Not in My Brother’s Name: Sibling of Peace Activist Killed by Hamas Demands Israel Stop Bombing Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 23, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/23 ... transcript
We speak with Noy Katsman, whose brother Hayim Katsman was a peace activist killed by Hamas militants in the village of Holit on October 7, about how they are demanding the death of their sibling not be used as a pretext for more bloodshed. “What Israel is doing now is very clearly not for the security of anyone,” Katsman says of the bombing campaign. “The real reason is just revenge and killing and distraction [from] the failure of Israel to protect its citizens.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
“My call to my government: Stop killing people.” That’s the message Noy Katsman recently gave during a eulogy for their brother Hayim Katsman, an Israeli peace activist who was killed during the Hamas attack October 7th that killed 1,400 people. Israel now says 222 hostages are still being held in Gaza, after two were released Friday.
Hayim Katsman was an academic, a peace activist, a tender of fruit trees in the Holit kibbutz, about a mile from Gaza. He was credited with saving the lives of three of his neighbors on October 7th. We spoke to his Seattle, Washington, rabbi just last week, because Hayim was a graduate student at the University of Washington.
We’re joined now by Noy, Noy Katsman, who gave the eulogy for their brother.
Noy, thank you so much for being with us from Vienna. Our deepest condolences to you and your family. If you can talk about Hayim, Hayim’s life, and now what’s being done in his name, and your thoughts on what should happen right now? I think the death toll, 1,400 Israelis from October 7th, that time, and now more than 5,000 Palestinians, and the number increases even as this show airs.
NOY KATSMAN: You hear me?
AMY GOODMAN: We hear you perfectly.
NOY KATSMAN: OK. So, first of all, my father — my brother was — so, he did many things. He was also a car mechanic. He was a DJ. He was a brilliant academic. He also was a gardener. He was in charge also of the fruit trees and also of the gardens. Lately, he became in charge of the gardens in Holit. And all of the things he did, he was for peace. He was a DJ, so he was a DJ of — he played almost entirely Arabic music from the Middle East, about Palestine and Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt. He was a gardener, and he volunteered in Rahat in the garden. And Rahat is a Bedouin city in the south of Israel, near Be’er Sheva. And he also was — he was a volunteer in Masafer Yatta, where Palestinians are suffering from displacement and terror from settlers and soldiers. So he would go there and help them, protect them and use his knowledge as a car mechanic to fix the 4-by-4 car of the volunteers. And as an academic, his research was about right wing in Israel and the dangers of right wing in Israel, extreme right wing. Like, his thesis was on Rabbi Ginsburgh, and then his doctorate, he wrote about religious Zionism, where it’s my family that we came from.
AMY GOODMAN: Noy, can you talk about what Israel is doing now, the constant bombardment of the Gaza Strip, forcing the dislocation of half the population, and what looks like an imminent ground invasion, as a response to the brutality of Hamas on October 7th? Your thoughts and what you think your brother would have felt?
NOY KATSMAN: OK. So I think the most thing that is bothering me is the lack of responsibility that government in Israel are taking for many, many years. We can start it from '67, when Israel conquered Gaza Strip, and of course didn't give the citizens any citizenship or any rights. It was just a thought that, you know, Palestinians don’t need rights. I mean, they don’t need basic rights; they’ll be happy to be under our control. And sadly — not sadly, but in 1987, so, the uprising of the First Intifada, of course, proved that to be wrong, because Palestinians are also people, just like Jews and Israelis, and they want the same things like people, human beings, want.
Sadly, I don’t think Israel is taking responsibility of anything. I mean, in 2005, we got out of Gaza and were like, “OK!” I mean, we just throw it like we were never connected to it. And like, OK, let’s just let them — like no long process agreement, sustainable agreement. And sadly, after that, the 10, 15 years, Israel is doing everything to strengthen Hamas in Gaza, just because it doesn’t want a two-state solution, so it wants to divide between the Fatah and the Hamas. So, this, of course, failed, because also the Hamas is very terrible to the people in Gaza, especially LGBTs and women, which always suffer from right-wing religious government. And at the end, it of course came to us, because we can put Gaza behind fences or whatever, but the right-wing extremists of Hamas killed Israelis indiscriminately, civilians and also my left brother, who — of course, it very makes sense, you know, that the right wing kill left-wing people, because they just don’t care. They earn from the hate. They earn from the death.
AMY GOODMAN: Noy, we just have —
NOY KATSMAN: Now, some of the — yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Noy, we just have about 30 seconds, and I wanted to ask you to tell us your message to the world today.
NOY KATSMAN: OK. So, what Israel is doing now is very clearly not in the — it’s not for the security of anyone, not to people in Israel, not to people of Gaza. Some people say, “Oh, Israel is — it’s for the good of Gaza people, because we’re going to destroy Hamas.” If that’s the case, so I think Israel should make sure all of the citizens of Israel — of Gaza should have a safe place to be and maybe kill Hamas. But I don’t think it’s the real reason. The real reason is just revenge and killing and distraction of the failure of Israel to protect its citizens, because it was such a failure of protection.
AMY GOODMAN: Noy Katsman, we’re going to have to leave it there, but I thank you so much. And again, condolences on the death of your brother Hayim, which in Hebrew means “Life.” I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.
U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
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A former State Dept. official explains why he resigned over U.S. arms sent to Israel
by Rachel Treisman
Heard on Morning Edition
Updated October 19, 20234:02 PM ET
A State Department official has resigned from the bureau that oversees arms transfers to foreign nations, citing his objection to continued U.S. military assistance to Israel as its retaliatory bombardment and blockade of Gaza exacerbate a humanitarian crisis there.
Josh Paul was the director of congressional and public affairs at the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. In a two-page letter posted on LinkedIn, he said he had made a promise to himself when he joined over a decade ago that he would stay "as long as I felt the harm I might do could be outweighed by the good I could do."
"I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued — indeed, expanded and expedited — provision of lethal arms to Israel — I have reached the end of that bargain," he wrote.
Paul tendered his resignation on Wednesday, the same day that President Biden visited Israel in a public show of support. The president pledged his commitment to its security and promised a congressional request for more defense funding, even as he urged Israelis not to be consumed by their rage and directed $100 million in humanitarian aid for Palestinians.
Paul wrote in his letter that he was heartened to see the administration's efforts to temper Israel's response, including its advocacy for the provision of relief, supplies and safe passage for civilians in Gaza.
But he said he could not work in support of a set of major policy decisions — including "rushing more arms to one side of the conflict" — that he believes to be "shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse."
The State Department declined to comment on personnel matters.
In an interview with Morning Edition's Michel Martin, Paul strongly denounced Hamas' attack on Israel and affirmed Israel's right to defend itself. But he said there are "ways to do that that don't involve dislocating a million Palestinians, that don't involve the death of thousands of civilians."
"We never seem to ask, well, what about the Palestinian right? Not to face incursions in their villages, not to be bombed from the air," he added. "So I think looking at this on equal terms, we have to talk about both sides."
Paul said he doesn't expect his departure to lead to an immediate change in policy — an assessment several experts also made to NPR. But he said he hoped to accomplish two things: remove himself from a debate that he found difficult, and show others in the government "that it's OK and possible to stand up."
Paul said he's received a huge outpouring of support after posting his resignation letter — which has since been reposted more than 1,000 times — and hopes his colleagues grappling with similar feelings take that to heart.
"And I hope they see that and that it speaks to them to do the right thing as well, which I know so many of them will," he said.
Paul says this is different from previous moral conundrums
Paul noted in his letter that while his work dealt with many countries, he was particularly well-versed in Middle East issues: He wrote his master's thesis on Israeli counterterrorism and civil rights, spent time working with the Palestinian Authority and Israel Defense Forces while serving for the U.S. Security in Ramallah and has "deep personal ties" to both sides of the conflict.
He wrote that he's "made more moral compromises than I can recall" over his last 11 years in the job. He told NPR that he used his position to fight many times for what he believed to be right, including debates over arms transfers to "a number of unsavory regimes." But this time is different, he says.
"The difference here is that in all of those cases — when those within the department and the interagency with human rights concerns had done all the shaping they could — you knew the next step was for the sale to go to Congress where it would be held, debated, even voted against," he explained. "But with Israel, it's a blank check from Congress. There's no appetite for debate. There's no real debate internal to the administration. And then there's no one to hand the debate off to."
While there is some disagreement on the far left when it comes to support for Israel, Congress as a whole is unlikely to be divided when it comes to supporting Israel, at least in the short term.
Paul said the first thing he'd like the Biden administration to do is "simply follow their own public commitments."
He explains that the administration's new conventional arms transfer policy, enacted earlier this year, explicitly states that no transfers will be authorized under which the U.S. assesses that "it is more likely than not that the arms to be transferred will be used by the recipient to commit, facilitate the recipients' commission of, or to aggravate risks that the recipient will commit: genocide; crimes against humanity; grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949."
Those include attacks directed against civilians and other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law, including acts of violence against children.
"So I think for us to look at the current situation and say the answer is as many bombs as Israel asks for, knowing that their use will lead in a direction exactly opposite to our stated policy goals ... it's disappointing, to say the least," Paul said.
Resignation is one option for government officials who disagree with U.S. policy
Experts on diplomacy told NPR that while it's too soon to see what if any ripple effects Paul resignation will have, it's unlikely to impact U.S. policy.
Ronald Neumann, the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, says there are two things a State Department employee can do when they disagree with a U.S. policy: resign or ask to be moved to another job.
"Often people have to deal with exactly what Josh Paul mentioned in his letter, which is balancing the good they might do by staying in a position or by remaining in a policy fight against having to carry out policy they don't agree with," he adds.
He says such resignations happen periodically. For example: The U.S. ambassador to Panama stepped down in 2018, citing irreconcilable differences with former President Donald Trump, and several State Department officials resigned over objections to the U.S.' Bosnia policy in the 1990s.
"I do not know that any of such resignations have ever had an effect on the department writ large or that they have a major effect on policy," Neumann says, adding that he's not surprised Paul has received support from many coworkers but doesn't expect it to lead to much.
The State Department is the rare cabinet agency with an official internal mechanism that allows employees to voice concerns about U.S. policy, Neumann points out.
It's called the Dissent Channel, and was born out of the Vietnam War. Employees can express policy disagreements in classified messages that go to the secretary of state, without fear of retaliation.
"It's important for that active policy discussion and dissent that people do respect their professional obligation to either keep dissent inside the organization or to do what Mr. Paul has done and resign and take it outside," Neumann said, adding that it's important for people to be able to draw their own line.
Dissent cables don't guarantee changes in policy, though some have happened. A 1992 memo about U.S. inaction towards genocide in Bosnia, for example, is widely credited with helping bring about the U.S.-brokered peace accords there.
The channel usually gets four to five such cables each year, but saw surges at times during the Obama and Trump administrations.
Tom Yazdgerdi, the president of the American Foreign Service Association, told NPR over email that the union hasn't seen any signs that foreign service members are contemplating resigning over the U.S. response to the Israel-Hamas war.
He says there's been more concern about the safety and security of family members of diplomatic personnel working in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Beirut — and the State Department has addressed it by providing authorized departure to eligible individuals and employees.
by Rachel Treisman
Heard on Morning Edition
Updated October 19, 20234:02 PM ET
A high-ranking State Department official has resigned in protest of the Biden administration’s policies on Israel and Palestine. For 11 years, Josh Paul oversaw arms transfers to U.S. allies while serving as the congressional and public affairs director of the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. In a letter explaining his resignation, Paul condemned what he called U.S. “blind support” for Israel as “an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia.” Paul wrote that his greatest desire was to see both Israelis and Palestinians flourish, adding, “Collective punishment is an enemy to that desire, whether it involves demolishing one home, or one thousand; as too is ethnic cleansing; as too is occupation; as too is apartheid.”
