting to be completed. Palestinians, there were approximately 90,000, 85,000 Palestinians, of the total 180,000 — more than half of them were working in — 80,000 — more than half of them were working in Israel, Israeli construction. So, I mean, our labor force is highly dependent on the Israeli Construction Center, and the Israeli Construction Center is highly dependent on our labor. So, replacing a part of that, yeah, a stopgap measure.
In agriculture, I believe they’re trying to do something similar with workers from Africa. But, you know, there’s a reason that unlike, let’s say, Gulf states, many Arab Gulf states — the Asian labor force en masse has built the Gulf countries, if you wish. Israel does not want to find itself in that situation. And that’s because, you know, the exploitation of Palestinian labor is easy. They’re next door. They go home at night. And, you know, they’re not going to make trouble. On the other hand, the idea of — you know, and Israel is a — culturally, is not very open and tolerant to pick people of color, even, you know, Jews and Palestinians of color. So, I think that these Asian and, wherever they might come from, African workers are going to face a lot of issues in the discrimination, in what is really an apartheid, if you wish, labor market. Palestinians from the West Bank had a certain position prior to the war. Twenty thousand Gazawis were allowed in and were working. So, there’s this sort of hierarchy. And then you have Arabs in Israel who are slightly higher up the occupation ladder, but — etc., etc. So, where are these Asian workers, who are not going to go home at night, where they’re going to — you know, how they’re going to use them, integrate them, except in a short-term wartime economy, I don’t think it’s a viable option.
But the other option of Israel, you know, you mentioned Smotrich. He’s one of those who are, you know, dead against such a return of Palestinian labor into Israeli markets. So, you know, they can’t have their cake and eat it, too. And I would hope that, you know, a certain amount — I think, for sure, a certain number will be allowed in gradually. But I fear it will be in chain gang-like circumstances, you know, with high security around them, only a few hours, etc., etc. And there will be a lot of room for exploitation by bosses and contractors and people who issue permits and things like that. So, you know, I think that’s the way that one is going to play out.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, we just have a minute, but, Raja Khalidi, you’re sitting there in Ramallah. The occupied West Bank, the Israeli military has raided Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jenin repeatedly, as well as many other areas. If you could just describe what it’s like living there on the ground, not to mention what’s happening in Gaza, and if you see any kind of end of this violence in sight?
RAJA KHALIDI: It’s frightening. I mean, I haven’t left Ramallah for the last four months except three times. And many people are living, sheltering in place. Three hundred fifty thousand Palestinians in Jerusalem have not left Jerusalem for the last four months, whereas they’re usually coming and going to Ramallah and around West Bank all the time. So there is a sense of fear, of lack of mobilization, except at the very local level.
There is no national authority that is engaging and confronting either the settler attacks or the expansion of settlements. We’re seeing settlements, outposts and roads popping up every day on the roads between the major Palestinian cities. Roadblocks have increased, from 550 before the war to 700, and so on and so forth. I had never lived in Palestine under such circumstances. For me, I perhaps have greater access, etc., but it’s not easy for anybody. And for people trying to get to work, people trying to get to hospitals, people — I mean, it’s — and then there is the violence. You never know when — you know, if you go down the wrong road, some settler gang will stone your car, burn it, whatever. That’s not to mention the Israeli army’s campaign against — you mentioned, very correctly, several cities have been devastated, tens of millions of dollars of infrastructure, basically mini Gazas in Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem. And I think that’s intentional. It’s sending a message. And it’s telling us what’s in store for us if anybody raises their head.
And, you know, to be honest, Gaza is a total catastrophe, but it could get worse if they continue in the West Bank. So, if we get to a ceasefire, I hope it’s a comprehensive one, and it’s not only hostilities in Gaza, because we’re at the precipice of a warlike situation in the West Bank. And we don’t have any resistance fighters, in the sense that Gaza has, let’s say, you know, so it’s really everybody in the West Bank who’s going to be drawn into this if things go bad.
AMY GOODMAN: Raja Khalidi is the director general of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute.
Next up, the New York Police Department has launched an investigation after Columbia University students were attacked with a chemical spray during a pro-Palestine demonstration last week. Stay with us.
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Professors Slam Columbia’s Response to Chemical Skunk Attack on Students at Pro-Palestine Protest
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 25, 2024
Transcript
Students at Columbia University in New York held an “emergency protest” Wednesday over the school’s response to an attack on members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest at a rally on campus last Friday. Police in New York are investigating the attack on pro-Palestinian students, who say they were sprayed with a foul-smelling chemical. Eight students were reportedly hospitalized, complaining of burning eyes, headaches, nausea and other symptoms. Organizers allege the attack was carried out by two students who are former members of the Israeli military, using a chemical weapon known as “skunk” that the Israeli military and security forces regularly deploy against Palestinians. The university responded to the attack by first scolding the organizers for holding an “unsanctioned” rally, then later said it had banned the suspects from campus while police investigate. This comes after Columbia administrators banned the local chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace in November, with students describing a climate of censorship and retaliation for pro-Palestinian activism on campus. “Overall, it’s been a very clumsy handling,” Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani says of the school’s response to student protests and campus safety. We also speak with Columbia Law School professor Katherine Franke, who says concerned faculty “have been spending an enormous amount of time protecting our students from the university itself.”
AMY GOODMAN: Students at Columbia University here in New York held an “emergency protest” Wednesday over the school’s response to an attack on members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest at a rally on campus last Friday. Police are now investigating how pro-Palestinian students were sprayed with a hazardous, foul-smelling chemical at Friday’s protest, including members of Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and Jews for Ceasefire. Eight students were reportedly hospitalized or seeking medical attention. Organizers allege the attack was carried out by two students who are former members of the Israeli military, the IDF, using a chemical weapon known as “skunk” that soldiers also deploy on Palestinians.
A Palestinian American student named Layla described the attack she says has left her traumatized, in an interview with the podcast The Robust Opposition.
LAYLA: I remember smelling this smell in the air, and it is just — it was just atrocious. I was like, “Oh my gosh! Like, it smells like somebody died. Like, what is this smell?” And then, at first, I was like, “OK, maybe I stepped in some dog poop. Like, maybe I’m just tired.” I tried to, like, kind of ignore it for a little bit.
But then, after the protest, when the protest was done, I just noticed how bad I felt. I felt so sick. I felt fatigued. I was nauseous. I had a really bad headache. And I was like, “Something is going on here. I’m not sure what, but something is going on here.” And then I was getting texts and calls from my friends. And they were like, “Did you smell that smell?” Or my friend was like, “Oh my gosh! I threw up like three times. Like, I don’t know what is wrong with me.” …
So, when this is used on Palestinians in the West Bank, like, for example, it’s been used on peaceful protesters there. It’s been used on shopkeepers and merchants. So, like, if a merchant gets their produce sprayed with skunk, they have to throw it all out, just because of how bad it stinks. …
It felt like for a while like the university, like, didn’t believe us. Like, I told them about it, and it’s like my concerns weren’t really being taken seriously. And it wasn’t until students started posting photos of themselves being hospitalized, and tagging the university, being, like, at Columbia, like we are — like, they started taking it seriously.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Palestinian American Columbia University student Layla describing Friday’s attack on her, as well as other students who were part of a protest. No arrests have been made yet, but the school now says it’s banned the suspects from campus while law enforcement investigates.
For more, we’re joined by Mahmood Mamdani, professor of government at Columbia University who specializes in the study of colonialism. His books include Neither Settler Nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities. His recent interview with The Nation is headlined “The Idea of the Nation-State Is Synonymous with Genocide.” And we’re joined by Katherine Franke, a Columbia Law School professor, member of the Center for Palestine Studies executive committee, on the board of Palestine Legal, helped write a new op-ed in the campus paper, the Columbia Spectator, headlined “Faculty and staff pledge to take back our University.”
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Professor Franke, can you explain what happened, the skunking of the students, sprayed with this chemical? Do you know, does the university know, who these students were, where they came from? And have they been dealt with?
KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, good morning, Amy.
So, the students were protesting in the main quad of the university last Friday. And we’ve had a series of protests. Our students are outraged at what’s going on, in our name and with our tax dollars, in Gaza. And while they were protesting — and, I will say, peacefully — last Friday, as your recording of Layla’s recounting of what happened, they all of the sudden smelled this horrible stench. And I’ve smelled skunk water when I’ve been in the West Bank at protests. It is horrible.
And what the students were able to do is examine video from that protest and identify, I think, three older students. We have a — Columbia has a program. It’s a graduate relationship with older students from other countries, including Israel. And it’s something that many of us were concerned about, because so many of those Israeli students, who then come to the Columbia campus, are coming right out of their military service. And they’ve been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus. And it’s something the university has not taken seriously in the past. But we’ve never seen anything like this. And the students were able to identify three of these exchange students, basically, from Israel, who had just come out of military service, who were spraying the pro-Palestinian students with this skunk water. And they were disguised in keffiyehs so that they could mix in with the students who were demanding that the university divest from companies that are supporting the occupation and the war, and were protesting and demanding a ceasefire. So we know who they were.
The university waited three or four days to actually even say anything about it. They have not reached out to the students who were sick, as you noted, some of whom are still in the hospital. I spoke to one student last night in the hopes that we could get one of them on your show this morning, and he was so mentally and physically disabled from this attack that he said, “I haven’t left my dorm room in a week.” So, our students are in terrible distress about this, both those who were sprayed and those who weren’t. There was another protest yesterday, and the students were actually quite afraid to come back onto the campus.
AMY GOODMAN: Is it true that you’ve seen these students, the former IDF students, on campus? And what is the administration saying about that since the attack?
KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, the university says that they have banned the three identified students from the campus. But I was told that one of them was there yesterday. Other students saw him. I don’t know that for sure, but several students said they saw one of them. You know, we have a fairly porous campus. To ban them from campus is something that they’d have to volunteer to comply with, except when there is a demonstration, when they lock — they’ve started locking the campus down in the last several months with gates, and you have to have your ID to get scanned to enter the campus. And then there’s a wall of NYPD. When I went to class yesterday, there were hundreds of NYPD officers, in uniform, lining our campus.
So, the university’s response has not been compassion, support for the students who were attacked. Instead, it’s been a militarization of our own campus and a further restraint on our students’ ability to protest peacefully, now turning to the excuse of this attack from those who support the Israeli government and the violence that’s being meted out towards Gazans as a kind of pretext to clamp down even further on peaceful protest by our other students.
AMY GOODMAN: Mahmood Mamdani, you have written about the situation in Gaza. You’ve spoken about it. There are now over 25,000 Palestinians who have been killed, over 11,000 of them children. The issue of hunger in Gaza is a very serious issue, raised by the U.N. and medical groups. You have that situation there and the solidarity expressed with the people in Palestine on college campuses. Can you talk about what’s happening at Columbia, and both staff, professors’, students’ feelings about whether they can express their views without being doxxed or attacked?
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: Thank you, Amy.
The situation at Columbia has been developing. It’s monitored by an administration which seem to have very little idea about what to do. At the same time, it had certain assumptions. The assumption was that the main problem at Columbia is antisemitism, and the administration should do everything to keep it in check and then to eradicate it.
When incidents like this, the chemical spraying, emerged, the administration’s first response was kind of disbelief. “Give us the facts.” Overall, it’s been a very clumsy handling. Different parts of the administration have different and sometimes conflicting initiatives. At the same time, they have a coherence. And the coherence is basically to shut things down and only to have an opening from the top, so no question of freedom of expression from below. That’s where we are now. Meanwhile, the community is convinced that the shots are being called by those who give the money.
AMY GOODMAN: So, how are you organizing, as a professor, with other professors, with students?
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: I think the number of concerned professors is growing. We’re all convinced that the initiative must remain with the students. They are in the frontline. But also we’re convinced that we should offer whatever guidance we can offer. We meet and discuss. I personally have not been involved in face-to-face meetings much because of health issues. But I have been involved in meetings which are remote meetings. And it’s changing every day, and it’s developing.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Franke, last semester Columbia University, the new president at Columbia, suspended both SJP, Students for Justice in Palestine, as well as Jewish Voice for Peace for holding a so-called unauthorized event, a walkout and art display in support of a ceasefire in Gaza. So, what are these groups’ status right now? And also, you yourself have long been involved with issues around Palestine. In fact, Israel deported you. And explain why. This was before October 7th.
KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, my circumstances are much less acute than the circumstances of our students right now. You know, I’ve been part of the Barnard and Columbia community since the late '70s. I went to Barnard as an undergrad. And I've been at Columbia now as a professor for 25 years. Columbia’s campus has always been a place where students have engaged the most critical issues of the day. When I was there in the late '70s, it was issues around feminism and pornography and sexual rights. And later, there were things around the Iraq War and the invitation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the campus. You know, students, faculty have used the campus as a palette for learning about difficult issues — that's what we do at universities — for protesting or showing up for communities that are persecuted around the world.
And what we’ve seen this administration do since October 8th is kind of go to war against our students. I have never seen the university disband student groups for peaceful protest. We have scores, 30, 40, 50 complaints that the university has filed against students for violations of the disciplinary code or for organizing protests, based on their changing of the rules around how to have an event the night before the event, so that the students don’t even know that they’re violating some new event rule. The university said that SJP and JVP had to be suspended because they engaged in intimidating and threatening and antisemitic rhetoric. And then, in private meetings with them, they said, actually they didn’t, but they won’t retract that. So, that defamation of our students remains in the public and in the media and in the eyes and ears of our alums and of other students, but they won’t repudiate it.
And so, the students feel like they have nothing left that they can do, except protest against the university at this point. But Professor Mamdani and I and other faculty have been spending an enormous amount of time protecting our students from the university itself. Barnard students are being prosecuted for their social media posts and for hanging Palestinian flags outside of their dorm rooms, when New York City law specifically protects the hanging of flags outside of a dormitory. So, it feels like we’re under a kind of siege, too, at Columbia and at Barnard.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Mamdani, before you were a professor at Columbia, you were a professor and director of the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Tomorrow, the decision will come out of the International Court of Justice, an emergency decision on South Africa’s case, genocide case, against Israel. Your final comments?
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: Well, for those who read the South African application, it must be clear that its strong point was the content, the argument, the substance. The empirical material relied, drew totally from U.N. sources and from no other source, really. So it was unimpeachable.
The Israeli side, the Israeli lawyers did not say anything, did not present any defense on whether a genocide is unfolding. What they did defend was that, procedurally, South Africa should not be the party making an application.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Mahmood Mamdani, we’re going to continue this discussion and post it online at democracynow.org. Mahmood Mamdani, professor of government at Columbia University, and Katherine Franke, Columbia Law School professor. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 25, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/25/ ... transcript
Transcript
We go to Rafah to speak with Palestinian journalist Akram al-Satarri in Gaza as the death toll continues to climb amid Israel’s relentless assault on the territory. The Health Ministry says at least 20 people were killed Thursday as they lined up to receive humanitarian aid, and at least 12 others were killed a day earlier at a U.N. shelter hit by tank shells. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have surrounded the two main hospitals in Khan Younis, stranding thousands of patients and displaced people inside, and evacuated a third hospital. Over 1.7 million people have been displaced in Gaza and more than 25,000 have been killed in Israel’s assault over the past three months, as the population continues to move further south in a desperate search for safety. “People are dying. People are scared,” says al-Satarri. “There is an eradication attempt that is taking place in Gaza.”
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Gaza, where the death toll continues to climb and Israel’s relentless assault continues. At least 20 Palestinians were killed today and 150 injured as they were lining up for humanitarian aid in Gaza City, this according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, with the number of casualties expected to rise.
The attack comes one day after a crowded U.N. shelter housing tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis was struck on Wednesday, setting the building on fire. At least 12 people were killed, over 75 wounded, when two tank shells hit the site, according to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA. The Israeli military, the only actor on the ground that has tanks, denied it carried out the strike.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army has surrounded and isolated the two main hospitals in Khan Younis, Nasser and al-Amal, stranding hundreds of patients and thousands of displaced people inside, that again according to UNRWA. A third hospital was evacuated overnight.
In recent days, thousands more Palestinians have rushed to escape further south, crowding into shelters and tent camps near the border with Egypt. Over 1.7 million people have been displaced in Gaza, and more than 25,000 have been killed in Israel’s assault over the past three months.
We go now to Rafah, where we’re joined by Akram al-Satarri, a journalist who’s been covering developments on the ground. He’s joining us from just outside the Yousef al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza.
Akram, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you describe what’s happening in Rafah and the reports of what’s happening in Khan Younis?
AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Well, the situation in Khan Younis is aggravating in such a very serious way. The bombardment and the targeting around the hospitals that you have just mentioned — al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, in the Khan Younis al-Amal neighborhood; Al-Khair Hospital, that was stormed by the Israeli occupation forces, and people there who are staff were interrogated, and people who are internally displaced people were arrested. Nasser Hospital has been the subject to some massive attacks, and some of those attacks targeted also UNRWA-designated shelters that are located in the immediate vicinity of the Nasser Hospital. The clinic, the UNRWA clinic that is in the heart of Khan Younis refugee camp, was — the area of its vicinity was also targeted.
People were asked to leave their homes. And some of the people who were leaving their homes were reporting about a journey of horror, devastation and imminent death that they have been seeing. They have been reporting about them seeing the people who are dead on the ground, without anyone daring to reach them or to collect their bodies or to try to extend a helping hand for the people who are screaming for help because of their lethal and bloody injuries.
AND THESE PEOPLE AREN'T EVEN BEING BOMBED AND GASSED!
-- Mass Migration During Independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, by Margaret Bourke-White, Life Magazine, 1947
Palestinians carry their belongings as they leave their homes and flee from Khan Younis, Gaza on Tuesday. cnn.com
Boy sits amid rubble of destroyed homes in Gaza. bbc.com
Palestinians fleeing north Gaza move southward, in the central Gaza Strip. reuters.com
Families leave north Gaza after warnings from Israeli military. bbc.com
A Palestinian on a wheelchair passes by ruins of buildings destroyed in Israeli strikes, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip October 9, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Palestinians carry bags of flour they grabbed from an aid truck near an Israeli checkpoint, as Gaza residents face crisis levels of hunger, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City January 27, 2024. REUTERS/Hossam Azam
The U.N. has set up tents at a refugee camp for Palestinians in Khan Yunis, in the Gaza Strip near the Egyptian border. (Photo by Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images)
The KYTC, that is run by the UNRWA, and that is also recognized by Israel as a designated shelter and protected shelter, was targeted once again. And now people who are staying in there, who are in thousands, are asked by the Israeli occupation to move from that area towards Rafah area in the very south, which means that there is more targeting underway, which means that they would be afraid and the ones who were killed and injured who were taken to Rafah rather than to Khan Younis because of the fact that the Israeli occupation closed the way between Khan Younis coastal area and Khan Younis refugee camp and Khan Younis downtown. So the situation is aggravating in that way. Hundreds of people are injured. Tens of people are killed.
Also, not far away from Khan Younis, in Gaza City, the people who were waiting in al-Kuwait roundabout were targeted. They were waiting for the humanitarian assistance because the situation in Gaza City and the north is extremely dire. People are already suffering from famine, very lacking situation when it comes to the food supplies and drinkable water. They’re waiting there. Twenty — as you said, 20 were killed, 150 others were injured. The new about this report is that among those 150, there is a very large number of people who are sustaining very critical, life-threatening injuries and who might be reported as killed, which means the number of victims of this bloody attack is expected to rise significantly in the coming hours.
So, the situation continues to feature large-scale bombardment in Khan Younis, displacement of people, destroying of whole blocks and houses, people moving, and they end up targeted when they are moving. Designated shelters that are supposed to be protected, now the people in them are asked to be IDPs once again, given that the IDPs in that area are coming mainly from the north, people who moved from the north to Gaza City, then moved from Gaza City to Gaza central area, then moved from Gaza central area to Khan Younis area. And then, from Khan Younis, they moved to the KYTC, and they are now asked for the fifth or sixth time to leave the area that they were seeking safety in, and to move in a very unsafe path towards the unknown in southern Gaza, in Rafah, which the targeting is still continuous. Number of people who are killed in Rafah is still increasing. And the Gazans, at large, are not aware what the future holds of them, with the number of IDPs reaching 1.9 million Gazans in all different areas, including the coastal area in Khan Younis and the already heavy-populated area in Rafah.
AMY GOODMAN: ”IDP” is, of course, internally displaced people. Akram, if you can describe the telecommunications blackout and the effect it has on people trying to communicate with each other, find each other, get to hospitals, reporting of injuries? And also, I don’t take for granted that we’re able even to speak to you today in Rafah, in Gaza. And if you can talk about how you both report and take care of your own family?
AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Well, if I may speak from a very personal perspective, I personally was under that imminent threat of death in Khan Younis. I lost communication with my family, with my sister, with my nephews and nieces who lost their father. I lost contact with my son. I was wondering how can I possibly survive under the imminent threat of fire.
And when I say an imminent threat of fire and death, I mean that seven people were targeted at the door of our home, the home that was hosting us. And the seven people, no one ambulance could reach them. We were trying to call 111, which is the ambulance services — sorry, 101, which is the ambulance services. We could not get through to them.
The communication blackout looks — it looks like it was intentional for the sake of cutting all communication and cutting the coverage and trying to keep Gaza isolated from the world and keep Gaza voiceless at the time that the Israeli occupation was developing the ground operation and was targeting the different areas in Khan Younis and throughout the Gaza Strip. I lost communication, and I was — and am still — facing significant challenges reporting, moving. And you never know. When you are just driving a car or just driving a taxi, or just even riding an animal-pulled cart, you don’t know whether they are going to target someone who’s walking down the street, someone who’s next to you on that animal-pulled cart, or maybe they would target you. So, it’s very difficult to understand in Gaza what’s coming next. It’s very difficult to predict who they are going to target. It’s very difficult to predict why they are targeting people.
But the bottom line, and the conclusion that we see with our own eyes, that the targeting is thorough, the destruction is larger than ever, and the suffering of the people because of that ongoing policy is unconceivable, unconceivable in the sense that I personally had to move and see the people who are dead and to try to move, and while five or six other houses around me were targeted, while I could see the artillery fire taking out whole house when I was moving in the Khan Younis area and was staying in the area that I was waiting for the situation to be a little bit safer to move, but it turned out the situation was getting from bad to worse, and the targeting was getting heavier. I was staying in the area that is called 111 area, which is a block that was designated by Israel as a safe area. And across from our area was 112 block. But the bombardment was in 111, 112, 107, 48, 86. All the blocks were targeted all at once. And that ground operation seemed to be indiscriminately sending death and destruction all over the area.
So, with that comes, as you have just said, the struggle to survive, to struggle to stay sane under this ever-escalating situation and to look for one minute of peace. I was personally thinking just yesterday that we are wanting some one second of rest and peace, even if that means we would die, even if that means they would take us, even if that means they take our life for the sake of just keeping us peaceful.
So, this is how it unfolded in Gaza, and this is how it continues to unfold. People are dying. People are scared. People are displaced. And they think they are even uprooted intentionally and there is an eradication attempt that is taking place in Gaza. The Israeli occupation has been targeting every single corner in Khan Younis. Khan Younis refugee camp, that is extremely populated and overcrowded, was targeted. When you target one house in one specific area, that means you are likely to affect around 20 to 30 houses, because the areas are very narrow, and the space, that is limited for every house. And targeting one place, explosion in one place means that this explosion, the implication of that explosion, would reach — or, the secondary wave of the explosion would reach around 20 to 30 houses.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you know the reporters that were killed most recently? I mean, the numbers are just astonishing. The Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders are all decrying the number, ranging between 80 and 120. But the latest killing of journalists, for example, Wael al-Dahdouh’s son, Hamza al-Dahdouh — did you know Mustafa Thuraya? Did you — I know that Wael has just gotten out of Gaza. He’s head of the —
AKRAM AL-SATARRI: I think we lost the connection.
AMY GOODMAN: — Al Jazeera — and he has now been operated on in Qatar. He’s now at Al Jazeera headquarters. His cameraman, Samer Abudaqa, who died in the attack. These reporters, were they friends of yours?
I think we have just lost Akram. Absolutely amazing that we were able to maintain that length of time in speaking to him in Gaza. He was speaking to us from Rafah. Akram al-Satarri is a Gaza-based journalist, joining us from southern Gaza.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, Palestinian tax revenue, Israel is refusing to release it but has made an agreement with Norway to hold it in escrow. What’s happening to Palestinians’ money? We’ll speak with a leading economist in Ramallah. Stay with us.
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Palestinian Economist Raja Khalidi on Israel’s “Economic Warfare” on Gaza and the West Bank
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 25, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/25/ ... transcript
Transcript
Among the consequences of Israel’s war on Gaza is the destruction of the local economy. Even before the latest Israeli assault, daily life and commerce in Gaza were crumbling as a result of a 15-year siege on the territory enforced by Israel and Egypt. Meanwhile, Israel is withholding millions in taxes collected on behalf of Palestinians, leaving the Palestinian Authority unable to distribute wages to many public sector employees, while more than 150,000 Palestinian workers from the West Bank are now unable to work inside Israel due to new restrictions imposed after October 7. We go to Ramallah to speak with economist Raja Khalidi, director general of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute. Khalidi says Israel is using a range of tools in its “economic warfare” against Palestinians, and warns, “We are on the precipice of a warlike situation in the West Bank.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has exacted a devastating toll, with over 25,000 people killed, 63,000 wounded, 1.7 million, at least, displaced. And among the consequences of the offensive is the decimation of Gaza’s economy. Even before the latest Israeli assault on Gaza began over three months ago, Gaza’s economy was already crumbling, the result of a 15-year-long siege on the territory enforced by Israel and Egypt. Now with vast swaths of Gaza destroyed by the Israeli military and severe restrictions on humanitarian aid coming in, more than half a million people are facing catastrophic hunger. That’s according to the United Nations.