-- State Department Official Quits to Protest Biden Administration’s “Blind Support” of Israel, October 19, 2023, by Amy Goodman, DemocracyNow!
A State Department official has resigned from the bureau that oversees arms transfers to foreign nations, citing his objection to continued U.S. military assistance to Israel as its retaliatory bombardment and blockade of Gaza exacerbate a humanitarian crisis there.
Josh Paul was the director of congressional and public affairs at the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. In a two-page letter posted on LinkedIn, he said he had made a promise to himself when he joined over a decade ago that he would stay "as long as I felt the harm I might do could be outweighed by the good I could do."
"I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued — indeed, expanded and expedited — provision of lethal arms to Israel — I have reached the end of that bargain," he wrote.
Paul tendered his resignation on Wednesday, the same day that President Biden visited Israel in a public show of support. The president pledged his commitment to its security and promised a congressional request for more defense funding, even as he urged Israelis not to be consumed by their rage and directed $100 million in humanitarian aid for Palestinians.
Paul wrote in his letter that he was heartened to see the administration's efforts to temper Israel's response, including its advocacy for the provision of relief, supplies and safe passage for civilians in Gaza.
But he said he could not work in support of a set of major policy decisions — including "rushing more arms to one side of the conflict" — that he believes to be "shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse."
The State Department declined to comment on personnel matters.
In an interview with Morning Edition's Michel Martin, Paul strongly denounced Hamas' attack on Israel and affirmed Israel's right to defend itself. But he said there are "ways to do that that don't involve dislocating a million Palestinians, that don't involve the death of thousands of civilians."
"We never seem to ask, well, what about the Palestinian right? Not to face incursions in their villages, not to be bombed from the air," he added. "So I think looking at this on equal terms, we have to talk about both sides."
Paul said he doesn't expect his departure to lead to an immediate change in policy — an assessment several experts also made to NPR. But he said he hoped to accomplish two things: remove himself from a debate that he found difficult, and show others in the government "that it's OK and possible to stand up."
Paul said he's received a huge outpouring of support after posting his resignation letter — which has since been reposted more than 1,000 times — and hopes his colleagues grappling with similar feelings take that to heart.
"And I hope they see that and that it speaks to them to do the right thing as well, which I know so many of them will," he said.
Paul says this is different from previous moral conundrums
Paul noted in his letter that while his work dealt with many countries, he was particularly well-versed in Middle East issues: He wrote his master's thesis on Israeli counterterrorism and civil rights, spent time working with the Palestinian Authority and Israel Defense Forces while serving for the U.S. Security in Ramallah and has "deep personal ties" to both sides of the conflict.
He wrote that he's "made more moral compromises than I can recall" over his last 11 years in the job. He told NPR that he used his position to fight many times for what he believed to be right, including debates over arms transfers to "a number of unsavory regimes." But this time is different, he says.
"The difference here is that in all of those cases — when those within the department and the interagency with human rights concerns had done all the shaping they could — you knew the next step was for the sale to go to Congress where it would be held, debated, even voted against," he explained. "But with Israel, it's a blank check from Congress. There's no appetite for debate. There's no real debate internal to the administration. And then there's no one to hand the debate off to."
While there is some disagreement on the far left when it comes to support for Israel, Congress as a whole is unlikely to be divided when it comes to supporting Israel, at least in the short term.
Paul said the first thing he'd like the Biden administration to do is "simply follow their own public commitments."
He explains that the administration's new conventional arms transfer policy, enacted earlier this year, explicitly states that no transfers will be authorized under which the U.S. assesses that "it is more likely than not that the arms to be transferred will be used by the recipient to commit, facilitate the recipients' commission of, or to aggravate risks that the recipient will commit: genocide; crimes against humanity; grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949."
Those include attacks directed against civilians and other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law, including acts of violence against children.
"So I think for us to look at the current situation and say the answer is as many bombs as Israel asks for, knowing that their use will lead in a direction exactly opposite to our stated policy goals ... it's disappointing, to say the least," Paul said.
Resignation is one option for government officials who disagree with U.S. policy
Experts on diplomacy told NPR that while it's too soon to see what if any ripple effects Paul resignation will have, it's unlikely to impact U.S. policy.
Ronald Neumann, the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, says there are two things a State Department employee can do when they disagree with a U.S. policy: resign or ask to be moved to another job.
"Often people have to deal with exactly what Josh Paul mentioned in his letter, which is balancing the good they might do by staying in a position or by remaining in a policy fight against having to carry out policy they don't agree with," he adds.
He says such resignations happen periodically. For example: The U.S. ambassador to Panama stepped down in 2018, citing irreconcilable differences with former President Donald Trump, and several State Department officials resigned over objections to the U.S.' Bosnia policy in the 1990s.
"I do not know that any of such resignations have ever had an effect on the department writ large or that they have a major effect on policy," Neumann says, adding that he's not surprised Paul has received support from many coworkers but doesn't expect it to lead to much.
The State Department is the rare cabinet agency with an official internal mechanism that allows employees to voice concerns about U.S. policy, Neumann points out.
It's called the Dissent Channel, and was born out of the Vietnam War. Employees can express policy disagreements in classified messages that go to the secretary of state, without fear of retaliation.
"It's important for that active policy discussion and dissent that people do respect their professional obligation to either keep dissent inside the organization or to do what Mr. Paul has done and resign and take it outside," Neumann said, adding that it's important for people to be able to draw their own line.
Dissent cables don't guarantee changes in policy, though some have happened. A 1992 memo about U.S. inaction towards genocide in Bosnia, for example, is widely credited with helping bring about the U.S.-brokered peace accords there.
The channel usually gets four to five such cables each year, but saw surges at times during the Obama and Trump administrations.
Tom Yazdgerdi, the president of the American Foreign Service Association, told NPR over email that the union hasn't seen any signs that foreign service members are contemplating resigning over the U.S. response to the Israel-Hamas war.
He says there's been more concern about the safety and security of family members of diplomatic personnel working in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Beirut — and the State Department has addressed it by providing authorized departure to eligible individuals and employees.
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- Site Admin
- Posts: 36183
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Mon Oct 30, 2023 11:59 pm
“Not in Our Name”: 400 Arrested at Jewish-Led Sit-in at NYC’s Grand Central Demanding Gaza Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30 ... transcript
SEE VIDEO HERE:
Transcript
We bring you the voices of Jewish Voice for Peace and their allies who shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour Friday in one of New York’s largest acts of civil disobedience in 20 years to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. The multiracial, intergenerational movement says about 400 people were arrested, including rabbis, famous actors and elected officials from the New York State Assembly and Senate and the City Council.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel is intensifying its aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza. Palestinian officials say the death toll has topped 8,300, including over 3,400 children. On Friday, Israeli ground troops, backed by tanks and armored bulldozers, entered Gaza amidst a communication blackout that cut off contact between Gaza and the rest of the world. Communications have now been partially restored.
On Friday, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted in support of a humanitarian truce, but Israel and the United States voted against the resolution.
Massive demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza continued this weekend, including right here in New York City. On Friday night, thousands of members of Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City and their allies shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour. It’s the largest sit-in protest the city has seen in over two decades. Many wore shirts that said “Not in Our Name” and “Ceasefire Now.” Banners were unfurled, reading, “Palestinians should be free. Israelis demand ceasefire now.” One sign read, “Never again for anyone.” The multiracial, intergenerational movement says about 400 people were arrested, including rabbis, famous actors and elected officials from New York State Assembly and Senate and the City Council.
Democracy Now! was there. Today we bring you their voices, including Rosalind Petchesky, professor of political science at Hunter College.
PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
ROSALIND PETCHESKY: My name is Rosalind Petchesky. I’m here with maybe a thousand others, a lot of us Jews. But we are here to protest the genocide that is happening in our name. It has to stop. We are crying every minute. When we listen to your show, we are crying. I have a dear friend, Mohamed, with his little family in Gaza. He almost got blown up today. We can’t let this go on. We believe in justice and the right to live for everyone. But Palestinians have been the victims of oppression for 75 years, and it has to stop. That’s why we’re here, to say 'Not in our name.' I am older than the state of Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: There’s Jewish prayers in the background. The sun is going down, and it’s the Jewish Sabbath.
ROSALIND PETCHESKY: It is. And on Shabbat, we have to pray. We have to recommit ourselves to justice. I believe that Judaism and Jewish ethics — this is how I grew up thinking — are about justice and about Rabbi Hillel’s statement: If I am not for myself, who am I? And if I am only for me, what am I doing here? I glossed over it a little bit. And if not now, when? Now! Peace now. Ceasefire now. President Biden and Blinken, listen to what people are telling you, especially the young people and lots of Jews.
PROTESTERS: Not in our name! Not in our name! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live!
INDYA MOORE: My name is Indya Moore. I am standing here, I’m resisting and protesting in solidarity with Jews, trans people, queer people, Black and Brown victims of colonization, and Americans, just like you and I, to stand against our tax dollars being used to decimate Palestinians. And we’re standing for peace. We’re standing for compassion. And we’re standing for self-determinating justice and liberated Palestine.
PROTESTERS: Stop the genocide! Free, free Palestine! Stop the genocide! Free, free Palestine!
SUMAYA AWAD: My name is Sumaya Awad.
AMY GOODMAN: And why Grand Central?
SUMAYA AWAD: Because this is a symbol of New York. This is a symbol of the United States in many ways. And so, we’re here. We’re saying this is ours. This is where we go to work. This is how we get to our children. This is how we go to school. And we want the same thing for Palestinians in Gaza. We want them to be able to live their lives in dignity and freedom.
DR. STEVE AUERBACH: My name’s Dr. Steve Auerbach. I am a pediatrician, licensed physician in the state of New York. I’m here to say that many Jewish pediatricians are calling for stopping the killing of children and their families, calling for a ceasefire now, and not in our name.
I’ve never been prouder to be a pediatrician than when, back on Friday, October 13th, thoroughly mainstream organization, the New York state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics said that “We stand with the children of Israel and the children of Gaza. We love all children, all families equally,” and calling for an immediate ceasefire. So, that was back on October 13th. Unfortunately, children and their families continue to be killed. These sorts of collective actions, collective responsibility is illegal. These sorts of mass killings of civilian areas, mass bombings of civilian areas are illegal and immoral.
The United States should be leading to call for a ceasefire now. I’ve never been prouder of the 18 congresspersons who have called for a ceasefire now. And I’m calling on President Biden and Senator Schumer and my assemblyperson, Nadler: Please, please, these are not Jewish values. It is not a Jewish value to be dropping bombs on children, killing children and their families.
SEN. JABARI BRISPORT: I am state Senator Jabari Brisport, the 25th State Senate District in Brooklyn. And I’m here calling for a ceasefire in order to allow for the release of hostages and humanitarian aid. I carry the Not on Our Dime legislation with Assemblymember Mamdani, which will stop New York from allowing for fake charities that claim to be charities to help Israeli citizens but actually fund displacement and destruction and settler violence in Palestinian territory.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you planning to get arrested today?
SEN. JABARI BRISPORT: I got arrested a week ago, and I am going to let others step up today. I got arrested a week ago at a sit-in outside Senator Gillibrand’s office asking her to start calling for a ceasefire.
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: My name is Zohran Mamdani. I’m an assemblymember for parts of Astoria and Long Island City. And I’m here today to joining thousands of Jewish New Yorkers, rabbis and allies to say that the time is now for an immediate ceasefire.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you willing to get arrested?