Meanwhile, Israel is withholding millions in taxes collected on behalf of Palestinians earmarked for Gaza. On Sunday, Israel approved a plan to send those tax revenues it’s frozen since November to Norway to be held in escrow, instead of the Palestinian Authority. While the PA was ousted from Gaza in 2007, many of its public sector workers kept their jobs and continue to be paid with transferred tax revenues that are being held by Israel, further exacerbating the crisis in Gaza.
For more, we’re joined by Raja Khalidi. He’s the director general of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute, joining us from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
Raja, thanks so much for being with us. If you can start off by talking about whose money is this? And talk about the amount that’s supposed to go to Gaza and to the West Bank, and how Israel has control over it. Why do they have control over it?
RAJA KHALIDI: Thanks a lot, Amy, and for this chance to talk with you.
Before plunging into the dirty details of the economics of this war, I just want to just say a word of tribute to the journalists, like Akram, so many of them who have been reporting, who have been shocking us every day. And what is more shocking — and we’re talking about millions of us watching, listening around the world, here and the rest of Palestine. What is most shocking is that they’re able to still do their job so well and so professionally. So, I mean, we’ll come back to Gaza, but, really, you know, you don’t need an economist to tell you to what’s happened to the economy of Gaza. We just heard a lot. It tells so much of a story.
The entanglement of Palestinian Authority’s public finances with Israel goes back to Oslo. Funnily enough, it’s come back home to Oslo, in the sense that this was all part of an arrangement made for a five-year period whereby Israel was allowed, because of — de facto, when Oslo agreements were signed, to control the collection of Palestinian external trade taxes at its borders, because it, of course, controls all the Palestinian trade, both that trade that comes from the Israeli economy, as well as from around the world. So, that set up a mechanism called the clearance mechanism, whereby all of the recorded imports, through Israel or from Israel to the PA, are calculated and handed over on a monthly basis to the Palestinian Authority. Now, this was a suitable arrangement in the interim period that was supposed to end in 2000, but then it was perpetuated because nothing else took its place since then, but gradually interpreted unilaterally by Israel in its own — according to its own financial security and political interests.
So, from early on, this mechanism became one of the weapons, if you wish, of economic warfare, and pacification or warfare, so carrot or stick, that Israel has used in its relationship with the Palestinian economy, with Palestine, with the Palestinian people. Now, that has entailed, over the years, especially in the last five or six years, unilateral deductions that Israel makes. So, it makes deductions for electricity consumption that it claims has not been paid, for water, sewage, etc., treatment, and for other, medical referrals to Israeli hospitals, and then — which is something the PA came to accept, because it had no fiscal leverage against Israel. And then, in the last five years, Israel, of course, has been deducting sums equivalent to what the PA pays to the prisoners’ and martyrs’ families — again, at loud protest by the PA, but with little effect. This is an issue that the, you know, Norwegians, the AHLC, the IMF have been seized with for years, but nobody has done anything about. So, you know, this most recent unilateral decision by an extremist settler government to deduct what they claim is the equivalent of what the PA continues to pay salaries to its former, I mean, employees, but who are now actually not mainly working in the West Bank [inaudible], you know, is something that — what can we expect the PA to do? I mean, it tried to reject it out of principle, but, on the other hand, it’s collapsing. Its fiscal situation is near disastrous.
So, exactly what this entails, this escrow account, I mean, if it means that the PA can say, “Well, at least Israel is not holding the money that it illegally deducted, and we reject totally its deduction, hence we’ll take the rest,” OK, that’s going to allow it to stumble through the next couple months perhaps, make some new, you know, refinancing — debt refinancing deals, etc., with the banking system, and eventually hope that when things calm down, Smotrich will allow the Norwegians to release the funds, which, again, is perhaps somewhat fantastical. Perhaps it’s better to say it’s better to have the Norwegians holding it than — but that’s it. I mean, it doesn’t really change the equation, except that it deblocks a certain amount of Palestinian trade revenue. On the other hand, we’ve got to realize that this trade revenue is directly linked to the level of economic activity, and the level of economic activity in the West Bank has collapsed — I mean, not as much, of course, as Gaza, which is now a — is a non-economy, in fact. But in the West Bank it’s been more about the return of workers from Israel and what they are no longer spending in the local economy for four months, the cutoff of clearance revenues. But most importantly is the general reduction in economic activity means that we’re importing less. So, if we’re importing less, there’s less revenue. So, the average monthly revenue is going down regardless of Israeli deductions.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about the effects on the ground of not having this money. And who exactly in the current government is deciding who gets what? I mean, you talk about Smotrich. There’s Ben-Gvir. Of course, there’s Netanyahu. What’s happening with — what’s happening in the West Bank? What’s happening in Gaza? And where does the U.S. stand on this? And that’s a critical question, because the U.S. actually can exert so much control, given, as one Israeli general said, that almost all of their weapons are from the United States, that they could not move ahead with what they’re doing with Gaza without U.S. support.
RAJA KHALIDI: It’s arguable as to how much control the United States actually has on this government, to begin with. But regardless of that, we know that it doesn’t want — the United States does not want to exercise any serious influence on this file, for example. All it was able to do is to come up with this Norway escrow account deal, which doesn’t really do anything, because it’s not going to be compensated to — it says that money can neither be transferred to the PA nor used as a loan to the PA. Now, maybe it’s going to mean that the PA can borrow — which it should be able to do, because it’s supposedly a government — on, you know, internationally, to fund part of its deficit. But that’s, again, another stopgap measure. So, the PA, there’s very few decision-makers on this in the Palestinian Authority. There’s the president and the prime minister and the minister of finance. And they’re going and coming, I presume, with the different interlocutors, trying to come up with something that keeps the treasury able to pay part of its salaries bill.
The salary bill in the West Bank is about $4 billion a year, which is about 80% of the public budget. So, you know, that has already been cut prior to the war, because of other reasons, because of the deductions that we mentioned. So, salaried employees are receiving less, paying less, less able to repay their debts, which they’ve taken out in, you know, extreme ways, or private consumption debts over the last five, six years, in the good times, so to speak. And then you have — so, you have all of that reduction in aggregate demand from — purchasing power and aggregate demand.
And then you have the workers who have returned from Israel, 180,000 people, maybe 150,000 of whom were sitting in their villages and camps waiting for something to happen, and nothing is happening. I mean, you know, there’s very few alternative jobs in the local market, to begin with. They had become lazy, if you wish, or the labor force had become, you know, dependent, let’s say, on this option of working in Israel, which brings in two to three times local wages.
So there’s a major transformation undergoing in the local economy. We’re going to see extreme poverty increasing in the West Bank, which it was less severe incidents in the past than Gaza, for example. We’re going to see growing social deprivation and inability of the PA, because it doesn’t have any money, hardly, to pay its salaries, much less to provide services to the poor. I mean, education system is continuing, but it’s starting to be hobbled, and so on and so forth. So there’s a gradual — I don’t want to call it a collapse of the Palestinian Authority’s ability to deliver its services, but certainly a retraction and entrenchment.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about the labor situation, because so many thousands of Palestinians worked in Israel proper. Israel is looking to address the major labor shortage because they’re not allowing Palestinians from the Occupied Territories to work in Israel, but by recruiting tens of thousands of people from India, at a time when Palestinians have long played a crucial role in Israeli construction and other sectors, who are now barred. Israeli authorities say they’re hoping to see 10,000 to 20,000 Indian migrant workers in the coming months, a deal that’s being worked out with Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India. What about this?
RAJA KHALIDI: Well, look, I mean, 10,000 to 20,000 is not going to really do anything except perhaps get the next agricultural season crop in and build a few buildings that have been waiting to be completed. Palestinians, there were approximately 90,000, 85,000 Palestinians, of the total 180,000 — more than half of them were working in — 80,000 — more than half of them were working in Israel, Israeli construction. So, I mean, our labor force is highly dependent on the Israeli Construction Center, and the Israeli Construction Center is highly dependent on our labor. So, replacing a part of that, yeah, a stopgap measure.
In agriculture, I believe they’re trying to do something similar with workers from Africa. But, you know, there’s a reason that unlike, let’s say, Gulf states, many Arab Gulf states — the Asian labor force en masse has built the Gulf countries, if you wish. Israel does not want to find itself in that situation. And that’s because, you know, the exploitation of Palestinian labor is easy. They’re next door. They go home at night. And, you know, they’re not going to make trouble. On the other hand, the idea of — you know, and Israel is a — culturally, is not very open and tolerant to pick people of color, even, you know, Jews and Palestinians of color. So, I think that these Asian and, wherever they might come from, African workers are going to face a lot of issues in the discrimination, in what is really an apartheid, if you wish, labor market. Palestinians from the West Bank had a certain position prior to the war. Twenty thousand Gazawis were allowed in and were working. So, there’s this sort of hierarchy. And then you have Arabs in Israel who are slightly higher up the occupation ladder, but — etc., etc. So, where are these Asian workers, who are not going to go home at night, where they’re going to — you know, how they’re going to use them, integrate them, except in a short-term wartime economy, I don’t think it’s a viable option.
But the other option of Israel, you know, you mentioned Smotrich. He’s one of those who are, you know, dead against such a return of Palestinian labor into Israeli markets. So, you know, they can’t have their cake and eat it, too. And I would hope that, you know, a certain amount — I think, for sure, a certain number will be allowed in gradually. But I fear it will be in chain gang-like circumstances, you know, with high security around them, only a few hours, etc., etc. And there will be a lot of room for exploitation by bosses and contractors and people who issue permits and things like that. So, you know, I think that’s the way that one is going to play out.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, we just have a minute, but, Raja Khalidi, you’re sitting there in Ramallah. The occupied West Bank, the Israeli military has raided Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jenin repeatedly, as well as many other areas. If you could just describe what it’s like living there on the ground, not to mention what’s happening in Gaza, and if you see any kind of end of this violence in sight?
RAJA KHALIDI: It’s frightening. I mean, I haven’t left Ramallah for the last four months except three times. And many people are living, sheltering in place. Three hundred fifty thousand Palestinians in Jerusalem have not left Jerusalem for the last four months, whereas they’re usually coming and going to Ramallah and around West Bank all the time. So there is a sense of fear, of lack of mobilization, except at the very local level.
There is no national authority that is engaging and confronting either the settler attacks or the expansion of settlements. We’re seeing settlements, outposts and roads popping up every day on the roads between the major Palestinian cities. Roadblocks have increased, from 550 before the war to 700, and so on and so forth. I had never lived in Palestine under such circumstances. For me, I perhaps have greater access, etc., but it’s not easy for anybody. And for people trying to get to work, people trying to get to hospitals, people — I mean, it’s — and then there is the violence. You never know when — you know, if you go down the wrong road, some settler gang will stone your car, burn it, whatever. That’s not to mention the Israeli army’s campaign against — you mentioned, very correctly, several cities have been devastated, tens of millions of dollars of infrastructure, basically mini Gazas in Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem. And I think that’s intentional. It’s sending a message. And it’s telling us what’s in store for us if anybody raises their head.
And, you know, to be honest, Gaza is a total catastrophe, but it could get worse if they continue in the West Bank. So, if we get to a ceasefire, I hope it’s a comprehensive one, and it’s not only hostilities in Gaza, because we’re at the precipice of a warlike situation in the West Bank. And we don’t have any resistance fighters, in the sense that Gaza has, let’s say, you know, so it’s really everybody in the West Bank who’s going to be drawn into this if things go bad.
AMY GOODMAN: Raja Khalidi is the director general of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute.
Next up, the New York Police Department has launched an investigation after Columbia University students were attacked with a chemical spray during a pro-Palestine demonstration last week. Stay with us.
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Professors Slam Columbia’s Response to Chemical Skunk Attack on Students at Pro-Palestine Protest
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 25, 2024
Transcript
Students at Columbia University in New York held an “emergency protest” Wednesday over the school’s response to an attack on members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest at a rally on campus last Friday. Police in New York are investigating the attack on pro-Palestinian students, who say they were sprayed with a foul-smelling chemical. Eight students were reportedly hospitalized, complaining of burning eyes, headaches, nausea and other symptoms. Organizers allege the attack was carried out by two students who are former members of the Israeli military, using a chemical weapon known as “skunk” that the Israeli military and security forces regularly deploy against Palestinians. The university responded to the attack by first scolding the organizers for holding an “unsanctioned” rally, then later said it had banned the suspects from campus while police investigate. This comes after Columbia administrators banned the local chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace in November, with students describing a climate of censorship and retaliation for pro-Palestinian activism on campus. “Overall, it’s been a very clumsy handling,” Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani says of the school’s response to student protests and campus safety. We also speak with Columbia Law School professor Katherine Franke, who says concerned faculty “have been spending an enormous amount of time protecting our students from the university itself.”
AMY GOODMAN: Students at Columbia University here in New York held an “emergency protest” Wednesday over the school’s response to an attack on members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest at a rally on campus last Friday. Police are now investigating how pro-Palestinian students were sprayed with a hazardous, foul-smelling chemical at Friday’s protest, including members of Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and Jews for Ceasefire. Eight students were reportedly hospitalized or seeking medical attention. Organizers allege the attack was carried out by two students who are former members of the Israeli military, the IDF, using a chemical weapon known as “skunk” that soldiers also deploy on Palestinians.
A Palestinian American student named Layla described the attack she says has left her traumatized, in an interview with the podcast The Robust Opposition.
LAYLA: I remember smelling this smell in the air, and it is just — it was just atrocious. I was like, “Oh my gosh! Like, it smells like somebody died. Like, what is this smell?” And then, at first, I was like, “OK, maybe I stepped in some dog poop. Like, maybe I’m just tired.” I tried to, like, kind of ignore it for a little bit.
But then, after the protest, when the protest was done, I just noticed how bad I felt. I felt so sick. I felt fatigued. I was nauseous. I had a really bad headache. And I was like, “Something is going on here. I’m not sure what, but something is going on here.” And then I was getting texts and calls from my friends. And they were like, “Did you smell that smell?” Or my friend was like, “Oh my gosh! I threw up like three times. Like, I don’t know what is wrong with me.” …
So, when this is used on Palestinians in the West Bank, like, for example, it’s been used on peaceful protesters there. It’s been used on shopkeepers and merchants. So, like, if a merchant gets their produce sprayed with skunk, they have to throw it all out, just because of how bad it stinks. …
It felt like for a while like the university, like, didn’t believe us. Like, I told them about it, and it’s like my concerns weren’t really being taken seriously. And it wasn’t until students started posting photos of themselves being hospitalized, and tagging the university, being, like, at Columbia, like we are — like, they started taking it seriously.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Palestinian American Columbia University student Layla describing Friday’s attack on her, as well as other students who were part of a protest. No arrests have been made yet, but the school now says it’s banned the suspects from campus while law enforcement investigates.
For more, we’re joined by Mahmood Mamdani, professor of government at Columbia University who specializes in the study of colonialism. His books include Neither Settler Nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities. His recent interview with The Nation is headlined “The Idea of the Nation-State Is Synonymous with Genocide.” And we’re joined by Katherine Franke, a Columbia Law School professor, member of the Center for Palestine Studies executive committee, on the board of Palestine Legal, helped write a new op-ed in the campus paper, the Columbia Spectator, headlined “Faculty and staff pledge to take back our University.”
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Professor Franke, can you explain what happened, the skunking of the students, sprayed with this chemical? Do you know, does the university know, who these students were, where they came from? And have they been dealt with?
KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, good morning, Amy.
So, the students were protesting in the main quad of the university last Friday. And we’ve had a series of protests. Our students are outraged at what’s going on, in our name and with our tax dollars, in Gaza. And while they were protesting — and, I will say, peacefully — last Friday, as your recording of Layla’s recounting of what happened, they all of the sudden smelled this horrible stench. And I’ve smelled skunk water when I’ve been in the West Bank at protests. It is horrible.
And what the students were able to do is examine video from that protest and identify, I think, three older students. We have a — Columbia has a program. It’s a graduate relationship with older students from other countries, including Israel. And it’s something that many of us were concerned about, because so many of those Israeli students, who then come to the Columbia campus, are coming right out of their military service. And they’ve been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus. And it’s something the university has not taken seriously in the past. But we’ve never seen anything like this. And the students were able to identify three of these exchange students, basically, from Israel, who had just come out of military service, who were spraying the pro-Palestinian students with this skunk water. And they were disguised in keffiyehs so that they could mix in with the students who were demanding that the university divest from companies that are supporting the occupation and the war, and were protesting and demanding a ceasefire. So we know who they were.
The university waited three or four days to actually even say anything about it. They have not reached out to the students who were sick, as you noted, some of whom are still in the hospital. I spoke to one student last night in the hopes that we could get one of them on your show this morning, and he was so mentally and physically disabled from this attack that he said, “I haven’t left my dorm room in a week.” So, our students are in terrible distress about this, both those who were sprayed and those who weren’t. There was another protest yesterday, and the students were actually quite afraid to come back onto the campus.
AMY GOODMAN: Is it true that you’ve seen these students, the former IDF students, on campus? And what is the administration saying about that since the attack?
KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, the university says that they have banned the three identified students from the campus. But I was told that one of them was there yesterday. Other students saw him. I don’t know that for sure, but several students said they saw one of them. You know, we have a fairly porous campus. To ban them from campus is something that they’d have to volunteer to comply with, except when there is a demonstration, when they lock — they’ve started locking the campus down in the last several months with gates, and you have to have your ID to get scanned to enter the campus. And then there’s a wall of NYPD. When I went to class yesterday, there were hundreds of NYPD officers, in uniform, lining our campus.
So, the university’s response has not been compassion, support for the students who were attacked. Instead, it’s been a militarization of our own campus and a further restraint on our students’ ability to protest peacefully, now turning to the excuse of this attack from those who support the Israeli government and the violence that’s being meted out towards Gazans as a kind of pretext to clamp down even further on peaceful protest by our other students.
AMY GOODMAN: Mahmood Mamdani, you have written about the situation in Gaza. You’ve spoken about it. There are now over 25,000 Palestinians who have been killed, over 11,000 of them children. The issue of hunger in Gaza is a very serious issue, raised by the U.N. and medical groups. You have that situation there and the solidarity expressed with the people in Palestine on college campuses. Can you talk about what’s happening at Columbia, and both staff, professors’, students’ feelings about whether they can express their views without being doxxed or attacked?
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: Thank you, Amy.
The situation at Columbia has been developing. It’s monitored by an administration which seem to have very little idea about what to do. At the same time, it had certain assumptions. The assumption was that the main problem at Columbia is antisemitism, and the administration should do everything to keep it in check and then to eradicate it.
When incidents like this, the chemical spraying, emerged, the administration’s first response was kind of disbelief. “Give us the facts.” Overall, it’s been a very clumsy handling. Different parts of the administration have different and sometimes conflicting initiatives. At the same time, they have a coherence. And the coherence is basically to shut things down and only to have an opening from the top, so no question of freedom of expression from below. That’s where we are now. Meanwhile, the community is convinced that the shots are being called by those who give the money.
AMY GOODMAN: So, how are you organizing, as a professor, with other professors, with students?
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: I think the number of concerned professors is growing. We’re all convinced that the initiative must remain with the students. They are in the frontline. But also we’re convinced that we should offer whatever guidance we can offer. We meet and discuss. I personally have not been involved in face-to-face meetings much because of health issues. But I have been involved in meetings which are remote meetings. And it’s changing every day, and it’s developing.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Franke, last semester Columbia University, the new president at Columbia, suspended both SJP, Students for Justice in Palestine, as well as Jewish Voice for Peace for holding a so-called unauthorized event, a walkout and art display in support of a ceasefire in Gaza. So, what are these groups’ status right now? And also, you yourself have long been involved with issues around Palestine. In fact, Israel deported you. And explain why. This was before October 7th.
KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, my circumstances are much less acute than the circumstances of our students right now. You know, I’ve been part of the Barnard and Columbia community since the late '70s. I went to Barnard as an undergrad. And I've been at Columbia now as a professor for 25 years. Columbia’s campus has always been a place where students have engaged the most critical issues of the day. When I was there in the late '70s, it was issues around feminism and pornography and sexual rights. And later, there were things around the Iraq War and the invitation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the campus. You know, students, faculty have used the campus as a palette for learning about difficult issues — that's what we do at universities — for protesting or showing up for communities that are persecuted around the world.
And what we’ve seen this administration do since October 8th is kind of go to war against our students. I have never seen the university disband student groups for peaceful protest. We have scores, 30, 40, 50 complaints that the university has filed against students for violations of the disciplinary code or for organizing protests, based on their changing of the rules around how to have an event the night before the event, so that the students don’t even know that they’re violating some new event rule. The university said that SJP and JVP had to be suspended because they engaged in intimidating and threatening and antisemitic rhetoric. And then, in private meetings with them, they said, actually they didn’t, but they won’t retract that. So, that defamation of our students remains in the public and in the media and in the eyes and ears of our alums and of other students, but they won’t repudiate it.
And so, the students feel like they have nothing left that they can do, except protest against the university at this point. But Professor Mamdani and I and other faculty have been spending an enormous amount of time protecting our students from the university itself. Barnard students are being prosecuted for their social media posts and for hanging Palestinian flags outside of their dorm rooms, when New York City law specifically protects the hanging of flags outside of a dormitory. So, it feels like we’re under a kind of siege, too, at Columbia and at Barnard.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Mamdani, before you were a professor at Columbia, you were a professor and director of the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Tomorrow, the decision will come out of the International Court of Justice, an emergency decision on South Africa’s case, genocide case, against Israel. Your final comments?
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: Well, for those who read the South African application, it must be clear that its strong point was the content, the argument, the substance. The empirical material relied, drew totally from U.N. sources and from no other source, really. So it was unimpeachable.
The Israeli side, the Israeli lawyers did not say anything, did not present any defense on whether a genocide is unfolding. What they did defend was that, procedurally, South Africa should not be the party making an application.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Mahmood Mamdani, we’re going to continue this discussion and post it online at democracynow.org. Mahmood Mamdani, professor of government at Columbia University, and Katherine Franke, Columbia Law School professor. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Sun Jan 28, 2024 12:28 am
International Court of Justice Orders Israel to Prevent Genocide in Gaza But Fails to Order Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 26, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/26/ ... transcript
Transcript
In a highly anticipated ruling, the International Court of Justice at The Hague has found that there is a “real and imminent risk” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and supported “at least some” of the provisional measures South Africa had requested when it brought the case in order to rein in Israel’s military assault. Though the ruling falls short of calling for an immediate ceasefire, analysts say it is nevertheless a significant milestone. We discuss the “unprecedented” decision by the World Court with a panel of experts: Palestinian human rights attorney Diana Buttu, genocide scholar Raz Segal and scholar of colonialism Mahmood Mamdani. “It becomes imperative upon the world community to now act,” says Buttu. “This is the beginning of a process of isolating Israel,” adds Segal.
AMY GOODMAN: In a landmark ruling today, the International Court of Justice found plausible risk that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and ordered provisional measures but stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire. The ruling was read out by the president of the court, Joan Donoghue. She began with the finding that South Africa had jurisdiction to bring the case against Israel.
JUDGE JOAN DONOGHUE: In the court’s view, at least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the convention. In light of the following, the court concludes that prima facie it has jurisdiction, pursuant to Article IX of the convention, to entertain the case.
AMY GOODMAN: South Africa had asked the court, as a matter of extreme urgency, to impose emergency measures to protect Palestinians in Gaza. The president of the court went on to read out the findings regarding South Africa’s request for provisional measures.
JUDGE JOAN DONOGHUE: In the court’s view, the aforementioned facts and circumstances are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible. This is the case with respect to the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in Article III and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance with the latter’s obligations under the convention.
The court then turns to the condition of the link between the plausible rights claimed by South Africa and the provisional measures requested. It considers that, by their very nature, at least some of the provisional measures sought by South Africa are aimed at preserving the plausible rights it asserts on the basis of the Genocide Convention in the present case — namely, the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts mentioned in Article III and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance with the latter’s obligations under the convention. Therefore, a link exists between the rights claimed by South Africa that the court has found to be plausible and at least some of the provisional measures requested.
AMY GOODMAN: The president of the court, Joan Donoghue, cited the killing of Palestinians in Gaza, mass displacement, deprivation of aid and other charges brought by South Africa, and went on to say the court found a plausible risk that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
JUDGE JOAN DONOGHUE: The court considers that there is urgency in the sense that there is a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to the rights found by the court to be plausible before it gives its final decision. The court concludes, on the basis of the aforementioned considerations, that the conditions required by its statute for it to indicate provisional measures are met. It is therefore necessary, pending its final decision, for the court to indicate certain measures in order to protect the rights claimed by South Africa that the court has found to be plausible.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by three guests. We’re going to begin in Haifa with Diana Buttu, Palestinian human rights attorney, former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization. In 2004, Diana Buttu was part of the legal team that won the case before the International Court of Justice which ruled Israel’s separation wall in the West Bank is illegal under international law.
Diana Buttu, welcome back to Democracy Now! If you can respond to the court’s ruling, that was just released moments before we went to air?