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: I’m not going to be getting arrested today, because I was arrested two weeks ago, and I was advised to not get arrested immediately after.
AMY GOODMAN: What were you arrested for?
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: I was arrested for civil disobedience, for disorderly conduct. I was arrested alongside Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes in front of Senator Chuck Schumer’s home, calling on him to support the demand for an immediate ceasefire.
AMY GOODMAN: What does it mean to you that on this Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, thousands of Jews are here at Grand Central saying “Ceasefire now”?
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: It shows that what we have been told about the consent for this genocide is not true. So many of the Jewish New Yorkers here are struggling through heartbreak and mourning of October 7th, and they have made it very clear that do not use their heartbreak, their tragedy as the justification for the genocide of Palestinians. In over two-and-a-half weeks, we’ve already seen more than 7,000 Palestinians be killed, close to 3,000 Palestinian children, one Palestinian child killed every 15 minutes. These New Yorkers, and so many across the state, are saying the time is now for a ceasefire, and if you’re not calling for it, you’re supporting a genocide.
COUNCILMEMBER SANDY NURSE: Sandy Nurse. I’m a councilmember to the 37th District.
AMY GOODMAN: And you represent what area of the city?
COUNCILMEMBER SANDY NURSE: Bushwick, Cypress Hills, Brownsville, East New York, City Line.
AMY GOODMAN: And why are you here today?
COUNCILMEMBER SANDY NURSE: I’m here today to stand in solidarity with Jews, Muslims, allies, because we believe in a free Palestine. We believe in a Palestine without military occupation. We believe that we need to end this genocidal war. And we do not believe that our dollars, our tax dollars, should be used to bomb other children. We don’t believe that unjustified murder of one set of children brings about murder for another set of children. We need to end this war, and we need to move towards a peaceful solution.
SECURITY: Are you a credentialed member of the media? I’m going to ask you, as a courtesy, please to leave the steps. They’re planning an announcement that people are disrupting the steps, and they’re in violation. They’re going to — they’re going to start possibly making arrests. So, if you’re a credentialed member of the media, I’m going to ask you for the same courtesy: if you’d please leave the area. Thank you.
POLICE OFFICER 1: If you refuse to leave this premises, you will be arrested on the charge of criminal trespass. If you do not accompany the arresting officer voluntarily to the prisoner transport vehicle, or if you must be carried, you may be charged with additional crimes.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell me your name and why you’re getting arrested?
JOCELYN: My name’s Jocelyn [phon.]. If someone asks for my solidarity and I can give it, that’s what I’m going to give right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Why is this important to you?
JOCELYN: I mean, the blood is on my hands, too. My tax dollars are funding this. And, you know, this is the least I can do.
AMY GOODMAN: And what’s your name?
PHI LE: I’m Phi, Phi Le [phon.].
AMY GOODMAN: And why are you getting arrested?
PHI LE: I was born in a refugee camp in the Philippines. I am Vietnamese. I am a child of imperialism. So, I can’t let — I can’t see it go on. I can’t see it continue.
PROTESTERS: [singing] Which side are you on? Which side are you on? Which side are you on?
JANE HIRSCHMAN: My name is Jane Hirschmann. I’m here because my family survived the Holocaust, but many did not. My parents were Holocaust survivors. And there’s one thing I learned: Never again means never again for anyone. We don’t condone this, and Netanyahu better stop the bombing of Gaza. You know, this didn’t start with Hamas. This started in 1948, when 750,000 Palestinians were removed from where they lived in order to set up a Jewish state. And these people that they’re killing in Gaza, they were moved to Gaza because of the 1948 Nakba, which means “catastrophe.” And now they’re going to eliminate them, kill them or move them somewhere else. And it’s got to stop. And Jews, American Jews, have to step and say, “Not in our name. Not with our tax money. You cannot do this kind of genocide in front of our eyes or ever again.”
AMY GOODMAN: Are you getting arrested today?
JANE HIRSCHMAN: Oh yeah, I am. My whole family is here. I’m here with my daughters, my grandchildren — they’re not getting arrested, they moved out — my husband. We’re all here together. There are 13 of us.
PROTESTERS: Never again for anyone! Never again for anyone! Never again, Israel! Never again, Israel!
PROTESTER: I’m here to support the people of Gaza, the people who are currently experiencing a genocide. It’s disgusting that our government has enabled this. And so we’re here shutting down Grand Central to show that we, the people here, will not tolerate that.
JOYCE ROBERTS: They won’t arrest me because I have a cane. They won’t arrest me.
AMY GOODMAN: What’s your name?
JOYCE ROBERTS: I want to get arrested, and they’re refusing.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Are you ready? Are you going to get arrested?
JOYCE ROBERTS: Yes, I want to get arrested.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Let’s do it.
POLICE OFFICER 3: All right, we’ll help you stand up.
JOYCE ROBERTS: OK.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Are you ready? You need help?
JOYCE ROBERTS: I need help standing up.
POLICE OFFICER 2: We’ll put your hands behind your back.
JOYCE ROBERTS: I need my cane.
POLICE OFFICER 4: We’ll get it.
JOYCE ROBERTS: My name is Joyce Roberts. I think that it’s really important that there’s a ceasefire.
POLICE OFFICER 3: Ma’am, let go of your cane one second, please.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Ma’am, can you let go of your cane for a second?
JOYCE ROBERTS: I let go of my cane.
POLICE OFFICER 3: All right. I’ll give it right back to you. I’m going to give it right back to you.
JOYCE ROBERTS: That there’s a ceasefire, that people stop killing each other. We have to stop killing each other. We can’t, we won’t get rid of Hamas. We won’t get rid of an idea. We might get rid of the organization. We might get rid of all of the people in Gaza. All of the Palestinians might be killed. But the idea won’t die. Freedom won’t die.
PROTESTERS: Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!
AMY GOODMAN: Voices from the historic Jewish Voice for Peace protest on Friday that shut down Grand Central Station in New York City. Protesters were calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. About 400 people were arrested in what’s believed to be the largest sit-in protest New York has seen in over two decades.
Coming up, Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Chicago. She’s one of 18 members of the House who have signed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. Stay with us.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30 ... transcript
SEE VIDEO HERE:
Transcript
We bring you the voices of Jewish Voice for Peace and their allies who shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour Friday in one of New York’s largest acts of civil disobedience in 20 years to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. The multiracial, intergenerational movement says about 400 people were arrested, including rabbis, famous actors and elected officials from the New York State Assembly and Senate and the City Council.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel is intensifying its aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza. Palestinian officials say the death toll has topped 8,300, including over 3,400 children. On Friday, Israeli ground troops, backed by tanks and armored bulldozers, entered Gaza amidst a communication blackout that cut off contact between Gaza and the rest of the world. Communications have now been partially restored.
On Friday, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted in support of a humanitarian truce, but Israel and the United States voted against the resolution.
Massive demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza continued this weekend, including right here in New York City. On Friday night, thousands of members of Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City and their allies shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour. It’s the largest sit-in protest the city has seen in over two decades. Many wore shirts that said “Not in Our Name” and “Ceasefire Now.” Banners were unfurled, reading, “Palestinians should be free. Israelis demand ceasefire now.” One sign read, “Never again for anyone.” The multiracial, intergenerational movement says about 400 people were arrested, including rabbis, famous actors and elected officials from New York State Assembly and Senate and the City Council.
Democracy Now! was there. Today we bring you their voices, including Rosalind Petchesky, professor of political science at Hunter College.
PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
ROSALIND PETCHESKY: My name is Rosalind Petchesky. I’m here with maybe a thousand others, a lot of us Jews. But we are here to protest the genocide that is happening in our name. It has to stop. We are crying every minute. When we listen to your show, we are crying. I have a dear friend, Mohamed, with his little family in Gaza. He almost got blown up today. We can’t let this go on. We believe in justice and the right to live for everyone. But Palestinians have been the victims of oppression for 75 years, and it has to stop. That’s why we’re here, to say 'Not in our name.' I am older than the state of Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: There’s Jewish prayers in the background. The sun is going down, and it’s the Jewish Sabbath.
ROSALIND PETCHESKY: It is. And on Shabbat, we have to pray. We have to recommit ourselves to justice. I believe that Judaism and Jewish ethics — this is how I grew up thinking — are about justice and about Rabbi Hillel’s statement: If I am not for myself, who am I? And if I am only for me, what am I doing here? I glossed over it a little bit. And if not now, when? Now! Peace now. Ceasefire now. President Biden and Blinken, listen to what people are telling you, especially the young people and lots of Jews.
PROTESTERS: Not in our name! Not in our name! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live!
INDYA MOORE: My name is Indya Moore. I am standing here, I’m resisting and protesting in solidarity with Jews, trans people, queer people, Black and Brown victims of colonization, and Americans, just like you and I, to stand against our tax dollars being used to decimate Palestinians. And we’re standing for peace. We’re standing for compassion. And we’re standing for self-determinating justice and liberated Palestine.
PROTESTERS: Stop the genocide! Free, free Palestine! Stop the genocide! Free, free Palestine!
SUMAYA AWAD: My name is Sumaya Awad.
AMY GOODMAN: And why Grand Central?
SUMAYA AWAD: Because this is a symbol of New York. This is a symbol of the United States in many ways. And so, we’re here. We’re saying this is ours. This is where we go to work. This is how we get to our children. This is how we go to school. And we want the same thing for Palestinians in Gaza. We want them to be able to live their lives in dignity and freedom.
DR. STEVE AUERBACH: My name’s Dr. Steve Auerbach. I am a pediatrician, licensed physician in the state of New York. I’m here to say that many Jewish pediatricians are calling for stopping the killing of children and their families, calling for a ceasefire now, and not in our name.
I’ve never been prouder to be a pediatrician than when, back on Friday, October 13th, thoroughly mainstream organization, the New York state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics said that “We stand with the children of Israel and the children of Gaza. We love all children, all families equally,” and calling for an immediate ceasefire. So, that was back on October 13th. Unfortunately, children and their families continue to be killed. These sorts of collective actions, collective responsibility is illegal. These sorts of mass killings of civilian areas, mass bombings of civilian areas are illegal and immoral.
The United States should be leading to call for a ceasefire now. I’ve never been prouder of the 18 congresspersons who have called for a ceasefire now. And I’m calling on President Biden and Senator Schumer and my assemblyperson, Nadler: Please, please, these are not Jewish values. It is not a Jewish value to be dropping bombs on children, killing children and their families.
SEN. JABARI BRISPORT: I am state Senator Jabari Brisport, the 25th State Senate District in Brooklyn. And I’m here calling for a ceasefire in order to allow for the release of hostages and humanitarian aid. I carry the Not on Our Dime legislation with Assemblymember Mamdani, which will stop New York from allowing for fake charities that claim to be charities to help Israeli citizens but actually fund displacement and destruction and settler violence in Palestinian territory.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you planning to get arrested today?
SEN. JABARI BRISPORT: I got arrested a week ago, and I am going to let others step up today. I got arrested a week ago at a sit-in outside Senator Gillibrand’s office asking her to start calling for a ceasefire.
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: My name is Zohran Mamdani. I’m an assemblymember for parts of Astoria and Long Island City. And I’m here today to joining thousands of Jewish New Yorkers, rabbis and allies to say that the time is now for an immediate ceasefire.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you willing to get arrested?
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: I’m not going to be getting arrested today, because I was arrested two weeks ago, and I was advised to not get arrested immediately after.
AMY GOODMAN: What were you arrested for?
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: I was arrested for civil disobedience, for disorderly conduct. I was arrested alongside Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes in front of Senator Chuck Schumer’s home, calling on him to support the demand for an immediate ceasefire.
AMY GOODMAN: What does it mean to you that on this Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, thousands of Jews are here at Grand Central saying “Ceasefire now”?
ASSEMBLYMEMBER ZOHRAN MAMDANI: It shows that what we have been told about the consent for this genocide is not true. So many of the Jewish New Yorkers here are struggling through heartbreak and mourning of October 7th, and they have made it very clear that do not use their heartbreak, their tragedy as the justification for the genocide of Palestinians. In over two-and-a-half weeks, we’ve already seen more than 7,000 Palestinians be killed, close to 3,000 Palestinian children, one Palestinian child killed every 15 minutes. These New Yorkers, and so many across the state, are saying the time is now for a ceasefire, and if you’re not calling for it, you’re supporting a genocide.
COUNCILMEMBER SANDY NURSE: Sandy Nurse. I’m a councilmember to the 37th District.
AMY GOODMAN: And you represent what area of the city?
COUNCILMEMBER SANDY NURSE: Bushwick, Cypress Hills, Brownsville, East New York, City Line.
AMY GOODMAN: And why are you here today?
COUNCILMEMBER SANDY NURSE: I’m here today to stand in solidarity with Jews, Muslims, allies, because we believe in a free Palestine. We believe in a Palestine without military occupation. We believe that we need to end this genocidal war. And we do not believe that our dollars, our tax dollars, should be used to bomb other children. We don’t believe that unjustified murder of one set of children brings about murder for another set of children. We need to end this war, and we need to move towards a peaceful solution.
SECURITY: Are you a credentialed member of the media? I’m going to ask you, as a courtesy, please to leave the steps. They’re planning an announcement that people are disrupting the steps, and they’re in violation. They’re going to — they’re going to start possibly making arrests. So, if you’re a credentialed member of the media, I’m going to ask you for the same courtesy: if you’d please leave the area. Thank you.
POLICE OFFICER 1: If you refuse to leave this premises, you will be arrested on the charge of criminal trespass. If you do not accompany the arresting officer voluntarily to the prisoner transport vehicle, or if you must be carried, you may be charged with additional crimes.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell me your name and why you’re getting arrested?
JOCELYN: My name’s Jocelyn [phon.]. If someone asks for my solidarity and I can give it, that’s what I’m going to give right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Why is this important to you?
JOCELYN: I mean, the blood is on my hands, too. My tax dollars are funding this. And, you know, this is the least I can do.
AMY GOODMAN: And what’s your name?
PHI LE: I’m Phi, Phi Le [phon.].
AMY GOODMAN: And why are you getting arrested?
PHI LE: I was born in a refugee camp in the Philippines. I am Vietnamese. I am a child of imperialism. So, I can’t let — I can’t see it go on. I can’t see it continue.
PROTESTERS: [singing] Which side are you on? Which side are you on? Which side are you on?
JANE HIRSCHMAN: My name is Jane Hirschmann. I’m here because my family survived the Holocaust, but many did not. My parents were Holocaust survivors. And there’s one thing I learned: Never again means never again for anyone. We don’t condone this, and Netanyahu better stop the bombing of Gaza. You know, this didn’t start with Hamas. This started in 1948, when 750,000 Palestinians were removed from where they lived in order to set up a Jewish state. And these people that they’re killing in Gaza, they were moved to Gaza because of the 1948 Nakba, which means “catastrophe.” And now they’re going to eliminate them, kill them or move them somewhere else. And it’s got to stop. And Jews, American Jews, have to step and say, “Not in our name. Not with our tax money. You cannot do this kind of genocide in front of our eyes or ever again.”
AMY GOODMAN: Are you getting arrested today?
JANE HIRSCHMAN: Oh yeah, I am. My whole family is here. I’m here with my daughters, my grandchildren — they’re not getting arrested, they moved out — my husband. We’re all here together. There are 13 of us.
PROTESTERS: Never again for anyone! Never again for anyone! Never again, Israel! Never again, Israel!
PROTESTER: I’m here to support the people of Gaza, the people who are currently experiencing a genocide. It’s disgusting that our government has enabled this. And so we’re here shutting down Grand Central to show that we, the people here, will not tolerate that.
JOYCE ROBERTS: They won’t arrest me because I have a cane. They won’t arrest me.
AMY GOODMAN: What’s your name?
JOYCE ROBERTS: I want to get arrested, and they’re refusing.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Are you ready? Are you going to get arrested?
JOYCE ROBERTS: Yes, I want to get arrested.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Let’s do it.
POLICE OFFICER 3: All right, we’ll help you stand up.
JOYCE ROBERTS: OK.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Are you ready? You need help?
JOYCE ROBERTS: I need help standing up.
POLICE OFFICER 2: We’ll put your hands behind your back.
JOYCE ROBERTS: I need my cane.
POLICE OFFICER 4: We’ll get it.
JOYCE ROBERTS: My name is Joyce Roberts. I think that it’s really important that there’s a ceasefire.
POLICE OFFICER 3: Ma’am, let go of your cane one second, please.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Ma’am, can you let go of your cane for a second?
JOYCE ROBERTS: I let go of my cane.
POLICE OFFICER 3: All right. I’ll give it right back to you. I’m going to give it right back to you.
JOYCE ROBERTS: That there’s a ceasefire, that people stop killing each other. We have to stop killing each other. We can’t, we won’t get rid of Hamas. We won’t get rid of an idea. We might get rid of the organization. We might get rid of all of the people in Gaza. All of the Palestinians might be killed. But the idea won’t die. Freedom won’t die.
PROTESTERS: Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!
AMY GOODMAN: Voices from the historic Jewish Voice for Peace protest on Friday that shut down Grand Central Station in New York City. Protesters were calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. About 400 people were arrested in what’s believed to be the largest sit-in protest New York has seen in over two decades.
Coming up, Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Chicago. She’s one of 18 members of the House who have signed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. Stay with us.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
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Rep. Delia Ramirez Backs Gaza Ceasefire Resolution in Congress: We Need Diplomacy, Not More Bombings
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30/gaza_ceasefire
We speak with Illinois Congressmember Delia Ramirez, one of the 18 members of the U.S. House of Representatives who have signed a resolution calling for an immediate deescalation and ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. “The only way we move forward is deescalating,” says Ramirez. “The aid that we send cannot be used to kill innocent lives. It’s unacceptable, it’s not moral, and I can’t stand behind that.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Israeli tanks have reached the outskirts of Gaza City after Israel carried out its most intense bombardment of the besieged Palestinian territory since October 7th. Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israeli attacks have killed more than 8,300 Palestinians, including nearly 3,500 children. According to Save the Children, that’s more children than have been killed in armed conflicts globally over the course of a whole year. The U.N. agency for Palestine refugees, known as UNRWA, says desperate families broke into U.N. warehouses Sunday, removing wheat and other humanitarian aid. UNRWA says the incident showed people in Gaza have reached a breaking point. The U.N. agency serving Palestinians says Gazans have reached their breaking point after more than three weeks of bombardments and total siege. Israeli strikes have killed at least 59 UNRWA employees, with many more believed to be trapped under the rubble.
On Friday, the U.N. General Assembly voted 120 to 14 in favor of a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian truce and for aid access to Gaza. Israel and the U.S. voted against the resolution, which also calls for the release of captive civilians. Israel believes Hamas and other groups are holding over 220 hostages seized on October 7th during the Hamas attack that Israel says killed 1,400 people.
We’re joined now by two guests. Lara Friedman is with us. She’s president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a former Foreign Service officer who served in Jerusalem, Tunis and Beirut. She has worked on Israel-Palestine and the broader region for over 30 years. We’re also joined by Congressmember Delia Ramirez, who is a congressmember from Chicago. She’s one of 18 members of the House of Representatives who have signed a resolution calling for an immediate deescalation and ceasefire in Israel and Palestine.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Congressmember Ramirez, let’s begin with you in Chicago. Can you explain why you supported this ceasefire resolution?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, I want to see safety, and I want to see hostages released. There are 500 Americans and their families in Gaza right now, and I want to make sure that everyone is safe and that we are using our power to be able to deescalate the situation. Bombing ourselves through it is not going to bring the hostages back safely. Bombing us through it is not going to bring 500 Americans back. I really believe — you just talked about it — 8,000 Palestinians have died. The only way we are going to get to long-lasting peace is a ceasefire, is deescalating and using diplomacy.
AMY GOODMAN: How did this resolution come about, Congressmember Ramirez?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, we were already two weeks into this conflict. We have not seen any form of deescalation, quite the contrary. And we have seen people starving to death in Palestine, in Gaza at this moment. And so, for a number of us, we understand that if our outcome is peace in the region, that the only way we can get closer to that, where hostages are released, is deescalation and ceasefire. We have to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to prevent a regional war. And the only way you get there is ensuring that the safety of innocent civilians is our absolute priority. You won’t get that through bombing.
We understood, and a number of us co-led the resolution, and more members of Congress in the coming days have also joined the resolution, recognizing that what we’re currently doing now is escalating the situation, not deescalating, and the only way we move forward is deescalating and ceasing fire. That’s the way that you’re going to be able to keep people from dying, protect innocent civilians, 1.2 million children right now in Gaza. The ceasefire is our only way of diplomacy and being able to get to a place of peace.
AMY GOODMAN: What kind of response are you getting in support of this resolution? In an earlier interview, you said, “If you ask, 'What about the Palestinians?' it’s almost as if there’s an assumption that you’re saying you don’t announce Hamas.” Can you talk about this? And do you feel that that is changing?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: I think it’s slowly changing. And what I say to people is that I came to Congress to uplift shared humanity. I can denounce Hamas. I can call for the release of hostages. And I could also ask, “What about the Palestinian children?” Right now we have children under rubble. The number that we’re seeing is 8,000, but that is not the accurate, most accurate number. There are people that we have not found. There are families in Chicago and all over the world who have not been able to connect with their family in Gaza. And the reality is that if we care about Israelis, if we care about the Jewish community and their safety, we have to understand that it’s interconnected with the safety and the freedom of Palestinians.
AMY GOODMAN: What kind of aid do you think should go to Gaza? And what about funding for Israel?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, Amy, when hundreds of thousands of people have lost their home, thousands of people have died, their communities have completely been destroyed, the question is: What will we do to ensure that people are able to come back to home when they have no home? When we’re talking about substantial humanitarian aid, I don’t mean 30, 40 trucks a day. I mean substantial, billions of dollars of responsibility that we, as the U.S., who has given military aid for such a long time, is responsible to give to help restore a place that has been, in many cases, in many parts of it, burned down to rubble. So, we need to be able to do that.
And I think, secondary, for me to be able to say that I want more money for bombs, it begs the question. Bombs are going to kill people. And in this case, it is killing thousands of civilians. We’ve seen it already in the last three weeks. We have to do everything we can to ensure that we’re honoring international law, that the money we’re sending isn’t killing children, that we are uplifting the humanity of people of Israel and people in Gaza, but, Amy, people in the West Bank. Right now settlers are killing people in the West Bank, and the Israeli government is enabling it. It is letting it happen. The aid that we send cannot be used to kill innocent lives. It’s unacceptable, it’s not moral, and I can’t stand behind that.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering what you think would be a more just U.S. foreign policy. I mean, you, Congressmember Ramirez, are Guatemalan American. We know the history of Guatemala and U.S. aid for the successive military regimes that were responsible for the death of so many hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans in the 1980s and beyond. If you could comment on putting this in a larger context?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, we have to ask ourselves: What is the outcome here? Is it a two-state solution? Is it to be able to bring peace to the region, long-lasting peace? Because if that is the case, we, as the U.S., have to think about the role we have played for the last few decades. We are not at peace. We have seen occupation all over the region. And we have to ask ourselves, if what we want is long-lasting peace, every single resolution, every single bill and every single dollar that we send over, we must ask ourselves: Will this get us to peace? Will this get us closer to a two-state solution? Will this create the kind of policy that will get us to a place where Palestinians and Israelis are safe and free? And if the answer is no, then we need to reassess how we move and the kind of policy that we have had in the region for the last decades.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you spoken to President Biden or his inner circle? At the beginning, he was very clear in saying he told Netanyahu he did not say use restraint. But now the White House is putting out statements that they are, in fact, behind the scenes saying that restraint must be used.