DIANA BUTTU: This is an amazing ruling, because it highlights everything that the South African team and, of course, Palestinians have been saying the entire time, which is that Israel is plausibly carrying out genocide. And so, the fact that the court has indicated to Israel that they have to take measures to prevent genocide, to make sure that soldiers are doing the same, to prosecute those individuals who are inciting, including high government officials, and ensure that there is effective humanitarian aid, is precisely what was sought by Palestinians. It’s now up to the world to make sure that this court ruling is actually enacted.
AMY GOODMAN: But they did not call for an immediate ceasefire, as South Africa asked. The significance of this?
DIANA BUTTU: I think it’s very difficult at this stage for the court to be pushing for a ceasefire. But in the fact that they said, first and foremost, that Israel has to take all measures to prevent acts of genocide is enough for the world to then be pushing for a ceasefire. It’s really up to the international system as we know it to make sure that genocide is not carried out. And so it’s imperative that this be followed up by countries around the world making sure that Israel doesn’t get to do whatever it wants to do with Palestinians in Gaza and continue this genocide.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the woman who we heard delivering the pronouncement of the court, Joan Donoghue, a former State Department official, though she’s not representing the United States in this? She represents the court. She was in the State Department under President Obama.
DIANA BUTTU: Well, yes, and she was the — she was one of the judges, one of 17 judges on the bench — two of them are ad hoc — one of the 15 permanent judges, who ruled in favor of all of the measures that had been sought. Her term actually expires on February the 6th, and so she won’t be with the court after that. But it was very important that this decision not just be a split court. But you can tell by the breadth of it that of the 17 judges, two being ad hoc, that on most of the issues, it was 15 versus 2, one being the Ugandan judge and the second, of course, being the Israeli judge, and in some cases it being 16 to 1, with the one, ironically, being the Ugandan judge.
AMY GOODMAN: Why the Ugandan judge?
DIANA BUTTU: It’s not clear. It’s not entirely clear why. It’s clear why the Israeli judge, obviously. But what’s more important is the fact that we see that this court has overwhelmingly decided in favor of South Africa, has overwhelmingly determined that there is plausible risk of genocide. And it becomes imperative upon the world community to now act. You know, the fact that it’s taken 112 days for the world to finally recognize that this is genocide, and that it had to go to court, says something about the international legal system as we know it, which is that it’s broken. But I’m hoping that based on this, the world will now begin to act, rather than hiding behind all these false claims that Israel has repeated for the past 112 days.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Raz Segal into this discussion, Israeli historian, associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University, endowed professor in the study of modern genocide, co-authored a recent piece for Al Jazeera headlined “Intent in the genocide case against Israel is not hard to prove.” He’s joining us from Philadelphia. Professor, welcome back to Democracy Now! Your response to this ruling?
RAZ SEGAL: Hello. Good morning. Thank you for having me.
I think this is, really, an unprecedented ruling. It signals, first and foremost, the end of Israeli impunity in the international legal system, which is huge, right? Israel has enjoyed impunity in the international legal system for decades in the face of mounting evidence of gross violations of international law, of mass violence, occupation, siege, so on. This is the end of that era.
So it’s just a beginning of a process that, really, I think, now with a ruling that basically recognizes the possibility of genocide, the fact that Israel is likely committing genocidal acts — this is a beginning of a process of isolating Israel, because any university, company, state now will have to consider, moving forward, whether it continues — or doesn’t continue, in many cases, I think — to engage with Israel, because it is likely committing genocide. This also legally triggers third-state responsibility on issues of prevention and complicity with genocide.
And it’s significantly important today, where in a few hours in a court in Florida there will be the hearing in the case that the Center for Constitutional Rights has brought against Biden, Blinken and Austin, indeed, on complicity with genocide, U.S. complicity with genocide, and the failure to prevent a genocide. So, this might have, actually, a certain effect even on this case today in California moving forward.
So, this is really unprecedented. Yes, it is a disappointment that the court did not order an immediate ceasefire. But it did order Israel to cease from any genocidal acts, which de facto is actually an order for a ceasefire.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the issue of getting aid into Gaza, Raz Segal?
RAZ SEGAL: Yeah, the court also issued an order on the urgent need, and it stressed, of course, the really unprecedented scale of destruction and killing, the dire situation in Gaza, in terms of what we know, the levels of hunger and the spread of infectious disease. So it also ordered this, which is, again, very, very important. I mean, we all need to now wait and see what Israel’s response to this will be.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to also bring into this discussion Mahmood Mamdani, professor of government at Columbia University who specializes in the study of colonialism. One of his many books is Neither Settler Nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities. He was previously a professor and director of the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and has been an academic leader in Uganda for years. Professor Mamdani, your response to this ruling? We discussed yesterday, before the ruling, what you expected. What did you see today?
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: Thank you for bringing me in.
Actually, everything that I expected happened. I wasn’t sure they would call for a ceasefire. But now listening to the reasoning of the court, it is clear to me that they couldn’t have called directly for a ceasefire without preempting their future deliberations. At the same time, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and sounds like a duck, then it’s a duck. Everything they ordered in terms of preventive measures leads to only one conclusion, which is ceasefire. How do you stop killing people? Ceasefire. How do you ensure that supplies for human life get in? Ceasefire. And so on and so forth.
I think the ball is now in the political domain. The law cannot displace politics. It can open avenues for politics. And that’s where we are now. This ruling is enormously significant in terms of broadening the avenues for politics, in terms of strengthening and accelerating the trend towards a global alliance against settler colonialism. And it has the U.S. on the defensive, Israel on the defensive.
We know that the last time the court ruled against Israel, which was on the question of the wall, Israel just ignored it. But this time, I think it may not be so easy to do. First of all, one has to ask oneself: Why did Israel come before the court? It could have just ignored it. According to its past conduct, that’s what it would have done. So the fact that it came before the court suggests that there are conflicting pressures before the Israeli government. Now what does it do? I think this is one goal in favor of the world, and we continue with the game.
AMY GOODMAN: And your insight into the Ugandan judge of the International Court of Justice? Sometimes the vote was 15 to 2, as Diana Buttu said, the Ugandan judge and the Israeli judge, and sometimes it was 16 to 1.
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: Well, Judge Sebutinde, she has a — she had a career where she had opposed the Museveni regime on several legal issues in court. Then she was appointed by the Museveni regime on the international stage, thus removing her from the local stage. I haven’t followed her career since then, but she was pretty consistent. There seemed to be no indication that she was making up her mind from issue to issue. I can’t say anything more than that right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to go to break and then come back to our guests. We’re speaking with Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani here in New York; with Raz Segal, the Israeli historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University; and in Haifa, Diana Buttu, Palestinian human rights attorney. We’ll also hear more from the International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s highest court. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Masters of War,” Bob Dylan, here on Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
The International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s highest court, has found a plausible risk Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and ordered provisional measures but stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire. This is the president of the court, Joan Donoghue, reading out the vote of part of the ruling.
JUDGE JOAN DONOGHUE: By 15 votes to 2, the state of Israel shall, in accordance with its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in relation to the Palestinians in Gaza, take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of the convention — in particular, A, killing members of the group; B, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; C, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part; and, D, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
AMY GOODMAN: Over a one-hour ruling, the International Court of Justice President Joan Donoghue in The Hague quoted Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, saying that as the war got underway, Gallant had said, “We have removed all restraints. We will eliminate everything,” referring to Palestinians as “animals.” Judge Donoghue continued, Gallant went on to describe Hamas as comparable to the Islamic State. After proceedings concluded today, the South African government said it welcomed the ICJ’s decision.
We’re continuing with our guests right now: Diana Buttu, Palestinian human rights attorney in Haifa, Israel; Raz Segal, Israeli historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies, Stockton University, joining us from Philadelphia; and Mahmood Mamdani, professor of government at Columbia University, specializing in the study of colonialism.
Diana Buttu, if you can talk about what exactly the timetable is right now and the true level of enforcement that the ICJ, or even the United Nations, overall, has? Go back to using as a reference your involvement with the 2004 decision, where the ICJ ruled the separation wall that Israel built in the Occupied Territories illegal.
DIANA BUTTU: Well, let’s first start with this particular case. I think it’s important to keep in mind that just last week Prime Minister Netanyahu said that nothing is going to stop him, not the ICJ, not The Hague; nobody is going to stop him; and that he’s going to continue to pursue ahead. And, of course, the reason he’s doing this is, in part, because he is genocidal and, in large part, because he knows that the minute that the attacks on Gaza are over, that his term in office is also over, because of the internal dissent inside Israel.
And the reason that this is important is because it’s — we haven’t heard yet what Israel is — what they’ve said, but judging by that, it means that they’re going to ignore this ruling. And if they ignore this ruling, it then becomes imperative upon the member states to take this decision to the U.N. Security Council to have the ruling enforced at the Security Council level. And it becomes really a question of whether the United States is going to veto or abstain, or what exactly it’s going to do.
I can tell you, in terms of what happened in 2004, 2004 was a very different case. It was an advisory opinion. It wasn’t a case of the same type. And in 2004, Israel took the exact same position, that it wasn’t going to stop the construction of the wall. In fact, it accelerated it. But part of the decision indicated that there are other states, third states, other countries, that are also obliged to make sure that Israel upholds international law. And that was the part where the world failed.
And out of that, this is where we saw the BDS, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, movement end up being recreated or reconstituted on the one-year anniversary of the ICJ ruling, so in 2005. And the reason that it came together was because they expected — we expected — that the world was going to come forward and do something to make sure that the advisory opinion was upheld and enforced. But instead, they did nothing.
So, once again, we’re going to see that — we will likely see that Israel is going to ignore this ruling. It’s then imperative to take it to the U.N. Security Council. But all the while it’s very important that we continue to boycott Israel, to divest from Israel and to push for sanctions, that the global BDS movement should be growing at this point to make sure that the age of Israeli impunity finally comes to an end.
AMY GOODMAN: Raz Segal, if you can talk about the aspects of genocide — you write, “The crime of genocide has two elements — intention and execution” — and what Joan Donoghue, the head of the court, at least for another few weeks, read in terms of the decision for what constitutes genocide, and what this means, as an Israeli historian who lives in the United States, while Israel tried to say this doesn’t matter? The fact is, they participated in this, clearly showing it matters a great deal to them. And also, what it means for the United States’ support for Israel, and what’s happening today with this court finding?
RAZ SEGAL: Yeah, so, I think that it was very important that the court quoted some of the statements of intent. And it’s again important to emphasize that we’re talking about dozens of statements of intent to destroy Palestinians, “intent to destroy” in the language of the U.N. convention, and by people with what’s called in international law “command authority,” so state leaders, war cabinet ministers, senior army officers. And these statements were made over time, so not just a week or two after the 7th of October Hamas-led attack, but over time, actually until today, when we think about what Prime Minister Netanyahu said on 13th of January, when he said that Israel’s attack will continue, whatever happens in The Hague. He also reiterated the portrayal of Palestinians as Nazis, for example, right? Which is basically a mechanism of dehumanization, a mechanism that portrays all Palestinians in Gaza as legitimate military targets. So, these statements of intent, again, dozens of statements, over time, by people with command authority, filled with dehumanizing language — right? — “human animals,” “monsters” — which historically we know are indicators of genocide. So I think it was very significant that the court mentioned and quoted some of these statements to emphasize that it’s not as Israel tried to argue, that it’s not something that we can disregard, that it’s actually a key element of the crime of genocide, and we should be paying attention to this.
But then it also emphasized, a number of times, actually, the really unprecedented scale of killing and destruction on the ground, the catastrophic situation that Palestinians are facing now. And in this context, I think it’s very important to say that the court basically accepted South Africa’s argument that Israel’s, quote-unquote, “evacuation orders” are not actually, as Israel claimed, humanitarian measures, but they’re actually genocidal in essence. That means that they are meant — which is what they did — to displace millions of people, almost 2 million Palestinians, virtually almost all the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and under intensive bombings. And we know that Israel also bombed Palestinians fleeing on routes that it designated as safe. It also bombed Palestinians in the southern part of the strip early on, which it designated as safe. And, of course, under the conditions of the total siege, where we today — indeed, this measure did what it was intended to do, right? It created famine. It created the spread of infectious disease. It created a population that has no access to clean water, has no fuel, has no medical supply. It destroyed all the universities in Gaza. It destroyed a majority of the hospitals. It destroyed agricultural land. It targeted cultural sites. So, everything that we know historically that happens in genocide, and with this massive displacement that is now — we know that even if Israel’s attack stops now, many, many Palestinians will continue to die of these “conditions of life” — again, to quote the convention — that Israel deliberately created in order to bring about the physical destruction of the group, in whole or in part.
So I thought that it was very important that the ruling actually quoted and emphasized both the issues of intent and the dynamics of violence and the conditions that we see now on the ground. This is very, very significant. Again, the court is saying that there is plausibility that Israel is likely — has committed and is committing acts of genocide in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: And what this means for the United States, Professor Segal?
RAZ SEGAL: Yeah, well, I mean, the —
AMY GOODMAN: And that the deliverer of the message, of course, the head of the court, is an American?
RAZ SEGAL: Yeah, I think that, you know, it’s difficult — it’s difficult to say. And I’m curious to see how the U.S. state will respond. I think that — I’m very curious to see, as I said, in the next few hours, beginning at noon today Eastern time, the case in California. Right? Because now the judge there has the ICJ ruling, so the judge knows that the World Court has ruled that Israel is likely committing a genocide.
I think that there will be growing pressure also on the U.S. in this sense. It’s difficult to say what the U.S. will do, but we do know, actually, that in Europe, there are more and more states — not Germany, but more and more states — that have already said and will, in various ways, need to abide by the court ruling, which may be very significant in terms of obstructing arms deals, refusing to facilitate transfer arms to Israel through Europe, and various other measures. You know, I think that, as I said before, any company, any university, any state around the world now — right? — knows that Israel is likely committing genocide, so the isolation of Israel. And I hope that we’ll also be seeing more and more calls for direct cutting of ties with Israel, academic boycotts in the U.S.
So, while U.S. state will definitely try, you know, to ignore the ruling — and we already see the headline in The New York Times right now, by the way, if people are following — right? — which frames this as the court did not issue an order for ceasefire, right? Which, in effect, it actually did, because if it — you know, as Professor Mamdani said, if it ordered — right? — that Israel should cease from genocidal acts, if it ordered that Israel should facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid, it actually said you have to cease fire, because, otherwise, there’s no ways of doing that, right? So, I think that the U.S., if judged by The New York Times right now, will try to ignore this as much as possible, but I think that the pressure is going to be — we’re just at the beginning of the pressure building up on this issue. So I think we might see some significant moves on this front, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: The court case you’re referring to in Oakland today, which will be fueled by the International Court of Justice response from The Hague, the Center for Constitutional Rights brought the lawsuit against President Biden, accusing him of failing to follow his obligations under international and U.S. law to prevent the genocide in Gaza, the complaint brought on behalf of Palestinians, including residents of Gaza, who are asking a federal court — asking a federal court to — let’s see if I can read this — a federal court to intervene to block Biden, U.S. 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 for the Center for Constitutional Rights and one of the lawyers who brought the case, said in a statement, “The United States has a clear and binding obligation to prevent, not further, genocide. So far, they have failed in both their legal, moral duty and considerable power to end this horror. They must do so.” Now, that’s the court case that’s happening in a few hours in Oakland.
I also wanted to read the response of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I’m reading from an article in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper. He said the decision by the ICJ, quote, “'rightly rejected the outrageous demand to deny' Israel the right to basic self-defense to which it is entitled as a country. According to him, 'the very claim that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians is not just false, it is outrageous, and the court's willingness to discuss it at all is a mark of disgrace that will not be erased for generations.’”
I want to go back to Professor Mamdani, but first play more of the court decision as read out by the chief judge of the International Court of Justice, Joan Donoghue.
JUDGE JOAN DONOGHUE: During the ongoing conflict, senior United Nations officials have repeatedly called attention to the risk of further deterioration of conditions in the Gaza Strip. The court takes note, for instance, of the letter dated 6 December, 2023, whereby the secretary-general of the United Nations brought the following information to the attention of the Security Council.
I quote: “The healthcare system in Gaza is collapsing. Nowhere is safe in Gaza. Amid constant bombarding by the Israel Defense Forces and without shelter or the essentials to survive, I expect public order to break — to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions rendering even limited humanitarian assistance impossible. An even worse situation could unfold, including epidemic diseases and increased pressure for mass displacement into neighboring countries. We are facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system. The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe, with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region. Such an outcome must be avoided at all costs,” end of quote.
On 5 January, 2024, the secretary-general wrote again to the Security Council, providing an update on the situation in the Gaza Strip and observing that — I quote — “Sadly, devastating levels of death and destruction continue,” end of quote.
The court also takes note of the 17 January, 2024, statement issued by the UNRWA commissioner-general upon return from his fourth visit to the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the current conflict in Gaza. I quote: “Every time I visit Gaza, I witness how people have sunk further into despair, with the struggle for survival consuming every hour,” end of quote.
The court considers that the civilian population in the Gaza Strip remains extremely vulnerable. It recalls that the military operation conducted by Israel after 7 October, 2023, has resulted inter alia in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries and the destruction of homes, schools, medical facilities and other vital infrastructure, as well as displacement on a massive scale. The court notes that the operation is ongoing and that the prime minister of Israel announced on 18 January, 2024, that the war — I quote — “will take many more long months,” end of quote.
At present, many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have no access to the most basic foodstuffs, potable water, electricity, essential medicines or heating. The World Health Organization has estimated that 15% of the women giving birth in Gaza Strip are likely to experience complications, and indicates that maternal and newborn death rates are expected to increase due to the lack of access to medical care.
In these circumstances, the court considers that the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further before the court renders its final judgment. The court recalls Israel’s statement that it has taken certain steps to address and alleviate the conditions faced by the population in the Gaza Strip. The court further notes that the attorney general of Israel recently stated that a call for intentional harm to civilians may amount to a criminal offense, including that of incitement, and that several such cases are being examined by Israeli law enforcement authorities. While such steps are to be encouraged, they are insufficient to remove the risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused before the court issues its final decision in the case.
AMY GOODMAN: Joan Donoghue is the chief judge of the International Court of Justice, the U.N.'s highest court, reading out the decision of the ICJ at The Hague. When we come back, we'll continue our discussion with Mahmood Mamdani, with Diana Buttu and with Raz Segal. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Hal Asmar El-Lon,” “My Dear with the Brown Skin,” performed by Lena Chamamyan. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
As we get response to the International Court of Justice handing down its decision today at The Hague, we want to go right now to the State Department, the questioning of Matt Miller, State Department spokesperson, by the Associated Press reporter Matt Lee. This took place last week about Israel’s demolition of Al-Israa University in Gaza.
MATT LEE: I mean, it looks like a controlled demolition. It looks like what we do here in this country when we’re taking down an old hotel or a stadium. And you have nothing to say? You have nothing to say about this?
MATTHEW MILLER: I — I have —
MATT LEE: I mean, to do that kind of an explosion, you need to be in there. You have to put the explosives down, and it takes a lot of planning and preparation to do. And if there was a threat from this particular facility, they wouldn’t have been able to do it.
MATTHEW MILLER: So, I have seen the video. I can tell you that it is something we are raising with the government of Israel, as we do — often do, when we see —
MATT LEE: Well, “raising” is what? Like —
MATTHEW MILLER: When we see — to ask questions and find out what the underlying situation is, as we often do when we see reports of this nature. But I’m not able to characterize the actual facts on the ground before hearing that response.
MATT LEE: Yeah, but you saw the video.
MATTHEW MILLER: I did see the video. I don’t — I don’t know — I don’t know —
MATT LEE: I mean, it looks like people —
MATTHEW MILLER: I don’t know what was —
MATT LEE: It looks like, you know, a bridge being imploded or something.
MATTHEW MILLER: I don’t know what was under that — I don’t know what was under that building. I don’t know what was inside —
MATT LEE: Well, yeah, but —
MATTHEW MILLER: — inside that building.
MATT LEE: But it doesn’t matter what was under the building, because they obviously got in there to put the explosives down to do it in the way that they did.
MATTHEW MILLER: So, again, I’m glad you have factual certainty, but I just — I just don’t.
MATT LEE: I don’t.
MATTHEW MILLER: I just don’t.
MATT LEE: All have is what I saw on the video, right?
MATTHEW MILLER: I — I just don’t. But I can say say —
MATT LEE: And I think you guys saw it, too.
MATTHEW MILLER: We did see it. I can say that we have raised it with the government of Israel.
MATT LEE: And it’s not troubling to you?
MATTHEW MILLER: We are always troubled by the — by any degradation of civilian infrastructure in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s State Department spokesperson Matt Miller being questioned by the AP reporter Matt Lee.
We’re continuing our discussion and talking about facts on the ground in Gaza. We’ll start with professor Mahmood Mamdani, professor of government at Columbia University, the School of International and Public Affairs, SIPA, specializing in the study of colonialism.
You are a professor, Professor Mamdani. If you can talk about the response of professors here to the destruction of universities, cultural spaces in Gaza, and the significance of this, and where you think this preliminary ruling of the ICJ — how you think it will affect what’s being described today?
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: Well, I think the more facts come to light, the more Israel’s actions in Gaza look like a textbook case of genocide. This calculated destruction of a people’s intellectual resources and intellectual legacy is not something which just has a short-term impact or is based on a short-term consideration. It is aimed at a long-term resolution of this question.
Already there is considerable concern amongst faculty at Columbia University. For the last few days, I’ve been seeing emails going around with photographs of this, what the AP reporter called “controlled demolition,” premeditated demolition. And people are asking Columbia University to take action, to declare where they stand. And this will go on.
One thing I am struck by as sort of evidence mounts is that the court ruling relied on two sources of information. One was U.N. commissions. And the second was statements by Israeli leaders themselves. Nothing else. And in doing so, it followed, almost strictly, the South African application, because the South African application also drew its facts not from other sources, but from U.N. commissions.
And now we have got a situation where the court has asked Israel to report back in a month and tell the court what it has done to comply with its decision, and given South Africa the right to comment on this report back by Israel. This is going to be another round of not just PR, because this is going to be a controlled process.
So I think we’re onto good territory. We are onto a territory which will bring more and more facts to light. And therefore we are onto a territory which will permit increased political mobilization based on these facts, especially in the U.S. and Israel, because these are the two countries where there has been minimal information in the mass media on what’s been going on in Gaza. Now this will become open territory.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring in Diana Buttu again as we begin to wrap the show. Yesterday, Ryan Grim in The Intercept wrote, “I was at the State Department briefing today and asked if the U.S. would pledge not to veto the International Court of Justice’s preliminary ruling on the genocide charges against Israel.” If you can respond to what that means, what this process is? And again, what’s happening on the ground now in Gaza, with Israel dropping more leaflets in what was a safe space, which was Khan Younis, and this parade of humanity and misery of hundreds, if not thousands, going south from Khan Younis?
DIANA BUTTU: Well, Amy, I’m sure you saw the response. And the response was a typical American administration word salad.
And the reason that I think it’s so important for us to continue to press ahead is because what Israel has had in mind is two things since the beginning of this attack on Gaza. First, it has made it clear that it wants to make Gaza smaller in size, and they’ve made it clear that they want to, quote, “thin out” the population. So it’s the combination of genocide and ethnic cleansing and taking more Palestinian land. And that’s why, from the beginning, it was clear to anybody who was paying attention that Israel was going to begin in the north, but then suddenly, magically, move to the south as everybody had looked the other way. And this is precisely what’s happening.
So, now what Israel is doing is not only just dropping leaflets in Khan Younis. There isn’t a single place that has been safe in Gaza from day one. And the intention is clear. If you want to get medical treatment, even now or a day after the bombing ends, you’re going to have to seek it elsewhere. If you want to get education, you’re going to have to go elsewhere. If you want to have a home and have a normal life, you’re going to have to go elsewhere.
And so, it’s this combination of genocide and ethnic cleansing that Israel has been pushing forward from day one. And the problem is, of course, that the United States has been not only an enabler for Israel, but it’s been blocking any other effort to try to stop this process of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
AMY GOODMAN: And the issue of this court decision — and we just have 10 seconds — going to the U.N. Security Council, if violated?
DIANA BUTTU: Yeah, so, under the rules of the International Court of Justice, states must oblige. They’re obliged to uphold the rules of the ICJ, the decisions. But if they do not, they can go to the U.N. Security Council. And so, I suspect that we will be seeing this at the Security Council. The real question is whether the United States is going to use that veto or abstain.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you all for being with us today. Diana Buttu, Palestinian human rights attorney, former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization. In 2004, she was part of the legal team that won a case before the International Court of Justice, which ruled Israel’s separation wall in the West Bank is illegal under international law, speaking to us from Haifa, Israel. Raz Segal, Israeli historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University. And Mahmood Mamdani, professor of government at Columbia University.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
JANUARY 26, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/26/ ... transcript
Transcript
In a highly anticipated ruling, the International Court of Justice at The Hague has found that there is a “real and imminent risk” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and supported “at least some” of the provisional measures South Africa had requested when it brought the case in order to rein in Israel’s military assault. Though the ruling falls short of calling for an immediate ceasefire, analysts say it is nevertheless a significant milestone. We discuss the “unprecedented” decision by the World Court with a panel of experts: Palestinian human rights attorney Diana Buttu, genocide scholar Raz Segal and scholar of colonialism Mahmood Mamdani. “It becomes imperative upon the world community to now act,” says Buttu. “This is the beginning of a process of isolating Israel,” adds Segal.
AMY GOODMAN: In a landmark ruling today, the International Court of Justice found plausible risk that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and ordered provisional measures but stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire. The ruling was read out by the president of the court, Joan Donoghue. She began with the finding that South Africa had jurisdiction to bring the case against Israel.
JUDGE JOAN DONOGHUE: In the court’s view, at least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the convention. In light of the following, the court concludes that prima facie it has jurisdiction, pursuant to Article IX of the convention, to entertain the case.
AMY GOODMAN: South Africa had asked the court, as a matter of extreme urgency, to impose emergency measures to protect Palestinians in Gaza. The president of the court went on to read out the findings regarding South Africa’s request for provisional measures.
JUDGE JOAN DONOGHUE: In the court’s view, the aforementioned facts and circumstances are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible. This is the case with respect to the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in Article III and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance with the latter’s obligations under the convention.
The court then turns to the condition of the link between the plausible rights claimed by South Africa and the provisional measures requested. It considers that, by their very nature, at least some of the provisional measures sought by South Africa are aimed at preserving the plausible rights it asserts on the basis of the Genocide Convention in the present case — namely, the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts mentioned in Article III and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance with the latter’s obligations under the convention. Therefore, a link exists between the rights claimed by South Africa that the court has found to be plausible and at least some of the provisional measures requested.
AMY GOODMAN: The president of the court, Joan Donoghue, cited the killing of Palestinians in Gaza, mass displacement, deprivation of aid and other charges brought by South Africa, and went on to say the court found a plausible risk that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
JUDGE JOAN DONOGHUE: The court considers that there is urgency in the sense that there is a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to the rights found by the court to be plausible before it gives its final decision. The court concludes, on the basis of the aforementioned considerations, that the conditions required by its statute for it to indicate provisional measures are met. It is therefore necessary, pending its final decision, for the court to indicate certain measures in order to protect the rights claimed by South Africa that the court has found to be plausible.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by three guests. We’re going to begin in Haifa with Diana Buttu, Palestinian human rights attorney, former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization. In 2004, Diana Buttu was part of the legal team that won the case before the International Court of Justice which ruled Israel’s separation wall in the West Bank is illegal under international law.
Diana Buttu, welcome back to Democracy Now! If you can respond to the court’s ruling, that was just released moments before we went to air?
DIANA BUTTU: This is an amazing ruling, because it highlights everything that the South African team and, of course, Palestinians have been saying the entire time, which is that Israel is plausibly carrying out genocide. And so, the fact that the court has indicated to Israel that they have to take measures to prevent genocide, to make sure that soldiers are doing the same, to prosecute those individuals who are inciting, including high government officials, and ensure that there is effective humanitarian aid, is precisely what was sought by Palestinians. It’s now up to the world to make sure that this court ruling is actually enacted.
AMY GOODMAN: But they did not call for an immediate ceasefire, as South Africa asked. The significance of this?
DIANA BUTTU: I think it’s very difficult at this stage for the court to be pushing for a ceasefire. But in the fact that they said, first and foremost, that Israel has to take all measures to prevent acts of genocide is enough for the world to then be pushing for a ceasefire. It’s really up to the international system as we know it to make sure that genocide is not carried out. And so it’s imperative that this be followed up by countries around the world making sure that Israel doesn’t get to do whatever it wants to do with Palestinians in Gaza and continue this genocide.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the woman who we heard delivering the pronouncement of the court, Joan Donoghue, a former State Department official, though she’s not representing the United States in this? She represents the court. She was in the State Department under President Obama.
DIANA BUTTU: Well, yes, and she was the — she was one of the judges, one of 17 judges on the bench — two of them are ad hoc — one of the 15 permanent judges, who ruled in favor of all of the measures that had been sought. Her term actually expires on February the 6th, and so she won’t be with the court after that. But it was very important that this decision not just be a split court. But you can tell by the breadth of it that of the 17 judges, two being ad hoc, that on most of the issues, it was 15 versus 2, one being the Ugandan judge and the second, of course, being the Israeli judge, and in some cases it being 16 to 1, with the one, ironically, being the Ugandan judge.
AMY GOODMAN: Why the Ugandan judge?
DIANA BUTTU: It’s not clear. It’s not entirely clear why. It’s clear why the Israeli judge, obviously. But what’s more important is the fact that we see that this court has overwhelmingly decided in favor of South Africa, has overwhelmingly determined that there is plausible risk of genocide. And it becomes imperative upon the world community to now act. You know, the fact that it’s taken 112 days for the world to finally recognize that this is genocide, and that it had to go to court, says something about the international legal system as we know it, which is that it’s broken. But I’m hoping that based on this, the world will now begin to act, rather than hiding behind all these false claims that Israel has repeated for the past 112 days.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Raz Segal into this discussion, Israeli historian, associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University, endowed professor in the study of modern genocide, co-authored a recent piece for Al Jazeera headlined “Intent in the genocide case against Israel is not hard to prove.” He’s joining us from Philadelphia. Professor, welcome back to Democracy Now! Your response to this ruling?
RAZ SEGAL: Hello. Good morning. Thank you for having me.
I think this is, really, an unprecedented ruling. It signals, first and foremost, the end of Israeli impunity in the international legal system, which is huge, right? Israel has enjoyed impunity in the international legal system for decades in the face of mounting evidence of gross violations of international law, of mass violence, occupation, siege, so on. This is the end of that era.
So it’s just a beginning of a process that, really, I think, now with a ruling that basically recognizes the possibility of genocide, the fact that Israel is likely committing genocidal acts — this is a beginning of a process of isolating Israel, because any university, company, state now will have to consider, moving forward, whether it continues — or doesn’t continue, in many cases, I think — to engage with Israel, because it is likely committing genocide. This also legally triggers third-state responsibility on issues of prevention and complicity with genocide.
And it’s significantly important today, where in a few hours in a court in Florida there will be the hearing in the case that the Center for Constitutional Rights has brought against Biden, Blinken and Austin, indeed, on complicity with genocide, U.S. complicity with genocide, and the failure to prevent a genocide. So, this might have, actually, a certain effect even on this case today in California moving forward.
So, this is really unprecedented. Yes, it is a disappointment that the court did not order an immediate ceasefire. But it did order Israel to cease from any genocidal acts, which de facto is actually an order for a ceasefire.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the issue of getting aid into Gaza, Raz Segal?
RAZ SEGAL: Yeah, the court also issued an order on the urgent need, and it stressed, of course, the really unprecedented scale of destruction and killing, the dire situation in Gaza, in terms of what we know, the levels of hunger and the spread of infectious disease. So it also ordered this, which is, again, very, very important. I mean, we all need to now wait and see what Israel’s response to this will be.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to also bring into this discussion Mahmood Mamdani, professor of government at Columbia University who specializes in the study of colonialism. One of his many books is Neither Settler Nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities. He was previously a professor and director of the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and has been an academic leader in Uganda for years. Professor Mamdani, your response to this ruling? We discussed yesterday, before the ruling, what you expected. What did you see today?
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: Thank you for bringing me in.
Actually, everything that I expected happened. I wasn’t sure they would call for a ceasefire. But now listening to the reasoning of the court, it is clear to me that they couldn’t have called directly for a ceasefire without preempting their future deliberations. At the same time, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and sounds like a duck, then it’s a duck. Everything they ordered in terms of preventive measures leads to only one conclusion, which is ceasefire. How do you stop killing people? Ceasefire. How do you ensure that supplies for human life get in? Ceasefire. And so on and so forth.
I think the ball is now in the political domain. The law cannot displace politics. It can open avenues for politics. And that’s where we are now. This ruling is enormously significant in terms of broadening the avenues for politics, in terms of strengthening and accelerating the trend towards a global alliance against settler colonialism. And it has the U.S. on the defensive, Israel on the defensive.
We know that the last time the court ruled against Israel, which was on the question of the wall, Israel just ignored it. But this time, I think it may not be so easy to do. First of all, one has to ask oneself: Why did Israel come before the court? It could have just ignored it. According to its past conduct, that’s what it would have done. So the fact that it came before the court suggests that there are conflicting pressures before the Israeli government. Now what does it do? I think this is one goal in favor of the world, and we continue with the game.
AMY GOODMAN: And your insight into the Ugandan judge of the International Court of Justice? Sometimes the vote was 15 to 2, as Diana Buttu said, the Ugandan judge and the Israeli judge, and sometimes it was 16 to 1.
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: Well, Judge Sebutinde, she has a — she had a career where she had opposed the Museveni regime on several legal issues in court. Then she was appointed by the Museveni regime on the international stage, thus removing her from the local stage. I haven’t followed her career since then, but she was pretty consistent. There seemed to be no indication that she was making up her mind from issue to issue. I can’t say anything more than that right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to go to break and then come back to our guests. We’re speaking with Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani here in New York; with Raz Segal, the Israeli historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University; and in Haifa, Diana Buttu, Palestinian human rights attorney. We’ll also hear more from the International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s highest court. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Masters of War,” Bob Dylan, here on Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
The International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s highest court, has found a plausible risk Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and ordered provisional measures but stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire. This is the president of the court, Joan Donoghue, reading out the vote of part of the ruling.
JUDGE JOAN DONOGHUE: By 15 votes to 2, the state of Israel shall, in accordance with its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in relation to the Palestinians in Gaza, take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of the convention — in particular, A, killing members of the group; B, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; C, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part; and, D, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
AMY GOODMAN: Over a one-hour ruling, the International Court of Justice President Joan Donoghue in The Hague quoted Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, saying that as the war got underway, Gallant had said, “We have removed all restraints. We will eliminate everything,” referring to Palestinians as “animals.” Judge Donoghue continued, Gallant went on to describe Hamas as comparable to the Islamic State. After proceedings concluded today, the South African government said it welcomed the ICJ’s decision.
We’re continuing with our guests right now: Diana Buttu, Palestinian human rights attorney in Haifa, Israel; Raz Segal, Israeli historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies, Stockton University, joining us from Philadelphia; and Mahmood Mamdani, professor of government at Columbia University, specializing in the study of colonialism.
Diana Buttu, if you can talk about what exactly the timetable is right now and the true level of enforcement that the ICJ, or even the United Nations, overall, has? Go back to using as a reference your involvement with the 2004 decision, where the ICJ ruled the separation wall that Israel built in the Occupied Territories illegal.
DIANA BUTTU: Well, let’s first start with this particular case. I think it’s important to keep in mind that just last week Prime Minister Netanyahu said that nothing is going to stop him, not the ICJ, not The Hague; nobody is going to stop him; and that he’s going to continue to pursue ahead. And, of course, the reason he’s doing this is, in part, because he is genocidal and, in large part, because he knows that the minute that the attacks on Gaza are over, that his term in office is also over, because of the internal dissent inside Israel.
And the reason that this is important is because it’s — we haven’t heard yet what Israel is — what they’ve said, but judging by that, it means that they’re going to ignore this ruling. And if they ignore this ruling, it then becomes imperative upon the member states to take this decision to the U.N. Security Council to have the ruling enforced at the Security Council level. And it becomes really a question of whether the United States is going to veto or abstain, or what exactly it’s going to do.
I can tell you, in terms of what happened in 2004, 2004 was a very different case. It was an advisory opinion. It wasn’t a case of the same type. And in 2004, Israel took the exact same position, that it wasn’t going to stop the construction of the wall. In fact, it accelerated it. But part of the decision indicated that there are other states, third states, other countries, that are also obliged to make sure that Israel upholds international law. And that was the part where the world failed.
And out of that, this is where we saw the BDS, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, movement end up being recreated or reconstituted on the one-year anniversary of the ICJ ruling, so in 2005. And the reason that it came together was because they expected — we expected — that the world was going to come forward and do something to make sure that the advisory opinion was upheld and enforced. But instead, they did nothing.
So, once again, we’re going to see that — we will likely see that Israel is going to ignore this ruling. It’s then imperative to take it to the U.N. Security Council. But all the while it’s very important that we continue to boycott Israel, to divest from Israel and to push for sanctions, that the global BDS movement should be growing at this point to make sure that the age of Israeli impunity finally comes to an end.
AMY GOODMAN: Raz Segal, if you can talk about the aspects of genocide — you write, “The crime of genocide has two elements — intention and execution” — and what Joan Donoghue, the head of the court, at least for another few weeks, read in terms of the decision for what constitutes genocide, and what this means, as an Israeli historian who lives in the United States, while Israel tried to say this doesn’t matter? The fact is, they participated in this, clearly showing it matters a great deal to them. And also, what it means for the United States’ support for Israel, and what’s happening today with this court finding?
RAZ SEGAL: Yeah, so, I think that it was very important that the court quoted some of the statements of intent. And it’s again important to emphasize that we’re talking about dozens of statements of intent to destroy Palestinians, “intent to destroy” in the language of the U.N. convention, and by people with what’s called in international law “command authority,” so state leaders, war cabinet ministers, senior army officers. And these statements were made over time, so not just a week or two after the 7th of October Hamas-led attack, but over time, actually until today, when we think about what Prime Minister Netanyahu said on 13th of January, when he said that Israel’s attack will continue, whatever happens in The Hague. He also reiterated the portrayal of Palestinians as Nazis, for example, right? Which is basically a mechanism of dehumanization, a mechanism that portrays all Palestinians in Gaza as legitimate military targets. So, these statements of intent, again, dozens of statements, over time, by people with command authority, filled with dehumanizing language — right? — “human animals,” “monsters” — which historically we know are indicators of genocide. So I think it was very significant that the court mentioned and quoted some of these statements to emphasize that it’s not as Israel tried to argue, that it’s not something that we can disregard, that it’s actually a key element of the crime of genocide, and we should be paying attention to this.
But then it also emphasized, a number of times, actually, the really unprecedented scale of killing and destruction on the ground, the catastrophic situation that Palestinians are facing now. And in this context, I think it’s very important to say that the court basically accepted South Africa’s argument that Israel’s, quote-unquote, “evacuation orders” are not actually, as Israel claimed, humanitarian measures, but they’re actually genocidal in essence. That means that they are meant — which is what they did — to displace millions of people, almost 2 million Palestinians, virtually almost all the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and under intensive bombings. And we know that Israel also bombed Palestinians fleeing on routes that it designated as safe. It also bombed Palestinians in the southern part of the strip early on, which it designated as safe. And, of course, under the conditions of the total siege, where we today — indeed, this measure did what it was intended to do, right? It created famine. It created the spread of infectious disease. It created a population that has no access to clean water, has no fuel, has no medical supply. It destroyed all the universities in Gaza. It destroyed a majority of the hospitals. It destroyed agricultural land. It targeted cultural sites. So, everything that we know historically that happens in genocide, and with this massive displacement that is now — we know that even if Israel’s attack stops now, many, many Palestinians will continue to die of these “conditions of life” — again, to quote the convention — that Israel deliberately created in order to bring about the physical destruction of the group, in whole or in part.
So I thought that it was very important that the ruling actually quoted and emphasized both the issues of intent and the dynamics of violence and the conditions that we see now on the ground. This is very, very significant. Again, the court is saying that there is plausibility that Israel is likely — has committed and is committing acts of genocide in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: And what this means for the United States, Professor Segal?
RAZ SEGAL: Yeah, well, I mean, the —
AMY GOODMAN: And that the deliverer of the message, of course, the head of the court, is an American?
RAZ SEGAL: Yeah, I think that, you know, it’s difficult — it’s difficult to say. And I’m curious to see how the U.S. state will respond. I think that — I’m very curious to see, as I said, in the next few hours, beginning at noon today Eastern time, the case in California. Right? Because now the judge there has the ICJ ruling, so the judge knows that the World Court has ruled that Israel is likely committing a genocide.
I think that there will be growing pressure also on the U.S. in this sense. It’s difficult to say what the U.S. will do, but we do know, actually, that in Europe, there are more and more states — not Germany, but more and more states — that have already said and will, in various ways, need to abide by the court ruling, which may be very significant in terms of obstructing arms deals, refusing to facilitate transfer arms to Israel through Europe, and various other measures. You know, I think that, as I said before, any company, any university, any state around the world now — right? — knows that Israel is likely committing genocide, so the isolation of Israel. And I hope that we’ll also be seeing more and more calls for direct cutting of ties with Israel, academic boycotts in the U.S.
So, while U.S. state will definitely try, you know, to ignore the ruling — and we already see the headline in The New York Times right now, by the way, if people are following — right? — which frames this as the court did not issue an order for ceasefire, right? Which, in effect, it actually did, because if it — you know, as Professor Mamdani said, if it ordered — right? — that Israel should cease from genocidal acts, if it ordered that Israel should facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid, it actually said you have to cease fire, because, otherwise, there’s no ways of doing that, right? So, I think that the U.S., if judged by The New York Times right now, will try to ignore this as much as possible, but I think that the pressure is going to be — we’re just at the beginning of the pressure building up on this issue. So I think we might see some significant moves on this front, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: The court case you’re referring to in Oakland today, which will be fueled by the International Court of Justice response from The Hague, the Center for Constitutional Rights brought the lawsuit against President Biden, accusing him of failing to follow his obligations under international and U.S. law to prevent the genocide in Gaza, the complaint brought on behalf of Palestinians, including residents of Gaza, who are asking a federal court — asking a federal court to — let’s see if I can read this — a federal court to intervene to block Biden, U.S. 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 for the Center for Constitutional Rights and one of the lawyers who brought the case, said in a statement, “The United States has a clear and binding obligation to prevent, not further, genocide. So far, they have failed in both their legal, moral duty and considerable power to end this horror. They must do so.” Now, that’s the court case that’s happening in a few hours in Oakland.
I also wanted to read the response of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I’m reading from an article in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper. He said the decision by the ICJ, quote, “'rightly rejected the outrageous demand to deny' Israel the right to basic self-defense to which it is entitled as a country. According to him, 'the very claim that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians is not just false, it is outrageous, and the court's willingness to discuss it at all is a mark of disgrace that will not be erased for generations.’”
I want to go back to Professor Mamdani, but first play more of the court decision as read out by the chief judge of the International Court of Justice, Joan Donoghue.
JUDGE JOAN DONOGHUE: During the ongoing conflict, senior United Nations officials have repeatedly called attention to the risk of further deterioration of conditions in the Gaza Strip. The court takes note, for instance, of the letter dated 6 December, 2023, whereby the secretary-general of the United Nations brought the following information to the attention of the Security Council.
I quote: “The healthcare system in Gaza is collapsing. Nowhere is safe in Gaza. Amid constant bombarding by the Israel Defense Forces and without shelter or the essentials to survive, I expect public order to break — to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions rendering even limited humanitarian assistance impossible. An even worse situation could unfold, including epidemic diseases and increased pressure for mass displacement into neighboring countries. We are facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system. The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe, with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region. Such an outcome must be avoided at all costs,” end of quote.
On 5 January, 2024, the secretary-general wrote again to the Security Council, providing an update on the situation in the Gaza Strip and observing that — I quote — “Sadly, devastating levels of death and destruction continue,” end of quote.
The court also takes note of the 17 January, 2024, statement issued by the UNRWA commissioner-general upon return from his fourth visit to the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the current conflict in Gaza. I quote: “Every time I visit Gaza, I witness how people have sunk further into despair, with the struggle for survival consuming every hour,” end of quote.
The court considers that the civilian population in the Gaza Strip remains extremely vulnerable. It recalls that the military operation conducted by Israel after 7 October, 2023, has resulted inter alia in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries and the destruction of homes, schools, medical facilities and other vital infrastructure, as well as displacement on a massive scale. The court notes that the operation is ongoing and that the prime minister of Israel announced on 18 January, 2024, that the war — I quote — “will take many more long months,” end of quote.
At present, many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have no access to the most basic foodstuffs, potable water, electricity, essential medicines or heating. The World Health Organization has estimated that 15% of the women giving birth in Gaza Strip are likely to experience complications, and indicates that maternal and newborn death rates are expected to increase due to the lack of access to medical care.
In these circumstances, the court considers that the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further before the court renders its final judgment. The court recalls Israel’s statement that it has taken certain steps to address and alleviate the conditions faced by the population in the Gaza Strip. The court further notes that the attorney general of Israel recently stated that a call for intentional harm to civilians may amount to a criminal offense, including that of incitement, and that several such cases are being examined by Israeli law enforcement authorities. While such steps are to be encouraged, they are insufficient to remove the risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused before the court issues its final decision in the case.
AMY GOODMAN: Joan Donoghue is the chief judge of the International Court of Justice, the U.N.'s highest court, reading out the decision of the ICJ at The Hague. When we come back, we'll continue our discussion with Mahmood Mamdani, with Diana Buttu and with Raz Segal. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Hal Asmar El-Lon,” “My Dear with the Brown Skin,” performed by Lena Chamamyan. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
As we get response to the International Court of Justice handing down its decision today at The Hague, we want to go right now to the State Department, the questioning of Matt Miller, State Department spokesperson, by the Associated Press reporter Matt Lee. This took place last week about Israel’s demolition of Al-Israa University in Gaza.
MATT LEE: I mean, it looks like a controlled demolition. It looks like what we do here in this country when we’re taking down an old hotel or a stadium. And you have nothing to say? You have nothing to say about this?
MATTHEW MILLER: I — I have —
MATT LEE: I mean, to do that kind of an explosion, you need to be in there. You have to put the explosives down, and it takes a lot of planning and preparation to do. And if there was a threat from this particular facility, they wouldn’t have been able to do it.
MATTHEW MILLER: So, I have seen the video. I can tell you that it is something we are raising with the government of Israel, as we do — often do, when we see —
MATT LEE: Well, “raising” is what? Like —
MATTHEW MILLER: When we see — to ask questions and find out what the underlying situation is, as we often do when we see reports of this nature. But I’m not able to characterize the actual facts on the ground before hearing that response.
MATT LEE: Yeah, but you saw the video.
MATTHEW MILLER: I did see the video. I don’t — I don’t know — I don’t know —
MATT LEE: I mean, it looks like people —
MATTHEW MILLER: I don’t know what was —
MATT LEE: It looks like, you know, a bridge being imploded or something.
MATTHEW MILLER: I don’t know what was under that — I don’t know what was under that building. I don’t know what was inside —
MATT LEE: Well, yeah, but —
MATTHEW MILLER: — inside that building.
MATT LEE: But it doesn’t matter what was under the building, because they obviously got in there to put the explosives down to do it in the way that they did.
MATTHEW MILLER: So, again, I’m glad you have factual certainty, but I just — I just don’t.
MATT LEE: I don’t.
MATTHEW MILLER: I just don’t.
MATT LEE: All have is what I saw on the video, right?
MATTHEW MILLER: I — I just don’t. But I can say say —
MATT LEE: And I think you guys saw it, too.
MATTHEW MILLER: We did see it. I can say that we have raised it with the government of Israel.
MATT LEE: And it’s not troubling to you?
MATTHEW MILLER: We are always troubled by the — by any degradation of civilian infrastructure in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s State Department spokesperson Matt Miller being questioned by the AP reporter Matt Lee.
We’re continuing our discussion and talking about facts on the ground in Gaza. We’ll start with professor Mahmood Mamdani, professor of government at Columbia University, the School of International and Public Affairs, SIPA, specializing in the study of colonialism.
You are a professor, Professor Mamdani. If you can talk about the response of professors here to the destruction of universities, cultural spaces in Gaza, and the significance of this, and where you think this preliminary ruling of the ICJ — how you think it will affect what’s being described today?
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: Well, I think the more facts come to light, the more Israel’s actions in Gaza look like a textbook case of genocide. This calculated destruction of a people’s intellectual resources and intellectual legacy is not something which just has a short-term impact or is based on a short-term consideration. It is aimed at a long-term resolution of this question.
Already there is considerable concern amongst faculty at Columbia University. For the last few days, I’ve been seeing emails going around with photographs of this, what the AP reporter called “controlled demolition,” premeditated demolition. And people are asking Columbia University to take action, to declare where they stand. And this will go on.
One thing I am struck by as sort of evidence mounts is that the court ruling relied on two sources of information. One was U.N. commissions. And the second was statements by Israeli leaders themselves. Nothing else. And in doing so, it followed, almost strictly, the South African application, because the South African application also drew its facts not from other sources, but from U.N. commissions.
And now we have got a situation where the court has asked Israel to report back in a month and tell the court what it has done to comply with its decision, and given South Africa the right to comment on this report back by Israel. This is going to be another round of not just PR, because this is going to be a controlled process.
So I think we’re onto good territory. We are onto a territory which will bring more and more facts to light. And therefore we are onto a territory which will permit increased political mobilization based on these facts, especially in the U.S. and Israel, because these are the two countries where there has been minimal information in the mass media on what’s been going on in Gaza. Now this will become open territory.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring in Diana Buttu again as we begin to wrap the show. Yesterday, Ryan Grim in The Intercept wrote, “I was at the State Department briefing today and asked if the U.S. would pledge not to veto the International Court of Justice’s preliminary ruling on the genocide charges against Israel.” If you can respond to what that means, what this process is? And again, what’s happening on the ground now in Gaza, with Israel dropping more leaflets in what was a safe space, which was Khan Younis, and this parade of humanity and misery of hundreds, if not thousands, going south from Khan Younis?
DIANA BUTTU: Well, Amy, I’m sure you saw the response. And the response was a typical American administration word salad.
And the reason that I think it’s so important for us to continue to press ahead is because what Israel has had in mind is two things since the beginning of this attack on Gaza. First, it has made it clear that it wants to make Gaza smaller in size, and they’ve made it clear that they want to, quote, “thin out” the population. So it’s the combination of genocide and ethnic cleansing and taking more Palestinian land. And that’s why, from the beginning, it was clear to anybody who was paying attention that Israel was going to begin in the north, but then suddenly, magically, move to the south as everybody had looked the other way. And this is precisely what’s happening.