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: I’ve not talked to the president directly. I certainly have been talking to the State Department on a regular basis. And what I have said is, words matter. What we are saying to the American people, what the American people are seeing has a direct impact even for us here. I mean, look, when you see Netanyahu and his own leadership, his own IDF leadership, calling people less than human, animals, that has consequences. We have seen the impact and the growth, increase of hate crime all over the world, antisemitism and Islamophobia. A 6-year-old boy, 30 minutes from my district, was stabbed 26 times because his landlord saw this 6-year-old little boy as a threat to our society, and nearly killed his mother. We have to understand that what we are saying to the people in this moment has real consequences. And we have a moral responsibility to lead from a place of diplomacy, seeking peace at all times and holding accountable the Israeli government for the ways that it is violating international law, for the ways that this ground incursion in this moment is killing innocent lives. We all want hostages out. We also want the 500 Americans and their families out. How we’re moving in this moment is not making anyone more safe.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Delia Ramirez.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30/gaza_ceasefire
We speak with Illinois Congressmember Delia Ramirez, one of the 18 members of the U.S. House of Representatives who have signed a resolution calling for an immediate deescalation and ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. “The only way we move forward is deescalating,” says Ramirez. “The aid that we send cannot be used to kill innocent lives. It’s unacceptable, it’s not moral, and I can’t stand behind that.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Israeli tanks have reached the outskirts of Gaza City after Israel carried out its most intense bombardment of the besieged Palestinian territory since October 7th. Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israeli attacks have killed more than 8,300 Palestinians, including nearly 3,500 children. According to Save the Children, that’s more children than have been killed in armed conflicts globally over the course of a whole year. The U.N. agency for Palestine refugees, known as UNRWA, says desperate families broke into U.N. warehouses Sunday, removing wheat and other humanitarian aid. UNRWA says the incident showed people in Gaza have reached a breaking point. The U.N. agency serving Palestinians says Gazans have reached their breaking point after more than three weeks of bombardments and total siege. Israeli strikes have killed at least 59 UNRWA employees, with many more believed to be trapped under the rubble.
On Friday, the U.N. General Assembly voted 120 to 14 in favor of a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian truce and for aid access to Gaza. Israel and the U.S. voted against the resolution, which also calls for the release of captive civilians. Israel believes Hamas and other groups are holding over 220 hostages seized on October 7th during the Hamas attack that Israel says killed 1,400 people.
We’re joined now by two guests. Lara Friedman is with us. She’s president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a former Foreign Service officer who served in Jerusalem, Tunis and Beirut. She has worked on Israel-Palestine and the broader region for over 30 years. We’re also joined by Congressmember Delia Ramirez, who is a congressmember from Chicago. She’s one of 18 members of the House of Representatives who have signed a resolution calling for an immediate deescalation and ceasefire in Israel and Palestine.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Congressmember Ramirez, let’s begin with you in Chicago. Can you explain why you supported this ceasefire resolution?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, I want to see safety, and I want to see hostages released. There are 500 Americans and their families in Gaza right now, and I want to make sure that everyone is safe and that we are using our power to be able to deescalate the situation. Bombing ourselves through it is not going to bring the hostages back safely. Bombing us through it is not going to bring 500 Americans back. I really believe — you just talked about it — 8,000 Palestinians have died. The only way we are going to get to long-lasting peace is a ceasefire, is deescalating and using diplomacy.
AMY GOODMAN: How did this resolution come about, Congressmember Ramirez?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, we were already two weeks into this conflict. We have not seen any form of deescalation, quite the contrary. And we have seen people starving to death in Palestine, in Gaza at this moment. And so, for a number of us, we understand that if our outcome is peace in the region, that the only way we can get closer to that, where hostages are released, is deescalation and ceasefire. We have to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to prevent a regional war. And the only way you get there is ensuring that the safety of innocent civilians is our absolute priority. You won’t get that through bombing.
We understood, and a number of us co-led the resolution, and more members of Congress in the coming days have also joined the resolution, recognizing that what we’re currently doing now is escalating the situation, not deescalating, and the only way we move forward is deescalating and ceasing fire. That’s the way that you’re going to be able to keep people from dying, protect innocent civilians, 1.2 million children right now in Gaza. The ceasefire is our only way of diplomacy and being able to get to a place of peace.
AMY GOODMAN: What kind of response are you getting in support of this resolution? In an earlier interview, you said, “If you ask, 'What about the Palestinians?' it’s almost as if there’s an assumption that you’re saying you don’t announce Hamas.” Can you talk about this? And do you feel that that is changing?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: I think it’s slowly changing. And what I say to people is that I came to Congress to uplift shared humanity. I can denounce Hamas. I can call for the release of hostages. And I could also ask, “What about the Palestinian children?” Right now we have children under rubble. The number that we’re seeing is 8,000, but that is not the accurate, most accurate number. There are people that we have not found. There are families in Chicago and all over the world who have not been able to connect with their family in Gaza. And the reality is that if we care about Israelis, if we care about the Jewish community and their safety, we have to understand that it’s interconnected with the safety and the freedom of Palestinians.
AMY GOODMAN: What kind of aid do you think should go to Gaza? And what about funding for Israel?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, Amy, when hundreds of thousands of people have lost their home, thousands of people have died, their communities have completely been destroyed, the question is: What will we do to ensure that people are able to come back to home when they have no home? When we’re talking about substantial humanitarian aid, I don’t mean 30, 40 trucks a day. I mean substantial, billions of dollars of responsibility that we, as the U.S., who has given military aid for such a long time, is responsible to give to help restore a place that has been, in many cases, in many parts of it, burned down to rubble. So, we need to be able to do that.
And I think, secondary, for me to be able to say that I want more money for bombs, it begs the question. Bombs are going to kill people. And in this case, it is killing thousands of civilians. We’ve seen it already in the last three weeks. We have to do everything we can to ensure that we’re honoring international law, that the money we’re sending isn’t killing children, that we are uplifting the humanity of people of Israel and people in Gaza, but, Amy, people in the West Bank. Right now settlers are killing people in the West Bank, and the Israeli government is enabling it. It is letting it happen. The aid that we send cannot be used to kill innocent lives. It’s unacceptable, it’s not moral, and I can’t stand behind that.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering what you think would be a more just U.S. foreign policy. I mean, you, Congressmember Ramirez, are Guatemalan American. We know the history of Guatemala and U.S. aid for the successive military regimes that were responsible for the death of so many hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans in the 1980s and beyond. If you could comment on putting this in a larger context?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, we have to ask ourselves: What is the outcome here? Is it a two-state solution? Is it to be able to bring peace to the region, long-lasting peace? Because if that is the case, we, as the U.S., have to think about the role we have played for the last few decades. We are not at peace. We have seen occupation all over the region. And we have to ask ourselves, if what we want is long-lasting peace, every single resolution, every single bill and every single dollar that we send over, we must ask ourselves: Will this get us to peace? Will this get us closer to a two-state solution? Will this create the kind of policy that will get us to a place where Palestinians and Israelis are safe and free? And if the answer is no, then we need to reassess how we move and the kind of policy that we have had in the region for the last decades.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you spoken to President Biden or his inner circle? At the beginning, he was very clear in saying he told Netanyahu he did not say use restraint. But now the White House is putting out statements that they are, in fact, behind the scenes saying that restraint must be used.
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: I’ve not talked to the president directly. I certainly have been talking to the State Department on a regular basis. And what I have said is, words matter. What we are saying to the American people, what the American people are seeing has a direct impact even for us here. I mean, look, when you see Netanyahu and his own leadership, his own IDF leadership, calling people less than human, animals, that has consequences. We have seen the impact and the growth, increase of hate crime all over the world, antisemitism and Islamophobia. A 6-year-old boy, 30 minutes from my district, was stabbed 26 times because his landlord saw this 6-year-old little boy as a threat to our society, and nearly killed his mother. We have to understand that what we are saying to the people in this moment has real consequences. And we have a moral responsibility to lead from a place of diplomacy, seeking peace at all times and holding accountable the Israeli government for the ways that it is violating international law, for the ways that this ground incursion in this moment is killing innocent lives. We all want hostages out. We also want the 500 Americans and their families out. How we’re moving in this moment is not making anyone more safe.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Delia Ramirez.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Tue Oct 31, 2023 12:11 am
Middle East Expert Lara Friedman: If Netanyahu Cared About Hostages, Why Did He Launch Ground Invasion?
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30/gaza_hostages
We look at the reluctance in Congress to censure Israel despite growing grassroots pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza. “The narrative on both sides of the aisle is mostly about the right of Israel to defend itself,” says Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. “Congress has bought, completely, the framing which says that any Palestinian that dies in Gaza … that’s all on Hamas.” Friedman explains how the normalization of the racist Kahanist movement by Israel and the U.S. helped lead to today’s crisis, and lays out Israel’s approach to the ongoing hostage situation in Gaza.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined by Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, former Foreign Service officer who served in Jerusalem, Tunis and Beirut, has worked on Israel-Palestine and the broader region for over 30 years, former director of policy and government relations at Americans for Peace Now, Americans for Shalom Achshav.
It’s great to have you with us, Lara. Can you talk about what’s happening in the Congress now, and if you feel movement, a change in Biden’s position from the beginning of the — after October 7th?
LARA FRIEDMAN: Sure. And thanks for having me.
I do think that we’re seeing, and in the piece that you had before we came on here, we’re seeing real movement in the grassroots. There’s really a surge in energy and a surge in support for Palestinian rights that we haven’t — I think has never been seen before.
I think it still remains to be seen how that’s going to be reflected in Congress. If we just go by the statements that are being made by members of Congress, which, except for a small number — and Congresswoman Ramirez is among them — except for a small number, are, at best, very, very cautious about saying anything that would validate the humanity and the rights of the Palestinian people. The narrative on both sides of the aisle is mostly about the rights of Israel to defend itself, and that is — to defend itself is defined basically to mean Israel can do and should do whatever it wants to do, and it bears no responsibility, has no agency, with respect to the results when it comes to human casualties. Congress has bought, completely, the framing which says that any Palestinian that dies in Gaza from an Israeli bomb or who gets sick or starves or dehydrated or ill or dies in a hospital, that’s all on Hamas. That is not Israel’s fault. Everything is Hamas’s fault, which suggests a new ethos of war that really opens the door for everyone to target civilians.
There’s also the framing of human shields, which basically says, you know, it’s Hamas’s fault that we’re killing your civilians, that we’re killing your children, which, I mean, there is truth to the argument that Hamas has placed itself behind human beings. It raises the question: You know, if bad guys invaded a school, would the United States say, “Ah, for the sake of killing the bad guys, we need to bomb the school. We’re going to kill all the children in the school, because we have to, and it’s the bad guys’ fault”? The inhumanity of it is stunning.