So, now what Israel is doing is not only just dropping leaflets in Khan Younis. There isn’t a single place that has been safe in Gaza from day one. And the intention is clear. If you want to get medical treatment, even now or a day after the bombing ends, you’re going to have to seek it elsewhere. If you want to get education, you’re going to have to go elsewhere. If you want to have a home and have a normal life, you’re going to have to go elsewhere.
And so, it’s this combination of genocide and ethnic cleansing that Israel has been pushing forward from day one. And the problem is, of course, that the United States has been not only an enabler for Israel, but it’s been blocking any other effort to try to stop this process of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
AMY GOODMAN: And the issue of this court decision — and we just have 10 seconds — going to the U.N. Security Council, if violated?
DIANA BUTTU: Yeah, so, under the rules of the International Court of Justice, states must oblige. They’re obliged to uphold the rules of the ICJ, the decisions. But if they do not, they can go to the U.N. Security Council. And so, I suspect that we will be seeing this at the Security Council. The real question is whether the United States is going to use that veto or abstain.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you all for being with us today. Diana Buttu, Palestinian human rights attorney, former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization. In 2004, she was part of the legal team that won a case before the International Court of Justice, which ruled Israel’s separation wall in the West Bank is illegal under international law, speaking to us from Haifa, Israel. Raz Segal, Israeli historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University. And Mahmood Mamdani, professor of government at Columbia University.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Sun Jan 28, 2024 3:29 am
UNRWA chief 'shocked' after countries pause funding
by Reuters
January 27, 20241:44 PM MSTUpdated 7 hours ago
Commissioner General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, attends the assembly on the opening day of the Global Refugee Forum, in Geneva, Switzerland, December 13, 2023. Jean-Guy Python/Pool via REUTERS/File photo Acquire Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Jan 27 (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) said on Saturday that nine countries' decisions to suspend funding over allegations staff were involved in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel was shocking, and urged them to reverse course.
"These decisions threaten our ongoing humanitarian work across the region including and especially in the Gaza Strip," Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement.
Reporting by Nidal Al-Mughrabi, writing by Hatem Maher, editing by Andrew Cawthorne
*********************
More countries pause funds for UN Palestinian agency
by Reuters
January 27, 20242:02 PM MSTUpdated 6 hours ago
Palestinians carry bags of flour they grabbed from an aid truck near an Israeli checkpoint, as Gaza residents face crisis levels of hunger, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City January 27, 2024. REUTERS/Hossam Azam
Summary
** European nations follow U.S, Australia and Canada
** Money frozen over accusations of role in Oct. 7 attacks
** Refugee agency says funds' suspension threatens aid work
LONDON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Six European countries paused funding for the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) on Saturday, following allegations that some of its staff were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland on Saturday joined the United States, Australia and Canada in pausing funding to the aid agency, a critical source of support for people in Gaza, after the allegations by Israel.
"Palestinians in Gaza did not need this additional collective punishment," Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner-general, said on X. "This stains all of us."
The agency said on Friday it had opened an investigation into several employees and severed ties with those people.
Encouraging more donor suspensions, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said UNRWA should be replaced once fighting in the enclave dies down and accused it of ties to Islamist militants in Gaza.
"In Gaza's rebuilding, @UNRWA must be replaced with agencies dedicated to genuine peace and development," he added on X.
Deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq, asked about Katz's remarks, said: “We are not responding to rhetoric. UNRWA overall had had a strong record, which we have repeatedly underscored.”
Lazzarini said the decision by the nine countries threatened its humanitarian work across the region, especially in Gaza.
“It is shocking to see a suspension of funds to the Agency in reaction to allegations against a small group of staff, especially given the immediate action that UNRWA took by terminating their contracts and asking for a transparent independent investigation," he said in a statement.
The Palestinian foreign ministry criticised what it described as an Israeli campaign against UNRWA, and Hamas condemned the termination of employee contracts "based on information derived from the Zionist enemy".
AGENCY PLAYS BIG ROLE IN GAZA AID
UNRWA was set up to help refugees of the 1948 war at Israel's founding and provides education, health and aid services to Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. It helps about two thirds of Gaza's 2.3 million population and has played a pivotal aid role during the war that Israel launched to eliminate Hamas after the Oct. 7 attacks.
Announcing the investigation, Lazzarini said on Friday that he had decided to terminate the contracts of some staff members to protect the agency's ability to deliver humanitarian assistance.
Lazzarini did not disclose the number of employees allegedly involved in the attacks, nor the nature of their alleged involvement. He said, however, that "any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror" would be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.
During weeks of Israeli bombardment of the Palestinian enclave, UNRWA has repeatedly said its capacity to render humanitarian assistance to people in Gaza is on the verge of collapse.
Hussein al-Sheikh, head of the Palestinians' umbrella political body the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said cutting support to the agency brought major political and relief risks.
"We call on countries that announced the cessation of their support for UNRWA to immediately reverse their decision," he said on X.
The Foreign Ministry in Germany, a major donor to UNRWA, welcomed UNRWA's investigation, saying it was deeply concerned about the allegations raised against agency employees.
"We expect Lazzarini to make it clear within UNRWA's workforce that all forms of hatred and violence are totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated," it said on X.
Reporting by James Davey in London, Gavin Jones in Rome, Dan williams in Jerusalem, Nidal al-Mugrahbi in Doha, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam, Thomas Escritt in Berlin, Michelle Nichols in New York Editing by William Maclean, Andrew Cawthorne, Frances Kerry and Nick Macfie
by Reuters
January 27, 20241:44 PM MSTUpdated 7 hours ago
Commissioner General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, attends the assembly on the opening day of the Global Refugee Forum, in Geneva, Switzerland, December 13, 2023. Jean-Guy Python/Pool via REUTERS/File photo Acquire Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Jan 27 (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) said on Saturday that nine countries' decisions to suspend funding over allegations staff were involved in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel was shocking, and urged them to reverse course.
"These decisions threaten our ongoing humanitarian work across the region including and especially in the Gaza Strip," Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement.
Reporting by Nidal Al-Mughrabi, writing by Hatem Maher, editing by Andrew Cawthorne
*********************
More countries pause funds for UN Palestinian agency
by Reuters
January 27, 20242:02 PM MSTUpdated 6 hours ago
Palestinians carry bags of flour they grabbed from an aid truck near an Israeli checkpoint, as Gaza residents face crisis levels of hunger, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City January 27, 2024. REUTERS/Hossam Azam
Summary
** European nations follow U.S, Australia and Canada
** Money frozen over accusations of role in Oct. 7 attacks
** Refugee agency says funds' suspension threatens aid work
LONDON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Six European countries paused funding for the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) on Saturday, following allegations that some of its staff were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland on Saturday joined the United States, Australia and Canada in pausing funding to the aid agency, a critical source of support for people in Gaza, after the allegations by Israel.
"Palestinians in Gaza did not need this additional collective punishment," Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner-general, said on X. "This stains all of us."
The agency said on Friday it had opened an investigation into several employees and severed ties with those people.
Encouraging more donor suspensions, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said UNRWA should be replaced once fighting in the enclave dies down and accused it of ties to Islamist militants in Gaza.
"In Gaza's rebuilding, @UNRWA must be replaced with agencies dedicated to genuine peace and development," he added on X.
Deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq, asked about Katz's remarks, said: “We are not responding to rhetoric. UNRWA overall had had a strong record, which we have repeatedly underscored.”
Lazzarini said the decision by the nine countries threatened its humanitarian work across the region, especially in Gaza.
“It is shocking to see a suspension of funds to the Agency in reaction to allegations against a small group of staff, especially given the immediate action that UNRWA took by terminating their contracts and asking for a transparent independent investigation," he said in a statement.
The Palestinian foreign ministry criticised what it described as an Israeli campaign against UNRWA, and Hamas condemned the termination of employee contracts "based on information derived from the Zionist enemy".
AGENCY PLAYS BIG ROLE IN GAZA AID
UNRWA was set up to help refugees of the 1948 war at Israel's founding and provides education, health and aid services to Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. It helps about two thirds of Gaza's 2.3 million population and has played a pivotal aid role during the war that Israel launched to eliminate Hamas after the Oct. 7 attacks.
Announcing the investigation, Lazzarini said on Friday that he had decided to terminate the contracts of some staff members to protect the agency's ability to deliver humanitarian assistance.
Lazzarini did not disclose the number of employees allegedly involved in the attacks, nor the nature of their alleged involvement. He said, however, that "any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror" would be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.
During weeks of Israeli bombardment of the Palestinian enclave, UNRWA has repeatedly said its capacity to render humanitarian assistance to people in Gaza is on the verge of collapse.
Hussein al-Sheikh, head of the Palestinians' umbrella political body the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said cutting support to the agency brought major political and relief risks.
"We call on countries that announced the cessation of their support for UNRWA to immediately reverse their decision," he said on X.
The Foreign Ministry in Germany, a major donor to UNRWA, welcomed UNRWA's investigation, saying it was deeply concerned about the allegations raised against agency employees.
"We expect Lazzarini to make it clear within UNRWA's workforce that all forms of hatred and violence are totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated," it said on X.
Reporting by James Davey in London, Gavin Jones in Rome, Dan williams in Jerusalem, Nidal al-Mugrahbi in Doha, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam, Thomas Escritt in Berlin, Michelle Nichols in New York Editing by William Maclean, Andrew Cawthorne, Frances Kerry and Nick Macfie
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Sun Jan 28, 2024 4:11 am
Text Translation: The Israeli plan for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Read an English translation of the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence policy paper "Alternatives for a Political Directive for the Civilian Population in Gaza," which advocates for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.
BY MONDOWEISS EDITORS
NOVEMBER 1, 2023
Israeli military vehicles just outside the Gaza Strip, October 31, 2023. (Photo: © Ilia Yefimovich/dpa via ZUMA Press APA Images)
ISRAELI MILITARY VEHICLES JUST OUTSIDE THE GAZA STRIP, OCTOBER 31, 2023. (PHOTO: © ILIA YEFIMOVICH/DPA VIA ZUMA PRESS APA IMAGES)
Policy Paper: Alternatives for a Political Directive for the Civilian Population in Gaza
October 13, 2023
Executive summary
1. The State of Israel is required to bring about a significant change in the civilian reality in the Gaza Strip in light of Hamas’s crimes that have led to the “Iron Swords” war. Accordingly, it must decide on the state’s goal regarding the civilian population in Gaza to be pursued concurrently with the removal of Hamas rule.
2.The goal defined by the government requires intensive action to gain the support of the United States and other countries for this objective.
3. Basic guidelines for working under each directive:
1. Eliminate the Hamas regime.
2. Evacuating the population outside of the combat zone, for the benefit of the residents of the Strip.
3. International aid should be planned and implemented according to the chosen directive.
4. Each directive should involve a deep process of implementing ideological change (denazification).
5. The chosen directive will support the political goal regarding the future of the strip and the endgame of the war.
4. This document will present three possible alternatives as directives of the political echelon in Israel regarding the future of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.
Each directive will be examined in light of the following characteristics:
1. Operability – the ability to implement operationally.
2. Legitimacy – international/internal/legal.
3. The ability to bring about ideological perceptual change among the population with respect to Jews and Israel.
4. Broad strategic consequences.
5. The three alternatives that have been examined are as follows:
1. Alternative A: The population remains in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority rule is imported.
2. Alternative B: The population remains in Gaza and a local Arab administration is fostered.
3. Alternative C: The evacuation of the civilian population from Gaza to Sinai.
6. From a thorough review of the alternatives, the following insights emerge:
1. Alternative C is the one that yields positive and long-term strategic results for Israel, but is a challenging one to implement. It requires determination on the part of the political echelon in the face of international pressure, with an emphasis on rallying the support of the United States and other pro-Israel countries for the operation.
2. Alternatives A and B suffer from significant drawbacks, particularly in terms of their strategic implications and the lack of long-term feasibility. Both alternatives will not provide the necessary deterrent effect, will not enable a transformation of consciousness, and may lead to the same problems and threats that Israel has dealt with from 2007 to the present.
Alternative A is the riskiest option, as the division of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza is one of the main obstacles to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Choosing this alternative implies an unprecedented victory for the Palestinian national movement, a victory that comes at the cost of thousands of Israeli citizens and soldiers and does not guarantee Israel’s security.
Alternative A: The civilian population remains in Gaza and the rule of the Palestinian Authority (PA) is imported
Location and Governance:
1. The majority of the population remains in Gaza.
2. Initial Israeli military governance; later on, the importation of the PA and its establishment as the governing authority in Gaza.
Operational Implications:
1. Requires combat in a densely populated area, involving risks to our soldiers and a substantial amount of time.
2. The longer the intensive fighting continues, the higher the risk of opening a second front in the north.
3. The Gazan Arab population will resist the imposition of PA rule (as previously attempted).
4. Humanitarian responsibility is placed solely on Israel upon the conclusion of the war with all the implications.
International/Legal Legitimacy:
1, At first glance, it appears to be a less severe humanitarian alternative, making it easier to gain broad support. However, in practice, the alternative involving the retention of the population may be the worst, as one can expect many Arab casualties during the operational stage, as long as the population remains in the cities and is engaged in combat.
2. Prolonged implementation time, and along with it the period in which images of civilians affected by the conflict are publicized.
3. The presence of Israeli military rule over the Arab population will complicate Israel’s ability to maintain broad international support and may lead to pressure for the establishment of PA governance.
Bringing about an Ideological Change
1. It is essential to shape a public narrative that internalizes the failure and moral injustice of the Hamas movement and replaces the old perception with a moderate Islamic ideology. This process is similar to denazification in Germany and Imperial Japan. Among other things, it is crucial to write the curriculum for schools and enforce their use on an entire generation.
2. Integrating the PA (Palestinian Authority) will greatly complicate the creation of study materials that legitimize Israel. Even now, the PA’s curriculum, much like those of Hamas, instills hatred and animosity towards Israel.
3.While it is possible to condition the importation of PA material on Israeli dictation of written study materials, there is no guarantee that this will happen, as the PA is fundamentally opposed to Israel.
4. One can assess that the PA will not act resolutely to shape a public narrative that exposes Hamas’ failure and moral injustice or promote a moderate Islamic ideology.
5. Even today, there is substantial public support for Hamas in the West Bank. The PA leadership is widely seen as corrupt and ineffectual, losing ground to Hamas in terms of public support.
Strategic Implications
1. The PA is a malevolent entity for Israel that stands on the brink of disaster. Strengthening it could result in a strategic loss for Israel.
2. The divide between the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza is one of the major obstacles today to the establishment of a Palestinian state. It is inconceivable that the outcome of this attack will be an unprecedented victory for the Palestinian nationalist movement, paving the way for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
3. The current model in the West Bank, involving Israeli military control and the civil authority of the PA, is unstable and is destined to fail. It can be tolerated in the West Bank only because of the extensive Jewish settlement in the region. This is because there is no possibility of Israeli military control without Jewish settlement (and one cannot expect the mobilization of settlement movements [for establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza] under the condition of the PA’s return to Gaza).
4. There is no way to efficiently maintain a military occupation in Gaza based only on military presence, and within a short time, there will be domestic and international pressure for withdrawal. This means that the idea will not gain long-term international legitimacy – similar to the situation in the West Bank today, only worse. Israel will be perceived as a colonial power with an occupying army. Bases and posts will be attacked, and the PA will deny any involvement.
5. Tried and failed – it should be explained that a plan to deliver the area to the PA and then withdraw Israeli military control was attempted in 2006 – Hamas won the elections and then seized control of the strip. There is no justification for the Israeli national military effort to occupy Gaza if, in the end, it repeats the same mistake that led to the current situation (a full-fledged war with Hamas).
6. Deterrence – this alternative will not produce the required deterrence against Hezbollah. On the contrary, this alternative indicates a deep Israeli weakness that will signal to Hezbollah that they will not pay a real price for a confrontation with Israel, as the latter will only carry out a similar move to the one carried out in Lebanon – a takeover for a limited tim, followed by a withdrawal.
7. If the IDF fights to occupy the strip, but in the end, the political outcome is PA rule and the transformation of the strip, once again, into a hostile entity, Israel’s ability to recruit combat soldiers will be critically damaged. Such a move would constitute a historical failure and an existential threat to the country’s future.
Alternative B: The civilian population remains in Gaza and local Arab governance is fostered
Location and Governance
1. The majority of the population remains in Gaza.
2. Governance in the initial stage – Israeli military governance. As an interim solution – continuing efforts to establish a local, non-Islamist, Arab political leadership for managing civilian aspects in a structure similar to the existing government in the United Arab Emirates. A permanent solution within this alternative does not seem to be on the horizon.
3. Humanitarian responsibility – Israel bears full responsibility upon the conclusion of the war with all the implications.
Operational Implementation
• Requires combat in a densely populated area. Involves risks to our soldiers and requires an extended period.
• The longer intense combat continues, the higher the risk of a second front opening in the north.
International/Legal Legitimacy
1. Similar to Alternative A, this alternative will require combat in a densely populated area and will result in numerous casualties.
2. Prolonged implementation period, and Hamas will use this to propagate images of ‘civilians killed by Israel’.
3. Military rule over a civilian population will make it difficult for Israel to maintain broad international support over time.
Creating Ideological Change
1. In the current situation, the absence of local opposition movements to Hamas which can be instated in power. Even if a local leadership arises in an Emirati format, they are still Hamas supporters.
2. This situation will significantly complicate the required ideological change and the weakening of Hamas as a legitimate movement. By way of comparison, in Germany’s denazification process, the post-occupation government comprised leaders who had opposed the Nazis.
3. Without a widespread local movement committed to the ideological elimination of Hamas, it will be difficult to create the necessary ideological shift.
Strategic Implications
• In the short term, toppling Hamas and occupying the strip will be significant steps toward restoring Israeli deterrence and changing the reality.
• However, it appears that the deterrence effect will not be sufficient and substantial enough regarding the severity of the surprise attack [on October 7]. Moreover, the message sent to Hezbollah and Iran will not be sufficiently resolute. The strip will continue to serve as a fertile ground for influence attempts and the renewed nurturing of terror organizations.
• It is reasonable to assume that such a move will receive the support of Gulf states due to the heavy blow dealt to the Muslim Brotherhood Movement. Nevertheless, the number of casualties among Gaza’s Arab population which the process involves will make this difficult.
• In the long term, there will be both Israeli and international pressure to replace the Israeli military governance with a local Arab governance as soon as possible. There is no guarantee that the new leadership will resist the spirit of Hamas.
• A local Arab government will face great difficulty in achieving the required narrative and ideological change because an entire generation in Gaza has been educated with the ideology of Hamas, and now they will also experience Israeli military occupation. The likely scenario is not an ideological change of perception but the emergence of new, possibly even more extreme Islamist movements.
• This alternative, too, does not provide Israel with any significant long-term strategic benefit. On the contrary, it may turn out to be a strategic burden in a few years.
Alternative C: Evacuation of the Civilian Population from Gaza to Sinai
Location and Governance
1. Due to the ongoing combat against Hamas, there is a need to evacuate the non-combatant civilian population from the combat zone.
2. Israel will act to evacuate the civilian population to Sinai.
3. In the initial stage, tent cities will be established in the Sinai region. Subsequently, the creation of a humanitarian corridor to assist the civilian population of Gaza and the construction of new cities in a resettlement area in Northern Sinai.
4. A sterile zone must be established several kilometers within Egypt and the return of the population to activities or residence near the Israeli border should not be allowed. This is in addition to the creation of a security perimeter within our territory near the border with Egypt.
Operational Implementation
1. A call for the evacuation of the non-combatant population from the combat zone in which Israel is attacking Hamas.
2. In the first stage, aerial operations will be carried out with a focus on the northern Gaza Strip to allow for the ground maneuver into an evacuated zone that does not require combat in a densely populated civilian area.
3. In the second stage, a gradual ground maneuver will proceed from the north along the border until the entire Gaza Strip is occupied, and the underground bunkers are cleared of Hamas combatants.
4. The intensive ground maneuver stage will take less time compared to alternatives A and B, thus reducing time of exposure to the opening of a northern front concurrently with the Gaza conflict.
5. It is important to leave southward-bound transportation routes open to allow for the evacuation of the civilian population towards Rafah.
Legal/International Legitimacy
1. At first glance, this alternative, which involves significant evacuation of the population, may be complex in terms of international legitimacy.
2. In our assessment, post-evacuation combat is expected to lead to fewer casualties among the civilian population compared to the expected casualties if the population remains (as in alternatives A and B).
3. Mass migration from war zones (Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine) and population movement are a natural and necessary result given the risks associated with staying in a war zone.
4. Even before the fighting, there was high demand for emigration out of Gaza among the local population, and the war is only expected to increase this demand.
5. From a legal perspective:
A. This is a war of defense against a terrorist organization that conducted a military invasion of Israel.
B. The demand for evacuating a non-combatant population is an accepted method that saves lives, as the Americans did in Iraq in 2003.
C. Egypt has an obligation under international law to allow the passage of the population.
6. Israel should work to promote a wide diplomatic initiative aimed at recruiting countries willing to assist the displaced population and agree to accept them as migrants.
7. A list of countries that should join this initiative can be found in appendix A to this document.
8. In the long term, this alternative is likely to gain broader legitimacy since it deals with a population that will be integrated into a state framework with citizenship.
Creating an Ideological Change
1. In this alternative, too, there will be a need for an ideological shift among the population. However, Israel will not have the ability to control the plan since it is implemented outside its territory.
2. In relation to alternatives A and B, instilling a sense of failure in the population will assist in creating an improved security reality for many years and will deter this population.
Strategic Implications
1. Deterrence – a proper response will enable the creation of meaningful deterrence throughout the region and will send a strong message to Hezbollah not to dare to undertake a similar move in Southern Lebanon.
2. Toppling Hamas will gain the support of Gulf states. Additionally, this alternative will deal a significant and unequivocal blow [missing… perhaps ‘to the Muslim Brotherhood’].
3. This alternative will strengthen Egyptian rule in Northern Sinai. It is important to limit the introduction of weapons into Northern Sinai and not to allow the legitimization of amendments to the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement’s demilitarization articles.
4. The issue should be associated with a broader effort to denounce the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and worldwide, turning the organization into a pariah, similar to ISIS – from a legal perspective, around the world and especially in Egypt.
Appendix A: Countries and Entities That Can Contribute to Solving the Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza
United States
Possible contribution: Assistance in promoting the initiative vis-a-vis many countries, including exerting pressure on Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to contribute to the initiative, either with resources or by receiving displaced persons.
Motivations: Interest in a clear Israeli victory and the restoration of Western deterrence, which has been damaged due to the attack on Israel. Restoring its global leadership and key state status in crisis resolution. Interest in creating a significant regional change and dealing a blow to the radical axis.
Egypt
Possible contribution: Opening crossings and immediate reception of the population leaving Gaza and will assemble in Sinai; allocating territory for settlement; exerting diplomatic pressure on Turkey and other countries to do so of their own preference, rather than receiving a large number of displaced persons [in crisis]; a security envelope for initial organization zones outside the Gaza Strip.
Possible incentives: Pressure from the United States and European countries to take responsibility and open the Rafah crossing to Sinai; financial assistance for the current economic crisis in Egypt.
Saudi Arabia
Possible contribution: Financing integration budgets [for migrants] and budget for the efforts to transfer the population to various countries; discreet funding of campaigns that present the damage caused by Hamas and damage its reputation.
Motivations: Pressure from the United States, in addition to a commitment to use the defense umbrella of the combat groups stationed in the area against Iran as an insurance policy; an interest in positioning Saudi Arabia as a helper to Muslims in times of crisis; Saudi interest in a clear Israeli victory over Hamas.
European countries, especially those in the Mediterranean – Greece/Spain
Contribution: Reception and settlement [of migrants].
Incentives: Migrant integration budgets and financial support budgets for this process from Arab states.
Other North African countries (Morocco, Libya, Tunisia)
Contribution: Reception and settlement; immediate support in organization zones outside the Gaza Strip.
Incentives: Migrant reception budgets and financial support budgets from Arab countries; showing Arab brotherhood; pressure from European countries; working through ties that Israel has with some of those countries in a way that allows these countries to maintain these ties without harming their image in the Arab world.
Canada
Contribution: Reception of the population and its settlement within the framework of a lenient immigration policy.
Prominent advertising agencies
Possible contribution: Campaigns that promote the plan in the Western world and the effort to resolve the crisis without inciting against, or vilifying, Israel; campaigns targeted at the non-pro-Israel world focusing on assisting Palestinian brothers and helping their recovery, even at the price of a “scolding” or even offensive tone towards Israel, intended for populations unable to accept a different message.
Specific campaigns targeting Gaza residents themselves, encouraging them to accept the plan – the messages should revolve around the loss of land, clarifying that there is no hope of returning to the territories Israel will occupy soon, whether it is right or not. The message should be, “Allah decided you lose this land because of Hamas’ leadership – the only option is to move to another place with the help of your Muslim brothers.”
Translated by Ofer Neiman
BY MONDOWEISS EDITORS
NOVEMBER 1, 2023
Israeli military vehicles just outside the Gaza Strip, October 31, 2023. (Photo: © Ilia Yefimovich/dpa via ZUMA Press APA Images)
ISRAELI MILITARY VEHICLES JUST OUTSIDE THE GAZA STRIP, OCTOBER 31, 2023. (PHOTO: © ILIA YEFIMOVICH/DPA VIA ZUMA PRESS APA IMAGES)
Editor’s Note: On October 24, Mondoweiss reported on an Israeli media report of a plan to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip of Palestinians that was being circulated by the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence. On October 28, the Israeli news website Local Call published a leak of the entire ten-page document. The following is the full translation of the document.