But what we’ve seen, really, since the beginning, since October 7th — and I follow — I do a report every Friday covering every single thing that happens in Congress related to the Middle East and Israel-Palestine — is a deluge of new legislation, of resolutions and of letters, which, by and large, either ignore or diminish the humanity of Palestinians, which directly conflate criticism of what Israel is doing in Gaza or assertions that there is any context, that there is history before October 7th, conflate it with antisemitism, conflate it with support for Hamas and terror. And we’ve seen that with the attacks on the members of Congress, like Congresswoman Ramirez, who have dared to do something like call for a ceasefire, with really despicable language used by members of Congress against their own colleagues on both sides of the aisle. This is coming at them, suggesting that daring to talk about ceasefire is a betrayal of support for Israel and is a form of antisemitism and support for terror.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this month, you tweeted, quote, “Reminder: 6 mos before Israeli elex that made Kahanists arguably most powerful political force in Israel, the Biden Admin decided to do its part in normalizing Kahanism by removing Kahanist groups from US list of foreign terrorist orgs, where they’d been listed for decades.” For those who don’t understand who Kahanists are, explain the significance of this tweet.
LARA FRIEDMAN: Well, I mean, whole books have been written about the Kahanists. The Kahanists — Rabbi Meir Kahane was an American citizen rabbi from the New York area. He wrote many, many books. His basic philosophy was, you know, all of the land of Israel — and that extends far beyond Israel’s current borders — belongs to the Jews, because it was given to the Jews by God. And he made clear that — I mean, you have to give him credit for honesty — that this wasn’t — that this is not a conflict that was going to be resolved in a way that would address everybody’s rights or needs, that this was going to be a war and that the Arabs were going to have to lose, and this meant removing Arabs. And he was very, very clear. It’s a worldview that is openly racist, openly Islamophobic, almost proudly so, and, in effect, suggests that people who think that there’s some other solution are naive.
That strand of thinking was much, I would say, maligned and disrespected for a very long time. The Kahanist party was outlawed in Israel as a racist party during Rabbi Kahane’s lifetime. He was eventually assassinated. But what’s happened since then is the mainstreaming of his worldview in Israel and, I would say, in the United States amongst many supporters of Israel — a lot of the financing for his work and his thoughts comes from the United States still — and to the point where today you have very powerful people in the Israeli government, very powerful political strands in Israel, which are largely identical, whose worldview is largely identical to that of the Kahanists. The fact that the Biden administration elected to remove the Kahanist parties from the terrorist list — and they were on the terrorist list because of acts of terror committed by acolytes of this movement against American citizens, you know, not in recent years, but it was — I don’t know why they chose that moment to remove them, but it certainly speaks to the mainstreaming and normalizing of this approach to the Palestinians.
AMY GOODMAN: Lara Friedman, can you talk about the hostage negotiations? You have Qatar and Egypt involved in those negotiations, mainly Qatar right now. You have the hostage families, who are a powerful force. We hear their stories repeatedly in the U.S. media, as we should. They should be a model for also the coverage there should be of Palestinian suffering. But those families are calling for this exchange of the hostages — it’s believed there’s more than 220 or 230 of them that are being held by Hamas and other groups in Gaza — and Palestinian political prisoners, Palestinian prisoners, of which I think there are more than 6,600. I think they’re calling it “everybody for everybody.” Can you talk about this?
LARA FRIEDMAN: Yeah. I mean, look, the taking of hostages, the taking of civilian hostages by Hamas — I mean, the October 7th attack was heinous in every aspect. The aspect of taking the hostages brought this home to Israelis in a way that is just — I don’t think anyone who has not spent time in a small country where everyone is — you know, there’s one degree of separation. This is incredibly real and incredibly personal for everyone in Israel.
What is notable is, in past experiences where there have been hostages taken, Israel has sort of turned over every rock possible, done everything possible to get them back. You have negotiations. You have contacts. You have — think of Gilad Shalit. I mean, the entire country mobilizes to get the hostage back — “hostage,” singular, “hostages,” plural. In this context, after October 7th, the issue of hostages is raised constantly by the Israeli government as a reason for why it has to do what it’s doing in Gaza, notwithstanding the fact that carpet bombing Gaza, using deep, deep penetrating bombs that are trying to get at the tunnels, seems like a very likely way to kill your own hostages. There has been a clear signal given — and if you listen to the — if you look at the Israeli media, the contacts that the families of hostages have had with the Netanyahu government, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that there isn’t actually a lot of desire on the part of the Israeli government to get the hostages back.
There have been numerous — and it’s been public — from other governments, from negotiators, there have been numerous offers by Hamas to exchange hostages, to release hostages in certain circumstances. There was, you know, a 24 — for a brief ceasefire. And so far, the argument seems to be, from the Israeli side, “We won’t do that, because anything we do would be a victory for Hamas. And that is — that we can’t let that happen, so releasing the hostages is simply not a priority.”
But talking about the hostages and accusing anyone who talks about ceasefire as not caring about the hostages is a wonderful tactic. All of us who are speaking out on this in social media, on media like this, are accused constantly of, “Well, you don’t care about the hostages.” The answer is, no, I care very much about the hostages. I don’t understand why the Israeli government doesn’t care more about the hostages. I would suggest that the Israeli government’s approach to the hostages makes clear that their objectives in this war are not about freeing the hostages. And that, I think, requires further thought.
AMY GOODMAN: Lara Friedman, I want to thank you for being with us, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, and Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Chicago for being with us, as well.
Next up, as the death toll in Gaza tops more than 8,000, as Israel intensifies its ground and aerial attack, we’ll speak with a doctor in Cairo who’s been trying for two weeks to get back into Gaza. Stay with us.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30/gaza_hostages
We look at the reluctance in Congress to censure Israel despite growing grassroots pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza. “The narrative on both sides of the aisle is mostly about the right of Israel to defend itself,” says Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. “Congress has bought, completely, the framing which says that any Palestinian that dies in Gaza … that’s all on Hamas.” Friedman explains how the normalization of the racist Kahanist movement by Israel and the U.S. helped lead to today’s crisis, and lays out Israel’s approach to the ongoing hostage situation in Gaza.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined by Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, former Foreign Service officer who served in Jerusalem, Tunis and Beirut, has worked on Israel-Palestine and the broader region for over 30 years, former director of policy and government relations at Americans for Peace Now, Americans for Shalom Achshav.
It’s great to have you with us, Lara. Can you talk about what’s happening in the Congress now, and if you feel movement, a change in Biden’s position from the beginning of the — after October 7th?
LARA FRIEDMAN: Sure. And thanks for having me.
I do think that we’re seeing, and in the piece that you had before we came on here, we’re seeing real movement in the grassroots. There’s really a surge in energy and a surge in support for Palestinian rights that we haven’t — I think has never been seen before.
I think it still remains to be seen how that’s going to be reflected in Congress. If we just go by the statements that are being made by members of Congress, which, except for a small number — and Congresswoman Ramirez is among them — except for a small number, are, at best, very, very cautious about saying anything that would validate the humanity and the rights of the Palestinian people. The narrative on both sides of the aisle is mostly about the rights of Israel to defend itself, and that is — to defend itself is defined basically to mean Israel can do and should do whatever it wants to do, and it bears no responsibility, has no agency, with respect to the results when it comes to human casualties. Congress has bought, completely, the framing which says that any Palestinian that dies in Gaza from an Israeli bomb or who gets sick or starves or dehydrated or ill or dies in a hospital, that’s all on Hamas. That is not Israel’s fault. Everything is Hamas’s fault, which suggests a new ethos of war that really opens the door for everyone to target civilians.
There’s also the framing of human shields, which basically says, you know, it’s Hamas’s fault that we’re killing your civilians, that we’re killing your children, which, I mean, there is truth to the argument that Hamas has placed itself behind human beings. It raises the question: You know, if bad guys invaded a school, would the United States say, “Ah, for the sake of killing the bad guys, we need to bomb the school. We’re going to kill all the children in the school, because we have to, and it’s the bad guys’ fault”? The inhumanity of it is stunning.
But what we’ve seen, really, since the beginning, since October 7th — and I follow — I do a report every Friday covering every single thing that happens in Congress related to the Middle East and Israel-Palestine — is a deluge of new legislation, of resolutions and of letters, which, by and large, either ignore or diminish the humanity of Palestinians, which directly conflate criticism of what Israel is doing in Gaza or assertions that there is any context, that there is history before October 7th, conflate it with antisemitism, conflate it with support for Hamas and terror. And we’ve seen that with the attacks on the members of Congress, like Congresswoman Ramirez, who have dared to do something like call for a ceasefire, with really despicable language used by members of Congress against their own colleagues on both sides of the aisle. This is coming at them, suggesting that daring to talk about ceasefire is a betrayal of support for Israel and is a form of antisemitism and support for terror.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this month, you tweeted, quote, “Reminder: 6 mos before Israeli elex that made Kahanists arguably most powerful political force in Israel, the Biden Admin decided to do its part in normalizing Kahanism by removing Kahanist groups from US list of foreign terrorist orgs, where they’d been listed for decades.” For those who don’t understand who Kahanists are, explain the significance of this tweet.
LARA FRIEDMAN: Well, I mean, whole books have been written about the Kahanists. The Kahanists — Rabbi Meir Kahane was an American citizen rabbi from the New York area. He wrote many, many books. His basic philosophy was, you know, all of the land of Israel — and that extends far beyond Israel’s current borders — belongs to the Jews, because it was given to the Jews by God. And he made clear that — I mean, you have to give him credit for honesty — that this wasn’t — that this is not a conflict that was going to be resolved in a way that would address everybody’s rights or needs, that this was going to be a war and that the Arabs were going to have to lose, and this meant removing Arabs. And he was very, very clear. It’s a worldview that is openly racist, openly Islamophobic, almost proudly so, and, in effect, suggests that people who think that there’s some other solution are naive.
That strand of thinking was much, I would say, maligned and disrespected for a very long time. The Kahanist party was outlawed in Israel as a racist party during Rabbi Kahane’s lifetime. He was eventually assassinated. But what’s happened since then is the mainstreaming of his worldview in Israel and, I would say, in the United States amongst many supporters of Israel — a lot of the financing for his work and his thoughts comes from the United States still — and to the point where today you have very powerful people in the Israeli government, very powerful political strands in Israel, which are largely identical, whose worldview is largely identical to that of the Kahanists. The fact that the Biden administration elected to remove the Kahanist parties from the terrorist list — and they were on the terrorist list because of acts of terror committed by acolytes of this movement against American citizens, you know, not in recent years, but it was — I don’t know why they chose that moment to remove them, but it certainly speaks to the mainstreaming and normalizing of this approach to the Palestinians.
AMY GOODMAN: Lara Friedman, can you talk about the hostage negotiations? You have Qatar and Egypt involved in those negotiations, mainly Qatar right now. You have the hostage families, who are a powerful force. We hear their stories repeatedly in the U.S. media, as we should. They should be a model for also the coverage there should be of Palestinian suffering. But those families are calling for this exchange of the hostages — it’s believed there’s more than 220 or 230 of them that are being held by Hamas and other groups in Gaza — and Palestinian political prisoners, Palestinian prisoners, of which I think there are more than 6,600. I think they’re calling it “everybody for everybody.” Can you talk about this?
LARA FRIEDMAN: Yeah. I mean, look, the taking of hostages, the taking of civilian hostages by Hamas — I mean, the October 7th attack was heinous in every aspect. The aspect of taking the hostages brought this home to Israelis in a way that is just — I don’t think anyone who has not spent time in a small country where everyone is — you know, there’s one degree of separation. This is incredibly real and incredibly personal for everyone in Israel.
What is notable is, in past experiences where there have been hostages taken, Israel has sort of turned over every rock possible, done everything possible to get them back. You have negotiations. You have contacts. You have — think of Gilad Shalit. I mean, the entire country mobilizes to get the hostage back — “hostage,” singular, “hostages,” plural. In this context, after October 7th, the issue of hostages is raised constantly by the Israeli government as a reason for why it has to do what it’s doing in Gaza, notwithstanding the fact that carpet bombing Gaza, using deep, deep penetrating bombs that are trying to get at the tunnels, seems like a very likely way to kill your own hostages. There has been a clear signal given — and if you listen to the — if you look at the Israeli media, the contacts that the families of hostages have had with the Netanyahu government, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that there isn’t actually a lot of desire on the part of the Israeli government to get the hostages back.
There have been numerous — and it’s been public — from other governments, from negotiators, there have been numerous offers by Hamas to exchange hostages, to release hostages in certain circumstances. There was, you know, a 24 — for a brief ceasefire. And so far, the argument seems to be, from the Israeli side, “We won’t do that, because anything we do would be a victory for Hamas. And that is — that we can’t let that happen, so releasing the hostages is simply not a priority.”
But talking about the hostages and accusing anyone who talks about ceasefire as not caring about the hostages is a wonderful tactic. All of us who are speaking out on this in social media, on media like this, are accused constantly of, “Well, you don’t care about the hostages.” The answer is, no, I care very much about the hostages. I don’t understand why the Israeli government doesn’t care more about the hostages. I would suggest that the Israeli government’s approach to the hostages makes clear that their objectives in this war are not about freeing the hostages. And that, I think, requires further thought.
Sadly, I don’t think Israel is taking responsibility of anything. I mean, in 2005, we got out of Gaza and were like, “OK!” I mean, we just throw it like we were never connected to it. And like, OK, let’s just let them — like no long process agreement, sustainable agreement. And sadly, after that, the 10, 15 years, Israel is doing everything to strengthen Hamas in Gaza, just because it doesn’t want a two-state solution, so it wants to divide between the Fatah and the Hamas. So, this, of course, failed, because also the Hamas is very terrible to the people in Gaza, especially LGBTs and women, which always suffer from right-wing religious government. And at the end, it of course came to us, because we can put Gaza behind fences or whatever, but the right-wing extremists of Hamas killed Israelis indiscriminately, civilians and also my left brother, who — of course, it very makes sense, you know, that the right wing kill left-wing people, because they just don’t care. They earn from the hate. They earn from the death.
-- Not in My Brother’s Name: Sibling of Peace Activist Killed by Hamas Demands Israel Stop Bombing Gaza, by Amy Goodman
Librarian's Comment: As reportage emerges revealing that Netanyahu's right wing cabal had developed a long-friendly financially supportive and militarily tolerant relationship with the Hamas forces that committed the massacre of Israelis, it's worth taking a look at who the primary victims were. I think it's a safe bet that the young people attending Supernova were not voting for Netanyahu, and clearly were not right-wing orthodox Jews with restricted diets and of course, a ban on secular dancing. This was probably the largest group of young, pro-peace Israelis that you could find in the entire country on that day. So, just assuming for the sake of engaging in reasonable speculation that Netanyahu wanted to give Hamas an opportunity to kill a large number of Israelis who he did not like anyway, the massacre of these youthful ravers may also be laid at his door. Clearly he deployed forces to protect the New York transplants known as "settlers" to allow them to continue their killing of Palestinian people, and their destructive revels in Palestinian border towns, while backed by IDF soldiers who made sure that Palestinians could not protect their property or themselves from these rampaging bands of renegade New Yorkers. That also meant that the soldiers were not there to guard against the incursion that made it so easy to roll in and kill hundreds of ravers, and made sure that military forces were deployed so far away that they couldn't prevent the catastrophe from unfolding in its full lurid horror. Finally, we now know that Netanyahu's cabal happily canoodling with Hamas in what it believed was a partnership to undermine the PLO, turned a blind eye to Hamas's military buildup and organization, allowing the well-planned, and apparently well-informed assault to take place.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: The festival was called the Supernova Universo Parallelo Festival, the Parallel Universe Festival...
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ESTRIN: ...An outdoor trance music festival advertised as, quote, "the essence of unity and love in a breathtaking location." It was only about a couple miles from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip.
-- ‘They Wanted to Dance in Peace. And They Got Slaughtered’: Israel's Supernova festival celebrated music and unity. It turned into the deadliest concert attack in history, by David Browne, Nancy Dillon, Kory Grow
AMY GOODMAN: Lara Friedman, I want to thank you for being with us, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, and Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Chicago for being with us, as well.
Next up, as the death toll in Gaza tops more than 8,000, as Israel intensifies its ground and aerial attack, we’ll speak with a doctor in Cairo who’s been trying for two weeks to get back into Gaza. Stay with us.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Tue Oct 31, 2023 12:19 am
“This Has to Stop”: Doctors Denounce Israel’s Targeting of Gaza Hospitals
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30/gaza_hospitals
Amid growing alarm that more Israeli airstrikes will hit hospitals in Gaza, we speak with two physicians about Gaza’s medical system and Israel’s orders to evacuate key hospitals. Dr. Fadel Naim, head of orthopedic surgery at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza, says Israel has “bombed all around the hospital.” Dr. Mads Gilbert, who has helped provide emergency trauma care in Gaza for over four decades, condemns Israel for using allegations of military activity to attack civilian hospitals without proof. “This is all part of this immense intimidation of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” says Gilbert, who is trying to enter the besieged territory from Egypt “to show concrete solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
As Israel intensifies its ground invasion and aerial bombardment of Gaza, concern is growing Israel may soon bomb the al-Quds Hospital, the second-largest hospital in Gaza City. Israel has ordered the hospital to be evacuated, but doctors say they have no way to move critically ill patients. The World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, quote, “We reiterate — it’s impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without endangering their lives.” This is Nebal Farsakh of the Palestinian Red Crescent.
NEBAL FARSAKH: [We do not] have the means to evacuate al-Quds Hospital. We have over 400 patients who are inside the hospital. Many of them are in the intensive care unit. Evacuating them means killing them. That’s why we refuse the evacuation order. We call on the international community to intervene immediately to stop a humanitarian catastrophic that is unfolding.
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday night, Democracy Now! reached Dr. Fadel Naim, head of orthopedic surgery at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza.
DR. FADEL NAIM: The Israelis want all hospitals in Gaza, about 24 hospitals, to evacuate all patients and all displaced people in the hospitals, because the people look for safety and search for safety in the hospitals because they think it’s a safe place. We have here in Baptist Hospital about 3,000 people. They have about 12,000 people in al-Quds Hospital, and they have also 400 patients.
And today they didn’t bomb directly to the hospital, but they bombed all around the hospital, so all the glasses, the doors were distorted, and it’s not functioning now, as country functioning, because, you know, all the infrastructure is destructed.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Dr. Fadel Naim, who works at Al-Ahli Hospital.
We’re joined now by Dr. Mads Gilbert, Norwegian physician specializing in anesthesiology and emergency medicine. Dr. Gilbert has been working with the Palestinians since 1981, has been in Gaza there during the Israeli assaults in 2006, 2009, 2012, 2014, delivering life-saving trauma care emergency medicine, mainly in the largest hospital, in Al-Shifa, but also in al-Quds. Dr. Gilbert is currently with an emergency medical team supported by the Norwegian government in Cairo, Egypt, where they’ve waited for over two weeks to enter Gaza. Dr. Gilbert is also the author of several books on Gaza, including Eyes in Gaza and Night in Gaza.
Dr. Mads Gilbert, welcome back to Democracy Now! Let’s talk about this Israeli order that al-Quds Hospital must be evacuated immediately, and the World Health Organization saying, “You are asking our doctors and staff to choose their own lives over their patients’ lives who can’t be moved.” Can you respond to this?
DR. MADS GILBERT: Yes, I can, Amy.
And I think, first of all, it is completely absurd that we, in 2023, should have a state army that is threatening to bomb hospital, and de facto is bombing hospitals and killing children by the thousands in what is called a war. Now, these threats to the Palestinian civilian hospitals in Gaza is extremely serious, not only because it is illegal according to international law, but it’s threatening the lives of thousands of patients, of staff, and not to forget the 12,000 refugees who have taken refuge in al-Quds Hospital and the more than 50,000 who have taken refuge in the Shifa Hospital. So, these hospitals are not only clinical entities doing some treatment. These are cornerstones of the social fabric that remains in Gaza, because most of all other fabric is bombed away.
I’ve talked to my colleagues both in Shifa and in al-Quds this morning. And my colleagues in al-Quds Hospital, I know very well. They report continuous bombing very close to the hospital, and they can see fires. Also during the night, there has been heavy bombardment of the Turkish hospital, which is a little bit further south and which is the central cancer hospital of Gaza. For Shifa Hospital, there is also threats. And don’t forget that before they bombed the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, there were threats and what we call knock-on-the-roof bombardment around the hospital. So there is an urgent fear among my colleagues — doctors, nurses, paramedics — in these two large hospitals that indeed the Israeli governmental army will execute the threats of bombing the hospitals. But they stay put. And in that capacity as health workers, to me, they are moral compasses and lighthouses of hope today in a very, very dark area of our history.
AMY GOODMAN: You have worked in Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza. The Israeli military says that that’s where the Hamas command and control is. Can you respond?
DR. MADS GILBERT: I will ask President Netanyahu to put on the table the proofs and the evidence that there is a control and command center for the Palestinian resistance in Shifa Hospital. We have heard these claims since 2009. We have twice been threatened to leave Shifa Hospital, in 2009 and 2014, because the Israelis were going to bomb it because it was a command center. Now, I have been working in Shifa for 16 years, 16 years on and off, in very hectic periods, very hectic periods. I’ve been able to walk freely around. I take lots of pictures. I video, film. I’ve been sleeping in the hospital during bombardment. I’ve been all over. I’ve never been restricted, controlled. Nobody has ever controlled my picture and documentation material. So, well, if there is a command center, show us. You have pictures and X-ray films of all Gaza, all the tunnels, everything. So, why is it that these 16 years of threats that Shifa is a command center has not been given any evidence at all that it de facto is? Now, if it was a military command center, I would not work there, because I obey to the Geneva Convention, number one.
Number two, if the Israelis claim that this is a mixed military-civilian target, because obviously it is civilian, with tens of thousands of people gathering there and 2,000 patients being treated — if it is a mixed military-civilian target, the civilian precautions take priority over the military. So, in accordance with the Geneva Convention, you can’t bomb hospitals, unless they have very clear military functions.
So, to me, this is all part of this immense intimidation of the Palestinian people in Gaza. They are threatened with leaflets from the planes and the helicopters. They are threatened by phone calls. They are threatened by, you know, “If you stay in northern Gaza now, we define you as a terrorist.” What is this? 2023, two-and-a-half million — 2.2 million people, civilian, unarmed people being killed, a child killed every 10 minutes. So far today, the number of killed Palestinian children is 3,324, and there are missing 2,062 Palestinian children in Gaza. That’s 5,300 Palestinian children killed in three weeks.
And I ask President Biden: What kind of president are you? And the vice president. Do you have children? Do you accept that this is a war? Do you accept that your supported Israeli army is killing, by the thousands, children? For heaven’s sake, let’s have a ceasefire. Let’s lift the siege of Gaza. Let’s let in supplies and international teams to work. My colleagues are overburdened. They have worked night and day for three weeks now. This has to stop. I don’t need to use the word “genocide.” It’s enough to say “mass murder of civilians.” It has to stop.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally —
DR. MADS GILBERT: There is no doctor. There is no medical effort.