The analysis begins, “Israel is required to bring about a significant change in the civilian reality,” and it outlines three alternatives for the future of Gaza: A. Importing Palestinian Authority governance, B. Fostering “local Arab governance,” or C. The “evacuation of the civilian population from Gaza to Sinai.” The paper concludes, “Alternative C is the one that yields positive and long-term strategic results for Israel” and includes considerations for its implementation.
As Mondoweiss reported and Local Call reiterated in their story, this plan is regarded as an initial policy document and has not yet been formally adopted.
Policy Paper: Alternatives for a Political Directive for the Civilian Population in Gaza
October 13, 2023
Executive summary
1. The State of Israel is required to bring about a significant change in the civilian reality in the Gaza Strip in light of Hamas’s crimes that have led to the “Iron Swords” war. Accordingly, it must decide on the state’s goal regarding the civilian population in Gaza to be pursued concurrently with the removal of Hamas rule.
2.The goal defined by the government requires intensive action to gain the support of the United States and other countries for this objective.
3. Basic guidelines for working under each directive:
1. Eliminate the Hamas regime.
2. Evacuating the population outside of the combat zone, for the benefit of the residents of the Strip.
3. International aid should be planned and implemented according to the chosen directive.
4. Each directive should involve a deep process of implementing ideological change (denazification).
5. The chosen directive will support the political goal regarding the future of the strip and the endgame of the war.
4. This document will present three possible alternatives as directives of the political echelon in Israel regarding the future of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.
Each directive will be examined in light of the following characteristics:
1. Operability – the ability to implement operationally.
2. Legitimacy – international/internal/legal.
3. The ability to bring about ideological perceptual change among the population with respect to Jews and Israel.
4. Broad strategic consequences.
5. The three alternatives that have been examined are as follows:
1. Alternative A: The population remains in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority rule is imported.
2. Alternative B: The population remains in Gaza and a local Arab administration is fostered.
3. Alternative C: The evacuation of the civilian population from Gaza to Sinai.
6. From a thorough review of the alternatives, the following insights emerge:
1. Alternative C is the one that yields positive and long-term strategic results for Israel, but is a challenging one to implement. It requires determination on the part of the political echelon in the face of international pressure, with an emphasis on rallying the support of the United States and other pro-Israel countries for the operation.
2. Alternatives A and B suffer from significant drawbacks, particularly in terms of their strategic implications and the lack of long-term feasibility. Both alternatives will not provide the necessary deterrent effect, will not enable a transformation of consciousness, and may lead to the same problems and threats that Israel has dealt with from 2007 to the present.
Alternative A is the riskiest option, as the division of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza is one of the main obstacles to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Choosing this alternative implies an unprecedented victory for the Palestinian national movement, a victory that comes at the cost of thousands of Israeli citizens and soldiers and does not guarantee Israel’s security.
Alternative A: The civilian population remains in Gaza and the rule of the Palestinian Authority (PA) is imported
Location and Governance:
1. The majority of the population remains in Gaza.
2. Initial Israeli military governance; later on, the importation of the PA and its establishment as the governing authority in Gaza.
Operational Implications:
1. Requires combat in a densely populated area, involving risks to our soldiers and a substantial amount of time.
2. The longer the intensive fighting continues, the higher the risk of opening a second front in the north.
3. The Gazan Arab population will resist the imposition of PA rule (as previously attempted).
4. Humanitarian responsibility is placed solely on Israel upon the conclusion of the war with all the implications.
International/Legal Legitimacy:
1, At first glance, it appears to be a less severe humanitarian alternative, making it easier to gain broad support. However, in practice, the alternative involving the retention of the population may be the worst, as one can expect many Arab casualties during the operational stage, as long as the population remains in the cities and is engaged in combat.
2. Prolonged implementation time, and along with it the period in which images of civilians affected by the conflict are publicized.
3. The presence of Israeli military rule over the Arab population will complicate Israel’s ability to maintain broad international support and may lead to pressure for the establishment of PA governance.
Bringing about an Ideological Change
1. It is essential to shape a public narrative that internalizes the failure and moral injustice of the Hamas movement and replaces the old perception with a moderate Islamic ideology. This process is similar to denazification in Germany and Imperial Japan. Among other things, it is crucial to write the curriculum for schools and enforce their use on an entire generation.
2. Integrating the PA (Palestinian Authority) will greatly complicate the creation of study materials that legitimize Israel. Even now, the PA’s curriculum, much like those of Hamas, instills hatred and animosity towards Israel.
3.While it is possible to condition the importation of PA material on Israeli dictation of written study materials, there is no guarantee that this will happen, as the PA is fundamentally opposed to Israel.
4. One can assess that the PA will not act resolutely to shape a public narrative that exposes Hamas’ failure and moral injustice or promote a moderate Islamic ideology.
5. Even today, there is substantial public support for Hamas in the West Bank. The PA leadership is widely seen as corrupt and ineffectual, losing ground to Hamas in terms of public support.
Strategic Implications
1. The PA is a malevolent entity for Israel that stands on the brink of disaster. Strengthening it could result in a strategic loss for Israel.
2. The divide between the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza is one of the major obstacles today to the establishment of a Palestinian state. It is inconceivable that the outcome of this attack will be an unprecedented victory for the Palestinian nationalist movement, paving the way for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
3. The current model in the West Bank, involving Israeli military control and the civil authority of the PA, is unstable and is destined to fail. It can be tolerated in the West Bank only because of the extensive Jewish settlement in the region. This is because there is no possibility of Israeli military control without Jewish settlement (and one cannot expect the mobilization of settlement movements [for establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza] under the condition of the PA’s return to Gaza).
4. There is no way to efficiently maintain a military occupation in Gaza based only on military presence, and within a short time, there will be domestic and international pressure for withdrawal. This means that the idea will not gain long-term international legitimacy – similar to the situation in the West Bank today, only worse. Israel will be perceived as a colonial power with an occupying army. Bases and posts will be attacked, and the PA will deny any involvement.
5. Tried and failed – it should be explained that a plan to deliver the area to the PA and then withdraw Israeli military control was attempted in 2006 – Hamas won the elections and then seized control of the strip. There is no justification for the Israeli national military effort to occupy Gaza if, in the end, it repeats the same mistake that led to the current situation (a full-fledged war with Hamas).
6. Deterrence – this alternative will not produce the required deterrence against Hezbollah. On the contrary, this alternative indicates a deep Israeli weakness that will signal to Hezbollah that they will not pay a real price for a confrontation with Israel, as the latter will only carry out a similar move to the one carried out in Lebanon – a takeover for a limited tim, followed by a withdrawal.
7. If the IDF fights to occupy the strip, but in the end, the political outcome is PA rule and the transformation of the strip, once again, into a hostile entity, Israel’s ability to recruit combat soldiers will be critically damaged. Such a move would constitute a historical failure and an existential threat to the country’s future.
Alternative B: The civilian population remains in Gaza and local Arab governance is fostered
Location and Governance
1. The majority of the population remains in Gaza.
2. Governance in the initial stage – Israeli military governance. As an interim solution – continuing efforts to establish a local, non-Islamist, Arab political leadership for managing civilian aspects in a structure similar to the existing government in the United Arab Emirates. A permanent solution within this alternative does not seem to be on the horizon.
3. Humanitarian responsibility – Israel bears full responsibility upon the conclusion of the war with all the implications.
Operational Implementation
• Requires combat in a densely populated area. Involves risks to our soldiers and requires an extended period.
• The longer intense combat continues, the higher the risk of a second front opening in the north.
International/Legal Legitimacy
1. Similar to Alternative A, this alternative will require combat in a densely populated area and will result in numerous casualties.
2. Prolonged implementation period, and Hamas will use this to propagate images of ‘civilians killed by Israel’.
3. Military rule over a civilian population will make it difficult for Israel to maintain broad international support over time.
Creating Ideological Change
1. In the current situation, the absence of local opposition movements to Hamas which can be instated in power. Even if a local leadership arises in an Emirati format, they are still Hamas supporters.
2. This situation will significantly complicate the required ideological change and the weakening of Hamas as a legitimate movement. By way of comparison, in Germany’s denazification process, the post-occupation government comprised leaders who had opposed the Nazis.
3. Without a widespread local movement committed to the ideological elimination of Hamas, it will be difficult to create the necessary ideological shift.
Strategic Implications
• In the short term, toppling Hamas and occupying the strip will be significant steps toward restoring Israeli deterrence and changing the reality.
• However, it appears that the deterrence effect will not be sufficient and substantial enough regarding the severity of the surprise attack [on October 7]. Moreover, the message sent to Hezbollah and Iran will not be sufficiently resolute. The strip will continue to serve as a fertile ground for influence attempts and the renewed nurturing of terror organizations.
• It is reasonable to assume that such a move will receive the support of Gulf states due to the heavy blow dealt to the Muslim Brotherhood Movement. Nevertheless, the number of casualties among Gaza’s Arab population which the process involves will make this difficult.
• In the long term, there will be both Israeli and international pressure to replace the Israeli military governance with a local Arab governance as soon as possible. There is no guarantee that the new leadership will resist the spirit of Hamas.
• A local Arab government will face great difficulty in achieving the required narrative and ideological change because an entire generation in Gaza has been educated with the ideology of Hamas, and now they will also experience Israeli military occupation. The likely scenario is not an ideological change of perception but the emergence of new, possibly even more extreme Islamist movements.
• This alternative, too, does not provide Israel with any significant long-term strategic benefit. On the contrary, it may turn out to be a strategic burden in a few years.
Alternative C: Evacuation of the Civilian Population from Gaza to Sinai
Location and Governance
1. Due to the ongoing combat against Hamas, there is a need to evacuate the non-combatant civilian population from the combat zone.
2. Israel will act to evacuate the civilian population to Sinai.
3. In the initial stage, tent cities will be established in the Sinai region. Subsequently, the creation of a humanitarian corridor to assist the civilian population of Gaza and the construction of new cities in a resettlement area in Northern Sinai.
4. A sterile zone must be established several kilometers within Egypt and the return of the population to activities or residence near the Israeli border should not be allowed. This is in addition to the creation of a security perimeter within our territory near the border with Egypt.
Operational Implementation
1. A call for the evacuation of the non-combatant population from the combat zone in which Israel is attacking Hamas.
2. In the first stage, aerial operations will be carried out with a focus on the northern Gaza Strip to allow for the ground maneuver into an evacuated zone that does not require combat in a densely populated civilian area.
3. In the second stage, a gradual ground maneuver will proceed from the north along the border until the entire Gaza Strip is occupied, and the underground bunkers are cleared of Hamas combatants.
4. The intensive ground maneuver stage will take less time compared to alternatives A and B, thus reducing time of exposure to the opening of a northern front concurrently with the Gaza conflict.
5. It is important to leave southward-bound transportation routes open to allow for the evacuation of the civilian population towards Rafah.
Legal/International Legitimacy
1. At first glance, this alternative, which involves significant evacuation of the population, may be complex in terms of international legitimacy.
2. In our assessment, post-evacuation combat is expected to lead to fewer casualties among the civilian population compared to the expected casualties if the population remains (as in alternatives A and B).
3. Mass migration from war zones (Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine) and population movement are a natural and necessary result given the risks associated with staying in a war zone.
4. Even before the fighting, there was high demand for emigration out of Gaza among the local population, and the war is only expected to increase this demand.
5. From a legal perspective:
A. This is a war of defense against a terrorist organization that conducted a military invasion of Israel.
B. The demand for evacuating a non-combatant population is an accepted method that saves lives, as the Americans did in Iraq in 2003.
C. Egypt has an obligation under international law to allow the passage of the population.
6. Israel should work to promote a wide diplomatic initiative aimed at recruiting countries willing to assist the displaced population and agree to accept them as migrants.
7. A list of countries that should join this initiative can be found in appendix A to this document.
8. In the long term, this alternative is likely to gain broader legitimacy since it deals with a population that will be integrated into a state framework with citizenship.
Creating an Ideological Change
1. In this alternative, too, there will be a need for an ideological shift among the population. However, Israel will not have the ability to control the plan since it is implemented outside its territory.
2. In relation to alternatives A and B, instilling a sense of failure in the population will assist in creating an improved security reality for many years and will deter this population.
Strategic Implications
1. Deterrence – a proper response will enable the creation of meaningful deterrence throughout the region and will send a strong message to Hezbollah not to dare to undertake a similar move in Southern Lebanon.
2. Toppling Hamas will gain the support of Gulf states. Additionally, this alternative will deal a significant and unequivocal blow [missing… perhaps ‘to the Muslim Brotherhood’].
3. This alternative will strengthen Egyptian rule in Northern Sinai. It is important to limit the introduction of weapons into Northern Sinai and not to allow the legitimization of amendments to the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement’s demilitarization articles.
4. The issue should be associated with a broader effort to denounce the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and worldwide, turning the organization into a pariah, similar to ISIS – from a legal perspective, around the world and especially in Egypt.
Appendix A: Countries and Entities That Can Contribute to Solving the Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza
United States
Possible contribution: Assistance in promoting the initiative vis-a-vis many countries, including exerting pressure on Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to contribute to the initiative, either with resources or by receiving displaced persons.
Motivations: Interest in a clear Israeli victory and the restoration of Western deterrence, which has been damaged due to the attack on Israel. Restoring its global leadership and key state status in crisis resolution. Interest in creating a significant regional change and dealing a blow to the radical axis.
Egypt
Possible contribution: Opening crossings and immediate reception of the population leaving Gaza and will assemble in Sinai; allocating territory for settlement; exerting diplomatic pressure on Turkey and other countries to do so of their own preference, rather than receiving a large number of displaced persons [in crisis]; a security envelope for initial organization zones outside the Gaza Strip.
Possible incentives: Pressure from the United States and European countries to take responsibility and open the Rafah crossing to Sinai; financial assistance for the current economic crisis in Egypt.
Saudi Arabia
Possible contribution: Financing integration budgets [for migrants] and budget for the efforts to transfer the population to various countries; discreet funding of campaigns that present the damage caused by Hamas and damage its reputation.
Motivations: Pressure from the United States, in addition to a commitment to use the defense umbrella of the combat groups stationed in the area against Iran as an insurance policy; an interest in positioning Saudi Arabia as a helper to Muslims in times of crisis; Saudi interest in a clear Israeli victory over Hamas.
European countries, especially those in the Mediterranean – Greece/Spain
Contribution: Reception and settlement [of migrants].
Incentives: Migrant integration budgets and financial support budgets for this process from Arab states.
Other North African countries (Morocco, Libya, Tunisia)
Contribution: Reception and settlement; immediate support in organization zones outside the Gaza Strip.
Incentives: Migrant reception budgets and financial support budgets from Arab countries; showing Arab brotherhood; pressure from European countries; working through ties that Israel has with some of those countries in a way that allows these countries to maintain these ties without harming their image in the Arab world.
Canada
Contribution: Reception of the population and its settlement within the framework of a lenient immigration policy.
Prominent advertising agencies
Possible contribution: Campaigns that promote the plan in the Western world and the effort to resolve the crisis without inciting against, or vilifying, Israel; campaigns targeted at the non-pro-Israel world focusing on assisting Palestinian brothers and helping their recovery, even at the price of a “scolding” or even offensive tone towards Israel, intended for populations unable to accept a different message.
Specific campaigns targeting Gaza residents themselves, encouraging them to accept the plan – the messages should revolve around the loss of land, clarifying that there is no hope of returning to the territories Israel will occupy soon, whether it is right or not. The message should be, “Allah decided you lose this land because of Hamas’ leadership – the only option is to move to another place with the help of your Muslim brothers.”
Translated by Ofer Neiman
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Mon Jan 29, 2024 1:46 am
Part 1 of 2
Conscientious Objector/Israel Agents
by Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader Radio Hour
Episode 515
January 20th, 2024
Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan along with my cohost David Feldman and the rest of the crew. Hello, David.
David Feldman: Morning.
Steve Skrovan: And the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Hello. This program features a candid whistleblower from the State Department who resigned and a great investigative reporter on what's happening to our civil liberties because of the Israeli conflict.
Steve Skrovan: That's right, Ralph. As we record this program, it's been well over 100 days since the State of Israel started its relentless siege on Gaza (Strip) in response to the Hamas attacks on October 7th. This campaign has been enthusiastically supported by the Biden administration, which continues to provide Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's government with the means to carry out their genocide of the Palestinian people. As taxpayers, our money is funding all of this death and destruction, making us complicit.
Our first guest today is former State Department official, Josh Paul. Mr. Paul was a member of the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which he describes as the U.S. government entity most responsible for the transfer of arms to allies, including Israel. In protest, Mr. Paul tendered his resignation 10 days into the conflict. He explained that "This administration's response, and much of Congress as well, is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia. That is to say, it is immensely disappointing and entirely unsurprising."
In the second half of the show, we're going to pivot to the second front of the war on Palestine, America's college campuses. We've previously covered Congress's dubious investigation into anti-Semitism on college campuses and the moral panic conflating anti-Zionism or any slight criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. What if we told you that most of this fearmongering and accusations of anti-Semitism wasn't organic? Instead, it's actually the product of decades of illegal anti-Palestinian espionage, covert action, and blacklisting of Americans within the U.S. by the Israeli government and a network of domestic collaborators.
Investigative reporter James Bamford will be joining us to explain the "massive operation to spy on and crush pro-Palestinian students throughout the country, to establishing a secret Israeli-run troll farm across the U.S., to harass anyone critical of Israel, to hiring Americans to secretly spy on American students and report back to Israeli intelligence."
As always, somewhere along the line, we'll check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber. But first, let's talk to a State Department insider who could no longer be part of sending arms to Israel. David?
David Feldman: Josh Paul served 11 years in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State before his resignation on October 17th, 2023. Mr. Paul previously worked on security sector reform in both Iraq and the West Bank with additional roles in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Army staff, and as a congressional staffer. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Josh Paul.
Josh Paul: Thank you very much indeed. It's an honor for me to join you.
Ralph Nader: Thank you very much, Josh. You, so far, are the only quasi-high official of the State Department to resign in protest. What's your read about others resigning as a matter of conscience from the State Department? Is there a lot of upset and dissent that reflects your concern that this issue of the Israeli-Hamas conflict is not being fully and fairly debated in the State Department?
Josh Paul: Yes, I think there are a lot of people, and I've heard from very many of them, who are immensely frustrated, disappointed, and troubled by the stance that the Biden administration is taking, particularly within the State Department, where people, I think understand not only the moral failings of our current policy, but also the practical failings and the impact that our current approach is having on our relations across the world and our ability to rally America's allies and partners around the issues that we care about.
A lot of people are very deeply troubled and are taking actions within their roles to try and address this, including through the formalized dissent channel, where many people have expressed concerns and recommendations to Secretary of State Blinken on a change of course, and as well through more public channels. We've seen public letters. We've seen a vigil outside the White House of executive branch staff, and in the last 24 hours here as we speak, on Wednesday, (January 17) we saw a day of grieving, a day of mourning, in which many public civil servants took part, including not going to work as they mourned the losses of the last few months.
There is an immense amount of frustration and effort being made to change the course. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be registering yet with the Biden administration.
Ralph Nader: The State Department's original charter back in [Benjamin] Ben Franklin days was diplomacy and customs. Now it seems to be more a Secretary of War than a Secretary of State.
Josh Paul: Well, I think that's right. To be fair, and in the State Department's defense, and in a structural defense, it is interesting that the United States places control of arms transfers and security assistance within the State Department. That is a different model than most of our allies follow, in which those functions are in the Department of Defense or Ministry of Defense or Ministry of Trade. And there is an advantage to putting them in the State Department, so that they can be considered as tools of foreign policy, along with other diplomatic tools, such as economic assistance and diplomatic engagement.
So, there is an advantage there. But there is also, inherently by doing so, a militarization of foreign policy, particularly when we look at the massive amount of funding that is provided for military assistance, and of course, the way that providing that assistance then links us to the actions of our partners, whether we want to be complicit in those actions or not.
There is a bit to unpack there. But you're right. We have seen increasingly, and particularly since September 11th, a militarization of our foreign policy and an increasing reliance on tools such as arms transfers and security cooperation, to pursue diplomatic objectives. And that is a problem.
Ralph Nader: Before we get to that, let's talk about Congress. What do you make of this overwhelming defeat of Bernie Sanders's proposal regarding weapons aid to Israel? Just now, there were only 11 senators who voted with him, and his proposal on the floor of the Senate was turned down. What's your take on that?
Josh Paul: It's obviously very disappointing, but I don't think it's surprising. One of the things that stood out to me several months ago when I resigned, was that typically, when we are talking about human rights issues connected to arms transfers, Congress is an ally in terms of raising those concerns, in terms of speaking up, holding hearings, and pressing for delays while we figure out and understand what is happening.
That was not the case here. In this context, Congress was pushing as hard, if not harder, than the Biden administration itself, to rush arms to Israel to assail Gaza. There is a blind spot in our foreign policy, including when it comes to Congress's consideration of these issues and of the humanity of the Palestinian people. So it's not surprising.
A lot of people in Congress, first of all, are uneducated on this issue, frankly, or are educated just by one side, and second of all, who are paying very close attention to what their networks are telling them to do and how they're being told to vote, rather than to what their constituents are telling them to do. I've heard from many congressional staff who say they are getting calls in favor of a ceasefire at a 10 to 1 ratio from constituents. Yet, this is not translating into a member position, which is reason for concern in our democracy.
Ralph Nader: Jim Zogby, the head of the Arab American Institute, gave an address years ago to an Israeli university audience talking about the other anti-Semitism. By that, he meant that apart from anti-Semitism against Jews, there's a virulent anti-Semitism against Arabs backed by military power and destructive weaponry. What do you think of that?
You've served in the Arab world. You've been in Iraq and elsewhere in your career at the State Department. Why is anti-Semitism against Arabs viewed as permissible? Especially with the mass slaughter going on in Gaza at present against civilians, of which 70% of the dying are children and women.
Josh Paul: That's right. And it is very evident in current statements, including those coming out of this administration and President Biden. On the 100-day anniversary of the October 7th attacks, that were followed by thousands, as you say, of civilian casualties in Gaza, the president's message made no reference to Palestinians.
Whenever he or other officials talk at the White House about the events of and since October 7th, they humanize the Israeli suffering quite rightly and talk about individual stories and the suffering that has happened, but when it comes to the suffering in Gaza, which is numerically of a scope and scale so much larger, it is mentioned in an offhand manner—we require or we would like to see fewer civilian deaths—without any of that storytelling and humanization that accompanies talking about the Israelis.
A blind spot has been there, as we know, for many years when it comes to American foreign policy, dating back well before 9/11, dating back to the ‘90s, to the time of Madeleine Albright, where she was able to dismiss the death of half a million Iraqi children through starvation as a necessary part of U.S. policy. This is a very deep vein, I'm afraid, in our foreign policy, one that has ultimately harmed us as a nation, very much indeed, in the sense that in creating this blind spot, we have also lost a part of our souls and part of our values.
It is incumbent on us to turn back to the Arab-American community and to the Muslim-American community to find those values, because they are the ones who are currently expressing American values when it comes to ending civilian suffering in Gaza and calling for peace. You don't see that in mainstream America right now. By advancing the bigotries of our society, we have also lost a big part of ourselves.
Ralph Nader: Let's talk about the gross undercount of the fatalities in Gaza. They're still talking about 24,000 fatalities, and they cite the Hamas Health Ministry.
Look at the reality here. Imagine if Philadelphia, which has 1.5 million people and is about the size of Gaza geographically, was subjected under siege to no food, no water, no medicine, no electricity, no fuel, and no health care, as an official policy of the attacker, and over 33,000 bombs and missiles were dropped on defenseless people in Philadelphia. Would anybody think that 99% of the people in Philadelphia would have still survived after 100 days?
Hamas seems to have an interest in lowballing its own fatalities, because it doesn't want to be criticized more by Gazans for not protecting them at all. What's your view of this undercount? And what do you think is the real minimal estimated casualty toll in terms of dead and injured?
Josh Paul: It's not just you who is saying there's an undercount. It's the Biden administration as well. Assistant Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs in the State Department (Near Eastern Affairs – NEA, Congresswoman Barbara Lee actually testified to Congress in November that she believes that the count being put out by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza is an undercount. The Biden administration agrees with you that we are not capturing as many deaths as are occurring.
I fear that we are just at the very beginning of this humanitarian crisis, that as many as have been killed by Israeli or rather by American bombs, frankly, in the last few months, there could be many times that number who will succumb to disease and starvation in the rest of this year. I don't know that the world is prepared for that. I certainly know that the humanitarian community is not being allowed to prepare for that in terms of their access to Gaza that would be needed to prevent this. We are at the start of a very dark period, unfortunately.
Ralph Nader: It might be added that 80% or more of Gazans have been displaced and they're living exposed to the elements or under tents, mostly in the southern part of this tiny enclave, which is only twice the size of the District of Columbia.
Let's go to the core of your expertise, Josh Paul. Over the years, there was an embargo on Gaza by Israel, which is considered illegal under international law. Given the Israeli surveillance technology of the Palestinians—considered by experts as the most advanced technological surveillance in the history of the world—how did Hamas get these weapons and the ammunition ready to use? Where did they come from? How did they get through?
Josh Paul: The best analysis coming out of the U.S. is that for the most part, these are weapons of Iranian origin and sometimes of North Korean origin and elsewhere from around the world. How they got through is a very good question, that speaks to the issue of Israel's siege on Gaza, which was intended to prevent this sort of flow of arms into the Gaza Strip.
What that tells you at the end of the day, is that what you need here is a political solution, because there is no military solution both to Hamas's capabilities and to the ingenuity of mankind in being able to build, smuggle, and construct, the arms that they have on hand. The bottom line of the answer here, is that there is no military solution. There is no military capability that can keep 2.3 million people cooped up with no ability to build an arms cache. We need a political solution.
Ralph Nader: Before a political solution, some people have spoken of a two-state solution, which Muslim countries have been proposing since 2002, in an open letter, and Israelis have been ignoring it. What do you make of Prime Minister Netanyahu's statements over time, including to his own Likud party in 2019, that the Israeli government is supporting and facilitating the funding of Hamas because Hamas doesn't believe in a two-state solution and can stop the Palestinian Authority from moving in that direction? This is an astounding position given Netanyahu's recent denunciation of Hamas. It seems like he enabled Hamas over the years. What's your reaction?
Josh Paul: That's exactly right. He has, and I think Israel has often played Hamas off against the Palestinian Authority (PA), while at the same time undermining the PA in every way it can, by withholding salaries and using the PA to pursue Israeli security objectives rather than Palestinian security objectives. That's a game that we, the United States, have played our part in.
There has been, in parallel with the expansion of settlements, with the continuation of the siege of Gaza, an effort to essentially deconstruct and divide, the State of Palestine, before one can even be established, to make it impossible to establish. That has been very much at the core of Prime Minister Netanyahu's policy, and it has blown back on him in some respects. And yet, it is hard to see how we go forward from here politically.
Ralph Nader: Let's talk about humanitarian aid. We've been listening to Joe Biden saying he wants more humanitarian aid, and it's already funded by the U.S., and there are hundreds of trucks ready to come in with food, medicine, shelter, and other necessities of life. But the Israelis are only letting in anywhere from 50 to 100 trucks. Those trucks can't get to their destination because of the bombing and the broken-up roads, and most of the hospitals are not around operating to receive this aid.
Is Biden talking with a forked tongue here? He's shipping all kinds of arms unconditionally, as you know better than most, to the Israelis. Can he turn the screws on them and say, "I want 600/ 700 trucks a day going into Gaza," which was the case before October 7th, "because people are dying, being injured, sick, babies dying without this humanitarian aid hour by hour." What would you say to the president that he must do right now? Every day, hundreds are dying.
Josh Paul: Biden could be doing a lot more, and he's choosing not to. His policy and America's policy continues to prioritize Netanyahu's explicit policy, which is "the destruction of Hamas" over and against the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people.
It took three months of negotiations with Israel to get them to open the Kerem Shalom crossing into the south of Gaza from Israel. There is still the Erez Crossing in the north of Gaza, where thousands of Palestinians still remain stranded, trying to survive, and opening the Erez Crossing, which Israel has not opened, is another option.
There are also options. For example, I think there is a significant concern that the only option for Palestinian people in Gaza to get humanitarian assistance might be to leave Gaza. If that is the case, of course, not only are we essentially talking about another Nakba, but that doesn't have to be the case if they were able to proceed into, for example, the Negev, but that is not something that people are even talking about. But that would keep people on the land.
There are any number of options that President Biden could be pursuing, but the proof that he is not is that he is not using any of the leverage that he has with the government of Israel to pursue those options. He is not making military assistance conditional upon the provision of humanitarian support. He is not making military assistance balanced against, for example, action in the United Nations (UN) to call for a ceasefire, or to at least get out of the way of those in the U.N. who are calling for a ceasefire. He is simply asking nicely and then saying that he is all out of options.
There is a lot more the United States and President Biden could be doing here. My concern is that he just doesn't seem particularly to want to.
Ralph Nader: You think it's the election?
Josh Paul: It's a number of factors. One of them may be the election, but if you look at the electoral math for President Biden, particularly as he hits record-low numbers in polling, I don't see the logic there. He is losing a lot of support rather than gaining it through this approach.
Many people in this country will not turn out to vote for him as a result of the steps that he has taken in the last few months. Yet rather than turning around and trying to appeal to those people, he is doubling down, while those who are very strongly on the side of Israel, whether it be the Christian evangelical community, or the American religious Zionist community, will go and vote for the Republican. So, I don't know what President Biden is getting electorally or politically out of this. For him, it’s a deeply held position. He is frozen in his 1970s perspective where they were formed. But the reality on the ground is very different now than it was then. The politics of Israel, for that matter, is very different now than then. There is an unwillingness on his part to budge due to a personally held belief, which is unfortunate.
Ralph Nader: Let's look at the extraordinary abdication of Congress under its constitutional duties. Congress should be having oversight hearings now. There are no oversight hearings about the position of the White House vis-a-vis the Israeli war in Gaza, neither in the House, under the Republicans, nor in the Senate. There's no unofficial hearing by Democrats in the Progressive Caucus who would like to see a hearing.
There's never been a hearing since 1948 in the U.S. Congress featuring Israeli peace advocates, many of them former generals, mayors, ministers of justice, and former heads of security agencies. There was a documentary on the latter a few years ago, where the retired people from Shin Bet and Mossad were criticizing the Netanyahu regime vis-a-vis the Palestinian issue.
What's your take on Congress here? It's been said that in the last three months, the pro-Palestinian people in the United States have controlled the streets, but the pro-Netanyahu people in the United States have controlled the suites in Congress and the executive branch.
Josh Paul: You’re right. There are a lot of credible voices on the Israeli side, calling out the Netanyahu government for its current approach. Unfortunately, if you look at the polling, they are also in a significant minority right now in Israel, but they are nevertheless important voices.
Congress has a key role to play here that it is abdicating, not only in terms of hearings, not only in terms of, for example, the resolution that Senator Sanders brought to the floor yesterday, not only in terms of speaking out more publicly, calling for a ceasefire. It's interesting. I have spoken with many members of Congress in the last few months, and even for those who haven't publicly called for a ceasefire, many are willing to acknowledge behind closed doors that they believe that Israel is committing war crimes, but they will not say it publicly.
To me that’s such a moral abdication of the purposes for which they were elected. If you know something to be a fact, if you know the U.S. to be complicit in facilitating war crimes, but are unwilling to say it because you are afraid of how your donors might react or how your next election might go, why are you even in Congress? So, there is a significant gap there. It is an important note because it is not just Congress where this debate is being silenced or where people are being censored or are self-censoring. We're seeing it in the American public, too. I've heard from many doctors, lawyers, and engineers who say, "I would like to stand with you, but if I am too vocal, I will lose my job."
The result of all this, when you do not have free debate in society, when you do not have free debate in Congress, when you do not have free debate in government, is that you get bad policies.
We know that's how autocracies fail, because they do not have free debate and they get bad policies as a result.
That's happening here specifically in the context of Israel and Palestine. But it also makes me afraid for the future of our democracy more broadly, because if there is one issue where you cannot speak up on, if there is one issue where you are shouted down and condemned for voicing an opinion on the side of humanitarian issues, there will be other issues, I guarantee you, where the same becomes true.
Ralph Nader: We're going to have, after our interview, James Bamford, who's written a book and two articles in The Nation on the organized pressure to suppress dissent on campuses and to call out the students who are supporting the ceasefire and the Palestinian two-state cause by name, by picture, trying to get them to have their job offers rescinded, extremely well organized. And James Bamford, of course, is famous for writing the first book of any kind on the National Security Agency (NSA). He has a sterling record of accuracy.
Would you come out publicly for congressional hearings of prominent Israeli and Palestinian peace advocates who have been at it over the years, but have been blocked from any voice in the U.S. Congress by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other similar lobbies? Don't you think that's the beginning of providing voices of dissent from Israel before the U.S. Congress?
Josh Paul: Of course. And if the administration, if President Biden is sincere in wanting to do more to press Israel to reduce civilian casualties, the administration should support that as should Congress. Because that is one of those tools that does not involve cutting off military assistance and does not involve backing Israel at the UN. It simply involves demonstrations of concern from Congress and therefore gives some amount of added pressure without actually changing anything.
So for those in the administration and in Congress who believe that we should be doing more to support, and to be concerned about Palestinian lives, about humanitarian suffering, and yet are not willing to take any solid steps, there is no reason whatsoever that they should not support that sort of hearing.
Ralph Nader: As you say, the calls are pouring into the switchboard in Congress at 10 to 1, demanding a ceasefire, and that President Biden stand up for America's prime interest here, which you have described in your interviews since you left the State Department.
But I'm curious about one thing that you have expertise on. Why is the Biden administration sending 2,000-pound bombs to Israel when it hardly used the 2,000-pound bombs in the war in Iraq? For those who don't know about this, 2,000-pound bombs have extraordinarily increased devastation on civilians. Can you enlighten us on this?
Josh Paul: Yes. We also know from public reporting, including from CNN, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and others, that Israel is using many of these 2,000-pound bombs in an unguided capacity. So rather than, for example, attaching a precision guidance kit to these, it is simply dropping them on Gaza.
As to why the Biden administration is providing these to Israel, the answer is very simple. Israel is asking for them and no one has the guts to question that. No one has the guts to say no. This is very much part of the dynamic that I saw before leaving government—that Israel was coming in and making these extensive, expansive requests for weapons, many of which were not applicable in the context of Gaza, and yet no one was willing to say, "Let’s talk about this. This doesn't make sense. How are you going to use this?"
Ralph Nader: Do Israelis pay for these weapons, or is that part of the $4 billion that comes every year from the U.S. to Israel?
Josh Paul: That is yet to be determined for many of the current arms transfers. We do provide Israel, as you say, just under $4 billion a year in ground military assistance. That's about 20% of the Israeli defense budget. They spend their own money as well, procuring arms from the U.S., and of course, President Biden's supplemental request would provide them with several billion dollars more in military grant assistance. So if that were to not pass, I suspect that Israel would have to spend its own money on these. But in the meantime, we can assume that a lot of this is courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.
Ralph Nader: Have you spoken out against this $14.3 billion request from Biden to the Congress to send aid to Israel, tied up in a bill for military aid to Ukraine and Taiwan? Have you spoken out publicly against this? It's been called the genocide tax that outraged so many people to further kill more innocents.
Josh Paul: Yes, and I have some specific concerns beyond the simple provision of further funding, which I think we should all question. These provisions/new authorities in the president's request would expand the scope and the speed of arms transfers while reducing congressional oversight.
As little as Congress has done on this issue set, we should be concerned about that as Americans. Congress is our overseer of the executive branch, and reductions in that transparency, particularly while expanding and expediting the capability to provide arms into this context and into this conflict, is problematic and should be so, from a perspective of concern about American democracy.
Ralph Nader: What's interesting is there aren't even any public hearings on this scheduled. Congress has aborted its public hearing function. And it's given over the years, the power to declare war, to the presidency under very vague standards. However, Congress has that exclusive power - as James Madison pointed out in the Constitution - to declare war. There are all kinds of violations of law here. It seems like the U.S. empire and the micro-empire of Israel don't feel like they have to adhere to any international laws—the Geneva Conventions nor the Genocide Convention. What's your view of the State Department not ever raising these issues, not saying to the White House, "I think you should go to Congress on this, given our interpretation by the legal advisor of the U.S. Constitution."
Josh Paul: Let me first say that I have an immense amount of respect for the State Department lawyers. They are hardworking, thoughtful, insightful people. The problem is that for any legal team within government, any legal institution within government, within the executive branch, their job often becomes to interpret the law as broadly as possible in favor of the presidency. In many of these cases, what we have is a problem of how the executive branch interprets the law so that it does not bind the hands of the president. And that leads to all sorts of difficult consequences when it comes to, for example, the application of human rights vetting that is in law under the Leahy Laws for Israel or for other countries for that matter, when it comes to determining whether a country is engaged in a continuous practice of gross human rights abuses.
So, these are all sorts of questions of interpretation, where the problem is that the lawyers in the department and across government tend to say, what is the narrowest interpretation that will give the president the broadest scope? And the problem here is that you then create a massive accountability gap that you have an absence of ability to bind the executive to both the American laws or for that matter, to international law, which of course is much less binding and much more consensus based, which is then further advanced when you have courts that defer deeply to the executive on a lot of these issues, such as questions of foreign policy, questions of defense policy.
So, there are really very few hooks in the current structure that provide a means of accountability, a means of holding people to account, a means of questioning decisions. This is in Congress's hands to fix. Congress has the ability to write stronger laws, to write laws that have actual hooks, that have actual triggers that bring them into effect. So I would throw that back into Congress's court, but for now, that's where we are.
Ralph Nader: Do you see a wider war occurring? The papers are full of projections that this war is widening. It may involve neighboring countries. It may involve Iran. Biden keeps saying that he's working vigorously to make sure that doesn't happen, but the U.S. has bombed in Syria recently, Iraq, and the Red Sea. And what's your view here? Is it going to get out of control?
Josh Paul: Look, I hope not, but the longer the conflict in Gaza continues, the greater the risks of that sort of escalation becomes. That is another reason why it should be in the U.S. interest to press Israel to end its bombardment of Gaza, to end its invasion of Gaza, as quickly as possible, because the longer this lasts, the more the risks increase.
Ralph Nader: Let's go to Steve and David and Hannah. They want to ask you a couple of questions or make a comment. Steve?
Steve Skrovan: Josh, the stated goal of the Netanyahu government is to eliminate Hamas. Is that even possible? It's not like they're wearing uniforms. It's a small fundamentalist philosophy. It's an idea. Is that just PR that they can eliminate Hamas?
Josh Paul: So, I don't know what the thinking was at the start of this operation on the part of the government of Israel, but it is not a feasible goal. They might be able to significantly, and for a significant amount of time, degrade the military capabilities of Hamas. I'm sure they've already done that. But you cannot go to war against a political movement, and you cannot go to war against an ideology. This is a political problem that requires a political solution.
This creates some significant challenges when you start wondering about what comes in the post-conflict space. If we are talking about Palestinian self-determination, there is inevitably going to be some support for Hamas, given particularly the events of the last three months and how Hamas looks compared to the fecklessness, frankly, of the Palestinian Authority. I don't know how you go forward from here, from this situation that has been created with neither a military solution nor a political solution that is workable for people. But the short answer to your question is "no."
What I fear will happen is that there will not be a ceasefire, that Israel will keep this an open-ended conflict, and feel free to strike at whoever it says is Hamas or Hamas linked. Israel has painted a very broad swath, including through the comments of its president who has said that it is a whole nation that is at fault here or that is involved here. But even assuming that that is not the case, we will still see Israel feeling that it has a free hand to bomb, to strike Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank, which we've seen increasingly in the last few weeks--for years to come. That is a recipe for a continued humanitarian and political disaster.
Ralph Nader: David?
David Feldman: What would happen if we had a real isolationist government here in the United States that said, "No more foreign aid for Israel, no cooperation on Iron Dome, we're just protecting our own interests," to basically neglect, abandon Israel?
Josh Paul: First of all, I'm not personally advocating for an isolationist approach writ large by the U.S. I think we do have an important role to play in the world. I wish we played it better and with more humanity. But when it comes to Israel's ability to stand alone, I think it would succeed. It has.
Let's talk about the defense sector. We provide Israel with $3.3 billion a year in foreign military financing. Israel is allowed to use a significant portion of that on its own defense industrial base. Over the years, over the tens of billions of dollars, what that means is that Israel is now a top exporter of weapons.
Israel has a strong defense industrial base. Israel has the means to support the military operations it wants to do, if it is willing to pay the cost in terms of raising taxes, and if it is willing to take those sorts of approaches. Israel also has burgeoning partnerships with many countries in the region, including through the Trump administration's Abraham Accords, which connected it with the United Arab Emirates, with Morocco, and with others.
Israel is not entirely dependent on the United States in the way that it would have been 20 or 30 years ago. That said, a complete cutoff now, or significant conditioning of our arms, would force Israel to make some much tougher decisions about where its actual defense requirements lie and where it wants to use the weaponry that it has.
Ralph Nader: Hannah?
Hannah Feldman: You've served under different presidents. Why now? What about this situation just snapped it for you?
Josh Paul: I think it was two main factors, one of which was the scale and the scope of the Israeli operations in Gaza, which we have seen in just over three months now more destruction of houses than the firebombing of Dresden, have killed more journalists than in any conflict since World War II, have killed more children in three months than have died in Ukraine in two years. And this is all being done with our bombs, with our money, with our weaponry, with our support.
So that was the first factor, the sense that we were a part of this absolute horror that is unfolding on the ground. And the second, is this lack of debate. I've been involved in many morally perilous, you might even say morally torturous decisions in the State Department, in the security assistance, in the arms transfer business with many countries that the United States has relationships with that are autocracies or that are human rights abusers.
In all of those previous situations, I and others in the Department had been able to raise concerns, and had those concerns addressed in some way or form in a way that made me feel that I was doing more good by being there than what I would be able to do if I was not there. The difference here, in addition to the scale of what is happening, was that there was no space whatsoever for that raising of concerns—for those questions of how to mitigate some of these outcomes, or how to stop some of these or reduce some of these civilian casualties—there was simply this rush to arms.
Given that lack of space, many people who I'm talking to now in government who are thinking about resigning raise the question of, well, if they’re not there, who will be doing their job? Will it be someone who is going to care about the issues I care about, or will it be someone who is just going to rush forward on whatever they're told to do? In my situation, it didn't make any difference who was going to be doing the job because this was the policy and there was no space to address, debate, or raise concerns about it.
Ralph Nader: We've come to the end of our interview. Is there anything you want to say that we haven't asked you about? And has the media treated you well and given you a voice?
Josh Paul: I have been fortunate in that respect, at a time when there is a lot of censorship around this issue, to have been given a voice by the media. Part of the reason for that is what I look like., i.e., I am a middle-aged white guy who is therefore able to say things and to speak about the truth that many people who do not look like me would be shouted down for.
I want to say to many of your listeners that if you are in a situation like mine where you have privilege, it is very important to use that privilege for good. That is what enables others to speak up and creates the space in which policy change can actually happen by building that sort of critical mass and momentum. But it needs to be enabled to some extent by those of us who are in a position to do so.
Ralph Nader: Any recommendations to our listeners as to what they should do as citizens right now?
Josh Paul: Keep speaking up. And that involves both speaking to members of Congress, as well as members of local government. There have been a number of efforts. For example, Ferguson, Missouri recently passed in its council a ceasefire resolution, one of few city councils around the country that has done so. And that matters.
And of course, there’s building things with local communities, speaking to local media, writing letters to the newspaper, and ultimately organizing on a broader scale. That's something many of us are looking at and trying to figure out: how to harness this energy and to move things forward in the longer term.
Ralph Nader: Well, thank you very much for the time you've given us and the insights and the profile of courage that you've exhibited by resigning in protest as a matter of conscience, Josh Paul. And we wish you good luck and the best in terms of communicating more and more why you left the State Department in this turbulent time of massive destruction in Gaza.
Josh Paul: Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Conscientious Objector/Israel Agents
by Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader Radio Hour
Episode 515
January 20th, 2024
Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan along with my cohost David Feldman and the rest of the crew. Hello, David.
David Feldman: Morning.
Steve Skrovan: And the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Hello. This program features a candid whistleblower from the State Department who resigned and a great investigative reporter on what's happening to our civil liberties because of the Israeli conflict.
Steve Skrovan: That's right, Ralph. As we record this program, it's been well over 100 days since the State of Israel started its relentless siege on Gaza (Strip) in response to the Hamas attacks on October 7th. This campaign has been enthusiastically supported by the Biden administration, which continues to provide Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's government with the means to carry out their genocide of the Palestinian people. As taxpayers, our money is funding all of this death and destruction, making us complicit.
Our first guest today is former State Department official, Josh Paul. Mr. Paul was a member of the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which he describes as the U.S. government entity most responsible for the transfer of arms to allies, including Israel. In protest, Mr. Paul tendered his resignation 10 days into the conflict. He explained that "This administration's response, and much of Congress as well, is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia. That is to say, it is immensely disappointing and entirely unsurprising."
In the second half of the show, we're going to pivot to the second front of the war on Palestine, America's college campuses. We've previously covered Congress's dubious investigation into anti-Semitism on college campuses and the moral panic conflating anti-Zionism or any slight criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. What if we told you that most of this fearmongering and accusations of anti-Semitism wasn't organic? Instead, it's actually the product of decades of illegal anti-Palestinian espionage, covert action, and blacklisting of Americans within the U.S. by the Israeli government and a network of domestic collaborators.
Investigative reporter James Bamford will be joining us to explain the "massive operation to spy on and crush pro-Palestinian students throughout the country, to establishing a secret Israeli-run troll farm across the U.S., to harass anyone critical of Israel, to hiring Americans to secretly spy on American students and report back to Israeli intelligence."
As always, somewhere along the line, we'll check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber. But first, let's talk to a State Department insider who could no longer be part of sending arms to Israel. David?
David Feldman: Josh Paul served 11 years in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State before his resignation on October 17th, 2023. Mr. Paul previously worked on security sector reform in both Iraq and the West Bank with additional roles in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Army staff, and as a congressional staffer. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Josh Paul.
Josh Paul: Thank you very much indeed. It's an honor for me to join you.
Ralph Nader: Thank you very much, Josh. You, so far, are the only quasi-high official of the State Department to resign in protest. What's your read about others resigning as a matter of conscience from the State Department? Is there a lot of upset and dissent that reflects your concern that this issue of the Israeli-Hamas conflict is not being fully and fairly debated in the State Department?
Josh Paul: Yes, I think there are a lot of people, and I've heard from very many of them, who are immensely frustrated, disappointed, and troubled by the stance that the Biden administration is taking, particularly within the State Department, where people, I think understand not only the moral failings of our current policy, but also the practical failings and the impact that our current approach is having on our relations across the world and our ability to rally America's allies and partners around the issues that we care about.
A lot of people are very deeply troubled and are taking actions within their roles to try and address this, including through the formalized dissent channel, where many people have expressed concerns and recommendations to Secretary of State Blinken on a change of course, and as well through more public channels. We've seen public letters. We've seen a vigil outside the White House of executive branch staff, and in the last 24 hours here as we speak, on Wednesday, (January 17) we saw a day of grieving, a day of mourning, in which many public civil servants took part, including not going to work as they mourned the losses of the last few months.
There is an immense amount of frustration and effort being made to change the course. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be registering yet with the Biden administration.
Ralph Nader: The State Department's original charter back in [Benjamin] Ben Franklin days was diplomacy and customs. Now it seems to be more a Secretary of War than a Secretary of State.
Josh Paul: Well, I think that's right. To be fair, and in the State Department's defense, and in a structural defense, it is interesting that the United States places control of arms transfers and security assistance within the State Department. That is a different model than most of our allies follow, in which those functions are in the Department of Defense or Ministry of Defense or Ministry of Trade. And there is an advantage to putting them in the State Department, so that they can be considered as tools of foreign policy, along with other diplomatic tools, such as economic assistance and diplomatic engagement.
So, there is an advantage there. But there is also, inherently by doing so, a militarization of foreign policy, particularly when we look at the massive amount of funding that is provided for military assistance, and of course, the way that providing that assistance then links us to the actions of our partners, whether we want to be complicit in those actions or not.
There is a bit to unpack there. But you're right. We have seen increasingly, and particularly since September 11th, a militarization of our foreign policy and an increasing reliance on tools such as arms transfers and security cooperation, to pursue diplomatic objectives. And that is a problem.
Ralph Nader: Before we get to that, let's talk about Congress. What do you make of this overwhelming defeat of Bernie Sanders's proposal regarding weapons aid to Israel? Just now, there were only 11 senators who voted with him, and his proposal on the floor of the Senate was turned down. What's your take on that?
Josh Paul: It's obviously very disappointing, but I don't think it's surprising. One of the things that stood out to me several months ago when I resigned, was that typically, when we are talking about human rights issues connected to arms transfers, Congress is an ally in terms of raising those concerns, in terms of speaking up, holding hearings, and pressing for delays while we figure out and understand what is happening.
That was not the case here. In this context, Congress was pushing as hard, if not harder, than the Biden administration itself, to rush arms to Israel to assail Gaza. There is a blind spot in our foreign policy, including when it comes to Congress's consideration of these issues and of the humanity of the Palestinian people. So it's not surprising.
A lot of people in Congress, first of all, are uneducated on this issue, frankly, or are educated just by one side, and second of all, who are paying very close attention to what their networks are telling them to do and how they're being told to vote, rather than to what their constituents are telling them to do. I've heard from many congressional staff who say they are getting calls in favor of a ceasefire at a 10 to 1 ratio from constituents. Yet, this is not translating into a member position, which is reason for concern in our democracy.
Ralph Nader: Jim Zogby, the head of the Arab American Institute, gave an address years ago to an Israeli university audience talking about the other anti-Semitism. By that, he meant that apart from anti-Semitism against Jews, there's a virulent anti-Semitism against Arabs backed by military power and destructive weaponry. What do you think of that?
You've served in the Arab world. You've been in Iraq and elsewhere in your career at the State Department. Why is anti-Semitism against Arabs viewed as permissible? Especially with the mass slaughter going on in Gaza at present against civilians, of which 70% of the dying are children and women.
Josh Paul: That's right. And it is very evident in current statements, including those coming out of this administration and President Biden. On the 100-day anniversary of the October 7th attacks, that were followed by thousands, as you say, of civilian casualties in Gaza, the president's message made no reference to Palestinians.
Whenever he or other officials talk at the White House about the events of and since October 7th, they humanize the Israeli suffering quite rightly and talk about individual stories and the suffering that has happened, but when it comes to the suffering in Gaza, which is numerically of a scope and scale so much larger, it is mentioned in an offhand manner—we require or we would like to see fewer civilian deaths—without any of that storytelling and humanization that accompanies talking about the Israelis.
A blind spot has been there, as we know, for many years when it comes to American foreign policy, dating back well before 9/11, dating back to the ‘90s, to the time of Madeleine Albright, where she was able to dismiss the death of half a million Iraqi children through starvation as a necessary part of U.S. policy. This is a very deep vein, I'm afraid, in our foreign policy, one that has ultimately harmed us as a nation, very much indeed, in the sense that in creating this blind spot, we have also lost a part of our souls and part of our values.
It is incumbent on us to turn back to the Arab-American community and to the Muslim-American community to find those values, because they are the ones who are currently expressing American values when it comes to ending civilian suffering in Gaza and calling for peace. You don't see that in mainstream America right now. By advancing the bigotries of our society, we have also lost a big part of ourselves.
Ralph Nader: Let's talk about the gross undercount of the fatalities in Gaza. They're still talking about 24,000 fatalities, and they cite the Hamas Health Ministry.
Look at the reality here. Imagine if Philadelphia, which has 1.5 million people and is about the size of Gaza geographically, was subjected under siege to no food, no water, no medicine, no electricity, no fuel, and no health care, as an official policy of the attacker, and over 33,000 bombs and missiles were dropped on defenseless people in Philadelphia. Would anybody think that 99% of the people in Philadelphia would have still survived after 100 days?
Hamas seems to have an interest in lowballing its own fatalities, because it doesn't want to be criticized more by Gazans for not protecting them at all. What's your view of this undercount? And what do you think is the real minimal estimated casualty toll in terms of dead and injured?
Josh Paul: It's not just you who is saying there's an undercount. It's the Biden administration as well. Assistant Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs in the State Department (Near Eastern Affairs – NEA, Congresswoman Barbara Lee actually testified to Congress in November that she believes that the count being put out by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza is an undercount. The Biden administration agrees with you that we are not capturing as many deaths as are occurring.
I fear that we are just at the very beginning of this humanitarian crisis, that as many as have been killed by Israeli or rather by American bombs, frankly, in the last few months, there could be many times that number who will succumb to disease and starvation in the rest of this year. I don't know that the world is prepared for that. I certainly know that the humanitarian community is not being allowed to prepare for that in terms of their access to Gaza that would be needed to prevent this. We are at the start of a very dark period, unfortunately.
Ralph Nader: It might be added that 80% or more of Gazans have been displaced and they're living exposed to the elements or under tents, mostly in the southern part of this tiny enclave, which is only twice the size of the District of Columbia.
Let's go to the core of your expertise, Josh Paul. Over the years, there was an embargo on Gaza by Israel, which is considered illegal under international law. Given the Israeli surveillance technology of the Palestinians—considered by experts as the most advanced technological surveillance in the history of the world—how did Hamas get these weapons and the ammunition ready to use? Where did they come from? How did they get through?
Josh Paul: The best analysis coming out of the U.S. is that for the most part, these are weapons of Iranian origin and sometimes of North Korean origin and elsewhere from around the world. How they got through is a very good question, that speaks to the issue of Israel's siege on Gaza, which was intended to prevent this sort of flow of arms into the Gaza Strip.
What that tells you at the end of the day, is that what you need here is a political solution, because there is no military solution both to Hamas's capabilities and to the ingenuity of mankind in being able to build, smuggle, and construct, the arms that they have on hand. The bottom line of the answer here, is that there is no military solution. There is no military capability that can keep 2.3 million people cooped up with no ability to build an arms cache. We need a political solution.
Ralph Nader: Before a political solution, some people have spoken of a two-state solution, which Muslim countries have been proposing since 2002, in an open letter, and Israelis have been ignoring it. What do you make of Prime Minister Netanyahu's statements over time, including to his own Likud party in 2019, that the Israeli government is supporting and facilitating the funding of Hamas because Hamas doesn't believe in a two-state solution and can stop the Palestinian Authority from moving in that direction? This is an astounding position given Netanyahu's recent denunciation of Hamas. It seems like he enabled Hamas over the years. What's your reaction?
Josh Paul: That's exactly right. He has, and I think Israel has often played Hamas off against the Palestinian Authority (PA), while at the same time undermining the PA in every way it can, by withholding salaries and using the PA to pursue Israeli security objectives rather than Palestinian security objectives. That's a game that we, the United States, have played our part in.
There has been, in parallel with the expansion of settlements, with the continuation of the siege of Gaza, an effort to essentially deconstruct and divide, the State of Palestine, before one can even be established, to make it impossible to establish. That has been very much at the core of Prime Minister Netanyahu's policy, and it has blown back on him in some respects. And yet, it is hard to see how we go forward from here politically.
Ralph Nader: Let's talk about humanitarian aid. We've been listening to Joe Biden saying he wants more humanitarian aid, and it's already funded by the U.S., and there are hundreds of trucks ready to come in with food, medicine, shelter, and other necessities of life. But the Israelis are only letting in anywhere from 50 to 100 trucks. Those trucks can't get to their destination because of the bombing and the broken-up roads, and most of the hospitals are not around operating to receive this aid.
Is Biden talking with a forked tongue here? He's shipping all kinds of arms unconditionally, as you know better than most, to the Israelis. Can he turn the screws on them and say, "I want 600/ 700 trucks a day going into Gaza," which was the case before October 7th, "because people are dying, being injured, sick, babies dying without this humanitarian aid hour by hour." What would you say to the president that he must do right now? Every day, hundreds are dying.
Josh Paul: Biden could be doing a lot more, and he's choosing not to. His policy and America's policy continues to prioritize Netanyahu's explicit policy, which is "the destruction of Hamas" over and against the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people.
It took three months of negotiations with Israel to get them to open the Kerem Shalom crossing into the south of Gaza from Israel. There is still the Erez Crossing in the north of Gaza, where thousands of Palestinians still remain stranded, trying to survive, and opening the Erez Crossing, which Israel has not opened, is another option.
There are also options. For example, I think there is a significant concern that the only option for Palestinian people in Gaza to get humanitarian assistance might be to leave Gaza. If that is the case, of course, not only are we essentially talking about another Nakba, but that doesn't have to be the case if they were able to proceed into, for example, the Negev, but that is not something that people are even talking about. But that would keep people on the land.
There are any number of options that President Biden could be pursuing, but the proof that he is not is that he is not using any of the leverage that he has with the government of Israel to pursue those options. He is not making military assistance conditional upon the provision of humanitarian support. He is not making military assistance balanced against, for example, action in the United Nations (UN) to call for a ceasefire, or to at least get out of the way of those in the U.N. who are calling for a ceasefire. He is simply asking nicely and then saying that he is all out of options.
There is a lot more the United States and President Biden could be doing here. My concern is that he just doesn't seem particularly to want to.
Ralph Nader: You think it's the election?
Josh Paul: It's a number of factors. One of them may be the election, but if you look at the electoral math for President Biden, particularly as he hits record-low numbers in polling, I don't see the logic there. He is losing a lot of support rather than gaining it through this approach.
Many people in this country will not turn out to vote for him as a result of the steps that he has taken in the last few months. Yet rather than turning around and trying to appeal to those people, he is doubling down, while those who are very strongly on the side of Israel, whether it be the Christian evangelical community, or the American religious Zionist community, will go and vote for the Republican. So, I don't know what President Biden is getting electorally or politically out of this. For him, it’s a deeply held position. He is frozen in his 1970s perspective where they were formed. But the reality on the ground is very different now than it was then. The politics of Israel, for that matter, is very different now than then. There is an unwillingness on his part to budge due to a personally held belief, which is unfortunate.
Ralph Nader: Let's look at the extraordinary abdication of Congress under its constitutional duties. Congress should be having oversight hearings now. There are no oversight hearings about the position of the White House vis-a-vis the Israeli war in Gaza, neither in the House, under the Republicans, nor in the Senate. There's no unofficial hearing by Democrats in the Progressive Caucus who would like to see a hearing.
There's never been a hearing since 1948 in the U.S. Congress featuring Israeli peace advocates, many of them former generals, mayors, ministers of justice, and former heads of security agencies. There was a documentary on the latter a few years ago, where the retired people from Shin Bet and Mossad were criticizing the Netanyahu regime vis-a-vis the Palestinian issue.
What's your take on Congress here? It's been said that in the last three months, the pro-Palestinian people in the United States have controlled the streets, but the pro-Netanyahu people in the United States have controlled the suites in Congress and the executive branch.
Josh Paul: You’re right. There are a lot of credible voices on the Israeli side, calling out the Netanyahu government for its current approach. Unfortunately, if you look at the polling, they are also in a significant minority right now in Israel, but they are nevertheless important voices.
Congress has a key role to play here that it is abdicating, not only in terms of hearings, not only in terms of, for example, the resolution that Senator Sanders brought to the floor yesterday, not only in terms of speaking out more publicly, calling for a ceasefire. It's interesting. I have spoken with many members of Congress in the last few months, and even for those who haven't publicly called for a ceasefire, many are willing to acknowledge behind closed doors that they believe that Israel is committing war crimes, but they will not say it publicly.
To me that’s such a moral abdication of the purposes for which they were elected. If you know something to be a fact, if you know the U.S. to be complicit in facilitating war crimes, but are unwilling to say it because you are afraid of how your donors might react or how your next election might go, why are you even in Congress? So, there is a significant gap there. It is an important note because it is not just Congress where this debate is being silenced or where people are being censored or are self-censoring. We're seeing it in the American public, too. I've heard from many doctors, lawyers, and engineers who say, "I would like to stand with you, but if I am too vocal, I will lose my job."
The result of all this, when you do not have free debate in society, when you do not have free debate in Congress, when you do not have free debate in government, is that you get bad policies.
We know that's how autocracies fail, because they do not have free debate and they get bad policies as a result.
That's happening here specifically in the context of Israel and Palestine. But it also makes me afraid for the future of our democracy more broadly, because if there is one issue where you cannot speak up on, if there is one issue where you are shouted down and condemned for voicing an opinion on the side of humanitarian issues, there will be other issues, I guarantee you, where the same becomes true.
Ralph Nader: We're going to have, after our interview, James Bamford, who's written a book and two articles in The Nation on the organized pressure to suppress dissent on campuses and to call out the students who are supporting the ceasefire and the Palestinian two-state cause by name, by picture, trying to get them to have their job offers rescinded, extremely well organized. And James Bamford, of course, is famous for writing the first book of any kind on the National Security Agency (NSA). He has a sterling record of accuracy.
Would you come out publicly for congressional hearings of prominent Israeli and Palestinian peace advocates who have been at it over the years, but have been blocked from any voice in the U.S. Congress by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other similar lobbies? Don't you think that's the beginning of providing voices of dissent from Israel before the U.S. Congress?
Josh Paul: Of course. And if the administration, if President Biden is sincere in wanting to do more to press Israel to reduce civilian casualties, the administration should support that as should Congress. Because that is one of those tools that does not involve cutting off military assistance and does not involve backing Israel at the UN. It simply involves demonstrations of concern from Congress and therefore gives some amount of added pressure without actually changing anything.
So for those in the administration and in Congress who believe that we should be doing more to support, and to be concerned about Palestinian lives, about humanitarian suffering, and yet are not willing to take any solid steps, there is no reason whatsoever that they should not support that sort of hearing.
Ralph Nader: As you say, the calls are pouring into the switchboard in Congress at 10 to 1, demanding a ceasefire, and that President Biden stand up for America's prime interest here, which you have described in your interviews since you left the State Department.
But I'm curious about one thing that you have expertise on. Why is the Biden administration sending 2,000-pound bombs to Israel when it hardly used the 2,000-pound bombs in the war in Iraq? For those who don't know about this, 2,000-pound bombs have extraordinarily increased devastation on civilians. Can you enlighten us on this?
Josh Paul: Yes. We also know from public reporting, including from CNN, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and others, that Israel is using many of these 2,000-pound bombs in an unguided capacity. So rather than, for example, attaching a precision guidance kit to these, it is simply dropping them on Gaza.
As to why the Biden administration is providing these to Israel, the answer is very simple. Israel is asking for them and no one has the guts to question that. No one has the guts to say no. This is very much part of the dynamic that I saw before leaving government—that Israel was coming in and making these extensive, expansive requests for weapons, many of which were not applicable in the context of Gaza, and yet no one was willing to say, "Let’s talk about this. This doesn't make sense. How are you going to use this?"
“When a 2,000-pound bomb hits the ground, the earth turns to liquid,” Marc Garlasco, a military expert, told The Washington Post. “It’s like an earthquake.”
-- Israel’s War on American Student Activists: For years the Israel on Campus Coalition—a little-known organization with links to Israeli intelligence—has used student informants to spy on pro-Palestinian campus groups, by James Bamford
Ralph Nader: Do Israelis pay for these weapons, or is that part of the $4 billion that comes every year from the U.S. to Israel?
Josh Paul: That is yet to be determined for many of the current arms transfers. We do provide Israel, as you say, just under $4 billion a year in ground military assistance. That's about 20% of the Israeli defense budget. They spend their own money as well, procuring arms from the U.S., and of course, President Biden's supplemental request would provide them with several billion dollars more in military grant assistance. So if that were to not pass, I suspect that Israel would have to spend its own money on these. But in the meantime, we can assume that a lot of this is courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.
Ralph Nader: Have you spoken out against this $14.3 billion request from Biden to the Congress to send aid to Israel, tied up in a bill for military aid to Ukraine and Taiwan? Have you spoken out publicly against this? It's been called the genocide tax that outraged so many people to further kill more innocents.
Josh Paul: Yes, and I have some specific concerns beyond the simple provision of further funding, which I think we should all question. These provisions/new authorities in the president's request would expand the scope and the speed of arms transfers while reducing congressional oversight.
As little as Congress has done on this issue set, we should be concerned about that as Americans. Congress is our overseer of the executive branch, and reductions in that transparency, particularly while expanding and expediting the capability to provide arms into this context and into this conflict, is problematic and should be so, from a perspective of concern about American democracy.
Ralph Nader: What's interesting is there aren't even any public hearings on this scheduled. Congress has aborted its public hearing function. And it's given over the years, the power to declare war, to the presidency under very vague standards. However, Congress has that exclusive power - as James Madison pointed out in the Constitution - to declare war. There are all kinds of violations of law here. It seems like the U.S. empire and the micro-empire of Israel don't feel like they have to adhere to any international laws—the Geneva Conventions nor the Genocide Convention. What's your view of the State Department not ever raising these issues, not saying to the White House, "I think you should go to Congress on this, given our interpretation by the legal advisor of the U.S. Constitution."
JUDGE JOAN DONOGHUE: In the court’s view, the aforementioned facts and circumstances are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible. This is the case with respect to the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in Article III and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance with the latter’s obligations under the convention....
The court considers that there is urgency in the sense that there is a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to the rights found by the court to be plausible before it gives its final decision. The court concludes, on the basis of the aforementioned considerations, that the conditions required by its statute for it to indicate provisional measures are met. It is therefore necessary, pending its final decision, for the court to indicate certain measures in order to protect the rights claimed by South Africa that the court has found to be plausible....
By 15 votes to 2, the state of Israel shall, in accordance with its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in relation to the Palestinians in Gaza, take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of the convention — in particular, A, killing members of the group; B, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; C, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part; and, D, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group....
During the ongoing conflict, senior United Nations officials have repeatedly called attention to the risk of further deterioration of conditions in the Gaza Strip. The court takes note, for instance, of the letter dated 6 December, 2023, whereby the secretary-general of the United Nations brought the following information to the attention of the Security Council.
I quote: “The healthcare system in Gaza is collapsing. Nowhere is safe in Gaza. Amid constant bombarding by the Israel Defense Forces and without shelter or the essentials to survive, I expect public order to break — to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions rendering even limited humanitarian assistance impossible. An even worse situation could unfold, including epidemic diseases and increased pressure for mass displacement into neighboring countries. We are facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system. The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe, with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region. Such an outcome must be avoided at all costs,” end of quote.
On 5 January, 2024, the secretary-general wrote again to the Security Council, providing an update on the situation in the Gaza Strip and observing that — I quote — “Sadly, devastating levels of death and destruction continue,” end of quote.
The court also takes note of the 17 January, 2024, statement issued by the UNRWA commissioner-general upon return from his fourth visit to the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the current conflict in Gaza. I quote: “Every time I visit Gaza, I witness how people have sunk further into despair, with the struggle for survival consuming every hour,” end of quote.
The court considers that the civilian population in the Gaza Strip remains extremely vulnerable. It recalls that the military operation conducted by Israel after 7 October, 2023, has resulted inter alia in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries and the destruction of homes, schools, medical facilities and other vital infrastructure, as well as displacement on a massive scale. The court notes that the operation is ongoing and that the prime minister of Israel announced on 18 January, 2024, that the war — I quote — “will take many more long months,” end of quote.
At present, many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have no access to the most basic foodstuffs, potable water, electricity, essential medicines or heating. The World Health Organization has estimated that 15% of the women giving birth in Gaza Strip are likely to experience complications, and indicates that maternal and newborn death rates are expected to increase due to the lack of access to medical care.
In these circumstances, the court considers that the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further before the court renders its final judgment. The court recalls Israel’s statement that it has taken certain steps to address and alleviate the conditions faced by the population in the Gaza Strip. The court further notes that the attorney general of Israel recently stated that a call for intentional harm to civilians may amount to a criminal offense, including that of incitement, and that several such cases are being examined by Israeli law enforcement authorities. While such steps are to be encouraged, they are insufficient to remove the risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused before the court issues its final decision in the case.
-- International Court of Justice Orders Israel to Prevent Genocide in Gaza But Fails to Order Ceasefire, by Amy Goodman, DemocracyNow!, January 26, 2024
Josh Paul: Let me first say that I have an immense amount of respect for the State Department lawyers. They are hardworking, thoughtful, insightful people. The problem is that for any legal team within government, any legal institution within government, within the executive branch, their job often becomes to interpret the law as broadly as possible in favor of the presidency. In many of these cases, what we have is a problem of how the executive branch interprets the law so that it does not bind the hands of the president. And that leads to all sorts of difficult consequences when it comes to, for example, the application of human rights vetting that is in law under the Leahy Laws for Israel or for other countries for that matter, when it comes to determining whether a country is engaged in a continuous practice of gross human rights abuses.
So, these are all sorts of questions of interpretation, where the problem is that the lawyers in the department and across government tend to say, what is the narrowest interpretation that will give the president the broadest scope? And the problem here is that you then create a massive accountability gap that you have an absence of ability to bind the executive to both the American laws or for that matter, to international law, which of course is much less binding and much more consensus based, which is then further advanced when you have courts that defer deeply to the executive on a lot of these issues, such as questions of foreign policy, questions of defense policy.
So, there are really very few hooks in the current structure that provide a means of accountability, a means of holding people to account, a means of questioning decisions. This is in Congress's hands to fix. Congress has the ability to write stronger laws, to write laws that have actual hooks, that have actual triggers that bring them into effect. So I would throw that back into Congress's court, but for now, that's where we are.
Ralph Nader: Do you see a wider war occurring? The papers are full of projections that this war is widening. It may involve neighboring countries. It may involve Iran. Biden keeps saying that he's working vigorously to make sure that doesn't happen, but the U.S. has bombed in Syria recently, Iraq, and the Red Sea. And what's your view here? Is it going to get out of control?
Josh Paul: Look, I hope not, but the longer the conflict in Gaza continues, the greater the risks of that sort of escalation becomes. That is another reason why it should be in the U.S. interest to press Israel to end its bombardment of Gaza, to end its invasion of Gaza, as quickly as possible, because the longer this lasts, the more the risks increase.
Ralph Nader: Let's go to Steve and David and Hannah. They want to ask you a couple of questions or make a comment. Steve?
Steve Skrovan: Josh, the stated goal of the Netanyahu government is to eliminate Hamas. Is that even possible? It's not like they're wearing uniforms. It's a small fundamentalist philosophy. It's an idea. Is that just PR that they can eliminate Hamas?
Josh Paul: So, I don't know what the thinking was at the start of this operation on the part of the government of Israel, but it is not a feasible goal. They might be able to significantly, and for a significant amount of time, degrade the military capabilities of Hamas. I'm sure they've already done that. But you cannot go to war against a political movement, and you cannot go to war against an ideology. This is a political problem that requires a political solution.
This creates some significant challenges when you start wondering about what comes in the post-conflict space. If we are talking about Palestinian self-determination, there is inevitably going to be some support for Hamas, given particularly the events of the last three months and how Hamas looks compared to the fecklessness, frankly, of the Palestinian Authority. I don't know how you go forward from here, from this situation that has been created with neither a military solution nor a political solution that is workable for people. But the short answer to your question is "no."
What I fear will happen is that there will not be a ceasefire, that Israel will keep this an open-ended conflict, and feel free to strike at whoever it says is Hamas or Hamas linked. Israel has painted a very broad swath, including through the comments of its president who has said that it is a whole nation that is at fault here or that is involved here. But even assuming that that is not the case, we will still see Israel feeling that it has a free hand to bomb, to strike Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank, which we've seen increasingly in the last few weeks--for years to come. That is a recipe for a continued humanitarian and political disaster.
Ralph Nader: David?
David Feldman: What would happen if we had a real isolationist government here in the United States that said, "No more foreign aid for Israel, no cooperation on Iron Dome, we're just protecting our own interests," to basically neglect, abandon Israel?
Josh Paul: First of all, I'm not personally advocating for an isolationist approach writ large by the U.S. I think we do have an important role to play in the world. I wish we played it better and with more humanity. But when it comes to Israel's ability to stand alone, I think it would succeed. It has.
Let's talk about the defense sector. We provide Israel with $3.3 billion a year in foreign military financing. Israel is allowed to use a significant portion of that on its own defense industrial base. Over the years, over the tens of billions of dollars, what that means is that Israel is now a top exporter of weapons.
Israel has a strong defense industrial base. Israel has the means to support the military operations it wants to do, if it is willing to pay the cost in terms of raising taxes, and if it is willing to take those sorts of approaches. Israel also has burgeoning partnerships with many countries in the region, including through the Trump administration's Abraham Accords, which connected it with the United Arab Emirates, with Morocco, and with others.
Israel is not entirely dependent on the United States in the way that it would have been 20 or 30 years ago. That said, a complete cutoff now, or significant conditioning of our arms, would force Israel to make some much tougher decisions about where its actual defense requirements lie and where it wants to use the weaponry that it has.
Ralph Nader: Hannah?
Hannah Feldman: You've served under different presidents. Why now? What about this situation just snapped it for you?
Josh Paul: I think it was two main factors, one of which was the scale and the scope of the Israeli operations in Gaza, which we have seen in just over three months now more destruction of houses than the firebombing of Dresden, have killed more journalists than in any conflict since World War II, have killed more children in three months than have died in Ukraine in two years. And this is all being done with our bombs, with our money, with our weaponry, with our support.
So that was the first factor, the sense that we were a part of this absolute horror that is unfolding on the ground. And the second, is this lack of debate. I've been involved in many morally perilous, you might even say morally torturous decisions in the State Department, in the security assistance, in the arms transfer business with many countries that the United States has relationships with that are autocracies or that are human rights abusers.
In all of those previous situations, I and others in the Department had been able to raise concerns, and had those concerns addressed in some way or form in a way that made me feel that I was doing more good by being there than what I would be able to do if I was not there. The difference here, in addition to the scale of what is happening, was that there was no space whatsoever for that raising of concerns—for those questions of how to mitigate some of these outcomes, or how to stop some of these or reduce some of these civilian casualties—there was simply this rush to arms.
Given that lack of space, many people who I'm talking to now in government who are thinking about resigning raise the question of, well, if they’re not there, who will be doing their job? Will it be someone who is going to care about the issues I care about, or will it be someone who is just going to rush forward on whatever they're told to do? In my situation, it didn't make any difference who was going to be doing the job because this was the policy and there was no space to address, debate, or raise concerns about it.
Ralph Nader: We've come to the end of our interview. Is there anything you want to say that we haven't asked you about? And has the media treated you well and given you a voice?
Josh Paul: I have been fortunate in that respect, at a time when there is a lot of censorship around this issue, to have been given a voice by the media. Part of the reason for that is what I look like., i.e., I am a middle-aged white guy who is therefore able to say things and to speak about the truth that many people who do not look like me would be shouted down for.
I want to say to many of your listeners that if you are in a situation like mine where you have privilege, it is very important to use that privilege for good. That is what enables others to speak up and creates the space in which policy change can actually happen by building that sort of critical mass and momentum. But it needs to be enabled to some extent by those of us who are in a position to do so.
Ralph Nader: Any recommendations to our listeners as to what they should do as citizens right now?
Josh Paul: Keep speaking up. And that involves both speaking to members of Congress, as well as members of local government. There have been a number of efforts. For example, Ferguson, Missouri recently passed in its council a ceasefire resolution, one of few city councils around the country that has done so. And that matters.
And of course, there’s building things with local communities, speaking to local media, writing letters to the newspaper, and ultimately organizing on a broader scale. That's something many of us are looking at and trying to figure out: how to harness this energy and to move things forward in the longer term.
Ralph Nader: Well, thank you very much for the time you've given us and the insights and the profile of courage that you've exhibited by resigning in protest as a matter of conscience, Josh Paul. And we wish you good luck and the best in terms of communicating more and more why you left the State Department in this turbulent time of massive destruction in Gaza.
Josh Paul: Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it.
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