AMY GOODMAN: Last question, and we just have 20 seconds. Why are you trying so hard, as Israel threatens to bomb hospitals, to get into Gaza and work in a hospital?
DR. MADS GILBERT: To show concrete solidarity with the Palestinian people. That is our strongest tool now. All over the world, we need to stand up and say we don’t accept this. We need to show solidarity. My solidarity, as a medical doctor, is to go to Gaza, stand shoulder to shoulder, do the work together with my colleagues and try to be a decent human person.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mads Gilbert, we’re going to try to do a Part 2 interview with you and post it at democracynow.org. Dr. Mads Gilbert, Norwegian physician, has been working with the Palestinians for the last 20 years. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 30, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30/gaza_hospitals
Amid growing alarm that more Israeli airstrikes will hit hospitals in Gaza, we speak with two physicians about Gaza’s medical system and Israel’s orders to evacuate key hospitals. Dr. Fadel Naim, head of orthopedic surgery at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza, says Israel has “bombed all around the hospital.” Dr. Mads Gilbert, who has helped provide emergency trauma care in Gaza for over four decades, condemns Israel for using allegations of military activity to attack civilian hospitals without proof. “This is all part of this immense intimidation of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” says Gilbert, who is trying to enter the besieged territory from Egypt “to show concrete solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
As Israel intensifies its ground invasion and aerial bombardment of Gaza, concern is growing Israel may soon bomb the al-Quds Hospital, the second-largest hospital in Gaza City. Israel has ordered the hospital to be evacuated, but doctors say they have no way to move critically ill patients. The World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, quote, “We reiterate — it’s impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without endangering their lives.” This is Nebal Farsakh of the Palestinian Red Crescent.
NEBAL FARSAKH: [We do not] have the means to evacuate al-Quds Hospital. We have over 400 patients who are inside the hospital. Many of them are in the intensive care unit. Evacuating them means killing them. That’s why we refuse the evacuation order. We call on the international community to intervene immediately to stop a humanitarian catastrophic that is unfolding.
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday night, Democracy Now! reached Dr. Fadel Naim, head of orthopedic surgery at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza.
DR. FADEL NAIM: The Israelis want all hospitals in Gaza, about 24 hospitals, to evacuate all patients and all displaced people in the hospitals, because the people look for safety and search for safety in the hospitals because they think it’s a safe place. We have here in Baptist Hospital about 3,000 people. They have about 12,000 people in al-Quds Hospital, and they have also 400 patients.
And today they didn’t bomb directly to the hospital, but they bombed all around the hospital, so all the glasses, the doors were distorted, and it’s not functioning now, as country functioning, because, you know, all the infrastructure is destructed.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Dr. Fadel Naim, who works at Al-Ahli Hospital.
We’re joined now by Dr. Mads Gilbert, Norwegian physician specializing in anesthesiology and emergency medicine. Dr. Gilbert has been working with the Palestinians since 1981, has been in Gaza there during the Israeli assaults in 2006, 2009, 2012, 2014, delivering life-saving trauma care emergency medicine, mainly in the largest hospital, in Al-Shifa, but also in al-Quds. Dr. Gilbert is currently with an emergency medical team supported by the Norwegian government in Cairo, Egypt, where they’ve waited for over two weeks to enter Gaza. Dr. Gilbert is also the author of several books on Gaza, including Eyes in Gaza and Night in Gaza.
Dr. Mads Gilbert, welcome back to Democracy Now! Let’s talk about this Israeli order that al-Quds Hospital must be evacuated immediately, and the World Health Organization saying, “You are asking our doctors and staff to choose their own lives over their patients’ lives who can’t be moved.” Can you respond to this?
DR. MADS GILBERT: Yes, I can, Amy.
And I think, first of all, it is completely absurd that we, in 2023, should have a state army that is threatening to bomb hospital, and de facto is bombing hospitals and killing children by the thousands in what is called a war. Now, these threats to the Palestinian civilian hospitals in Gaza is extremely serious, not only because it is illegal according to international law, but it’s threatening the lives of thousands of patients, of staff, and not to forget the 12,000 refugees who have taken refuge in al-Quds Hospital and the more than 50,000 who have taken refuge in the Shifa Hospital. So, these hospitals are not only clinical entities doing some treatment. These are cornerstones of the social fabric that remains in Gaza, because most of all other fabric is bombed away.
I’ve talked to my colleagues both in Shifa and in al-Quds this morning. And my colleagues in al-Quds Hospital, I know very well. They report continuous bombing very close to the hospital, and they can see fires. Also during the night, there has been heavy bombardment of the Turkish hospital, which is a little bit further south and which is the central cancer hospital of Gaza. For Shifa Hospital, there is also threats. And don’t forget that before they bombed the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, there were threats and what we call knock-on-the-roof bombardment around the hospital. So there is an urgent fear among my colleagues — doctors, nurses, paramedics — in these two large hospitals that indeed the Israeli governmental army will execute the threats of bombing the hospitals. But they stay put. And in that capacity as health workers, to me, they are moral compasses and lighthouses of hope today in a very, very dark area of our history.
AMY GOODMAN: You have worked in Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza. The Israeli military says that that’s where the Hamas command and control is. Can you respond?
DR. MADS GILBERT: I will ask President Netanyahu to put on the table the proofs and the evidence that there is a control and command center for the Palestinian resistance in Shifa Hospital. We have heard these claims since 2009. We have twice been threatened to leave Shifa Hospital, in 2009 and 2014, because the Israelis were going to bomb it because it was a command center. Now, I have been working in Shifa for 16 years, 16 years on and off, in very hectic periods, very hectic periods. I’ve been able to walk freely around. I take lots of pictures. I video, film. I’ve been sleeping in the hospital during bombardment. I’ve been all over. I’ve never been restricted, controlled. Nobody has ever controlled my picture and documentation material. So, well, if there is a command center, show us. You have pictures and X-ray films of all Gaza, all the tunnels, everything. So, why is it that these 16 years of threats that Shifa is a command center has not been given any evidence at all that it de facto is? Now, if it was a military command center, I would not work there, because I obey to the Geneva Convention, number one.
Number two, if the Israelis claim that this is a mixed military-civilian target, because obviously it is civilian, with tens of thousands of people gathering there and 2,000 patients being treated — if it is a mixed military-civilian target, the civilian precautions take priority over the military. So, in accordance with the Geneva Convention, you can’t bomb hospitals, unless they have very clear military functions.
So, to me, this is all part of this immense intimidation of the Palestinian people in Gaza. They are threatened with leaflets from the planes and the helicopters. They are threatened by phone calls. They are threatened by, you know, “If you stay in northern Gaza now, we define you as a terrorist.” What is this? 2023, two-and-a-half million — 2.2 million people, civilian, unarmed people being killed, a child killed every 10 minutes. So far today, the number of killed Palestinian children is 3,324, and there are missing 2,062 Palestinian children in Gaza. That’s 5,300 Palestinian children killed in three weeks.
And I ask President Biden: What kind of president are you? And the vice president. Do you have children? Do you accept that this is a war? Do you accept that your supported Israeli army is killing, by the thousands, children? For heaven’s sake, let’s have a ceasefire. Let’s lift the siege of Gaza. Let’s let in supplies and international teams to work. My colleagues are overburdened. They have worked night and day for three weeks now. This has to stop. I don’t need to use the word “genocide.” It’s enough to say “mass murder of civilians.” It has to stop.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally —
DR. MADS GILBERT: There is no doctor. There is no medical effort.
AMY GOODMAN: Last question, and we just have 20 seconds. Why are you trying so hard, as Israel threatens to bomb hospitals, to get into Gaza and work in a hospital?
DR. MADS GILBERT: To show concrete solidarity with the Palestinian people. That is our strongest tool now. All over the world, we need to stand up and say we don’t accept this. We need to show solidarity. My solidarity, as a medical doctor, is to go to Gaza, stand shoulder to shoulder, do the work together with my colleagues and try to be a decent human person.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mads Gilbert, we’re going to try to do a Part 2 interview with you and post it at democracynow.org. Dr. Mads Gilbert, Norwegian physician, has been working with the Palestinians for the last 20 years. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Sat Nov 04, 2023 12:09 am
Gaza Doctor Says Hospitals Have to Choose Who Lives and Who Dies Amid Worsening Humanitarian Crisis
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 31, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/31 ... transcript
As Israeli tanks and other ground forces enter Gaza, we speak with a doctor in the besieged territory. Dr. Hammam Alloh is working at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in the area, and says tens of thousands of people have sought shelter to escape Israel’s heavy bombardment. He describes making harrowing decisions with rapidly dwindling supplies, such as not resuscitating a patient who went into cardiac arrest because of a lack of ventilators. He also remains steadfast in staying at the hospital, despite Israeli demands to evacuate south. “You think I went to medical school and for my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years so I think only about my life and not my patients?” he says. “This is not the reason why I became a doctor.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Top United Nations officials are expressing growing alarm over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as the enclave’s last remaining hospitals are on the verge of shutting down due to a lack of fuel, as Israel intensifies its ground invasion while rejecting growing calls for a humanitarian ceasefire. Palestinian health officials say over 8,500 people, mostly women and children, have been killed over the past 26 days. The head of UNICEF said, “The lack of clean water and safe sanitation is on the verge of becoming a catastrophe.” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestine refugees, repeated his call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, saying it’s, quote, “become a matter of life and death for millions.”
PHILIPPE LAZZARINI: The current siege imposed on Gaza is collective punishment. Two weeks of full siege followed by the trickle of aid last week mean that basic services are crumbling, medicine is running out, food and water are running out, fuel is running out. The streets of Gaza have started overflowing with sewage, which will cause a massive health hazard very soon.
AMY GOODMAN: In north Gaza, Israel attacked areas next to the Indonesian Hospital Monday, where Dr. Moaeen al-Masry said the staff is struggling to treat patients.
DR. MOAEEN AL-MASRY: [translated] The damage has been caused to more than one area in this unit. The damage has directly led to the disconnection of the electricity line of this unit. As you know, this means no electricity for the patients and injured here, which directly threatens their lives and could lead to the death of many of these patients. … In a few hours from now, the power will be cut due to the limited fuel available in the generators. Running out of fuel means power will be cut, meaning certain death for many of the patients in the ICU, some of whom need respirators, as well as patients in the surgical suites and patients in other units who numbered around 240 or 250.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Gaza City, where we’re joined by Dr. Hammam Alloh, who works at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza.
Dr. Alloh, thanks so much for joining us. I know you’ve just left the hospital a few minutes ago. You told Jewish Currents yesterday, “I had to stop the resuscitation of a patient who went into cardiac arrest in the dialysis unit, because if she made it back to life, we had no ventilator to offer her. We have to prioritize patients who are younger, healthier. We have lost the ability to provide true care.” If you can talk about the situation right now at your hospital and overall?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Hey. Thank you for contacting me.
This is not an incident I would really love to keep remembering, but this is — what you just said was exactly what happened to me. As physicians, we are trained to resuscitate patients who go into cardiac arrest, hoping they would make it back again to life, and consequently put them on ventilators to help them live again, go back to life. But I had to stop my co-nurses and my physicians from doing this. They asked me, “Why are you asking us to stop resuscitating the patients? It’s like you’re asking us to kill her.” I told them, “We have no better options. We have no other choices, because in case she makes it back to life, we have no ventilators to offer her. And if there is any, we would prevent a younger, healthier injured patient from entertaining that victory — I mean the ventilator.” So, I don’t know if you would imagine the amount of regret, the amount of sadness I’m living with since this happened with me, but I’m sorry to say there was no better options to go for except stopping that resuscitation.
And if this tells us anything, this tells us how things are really getting worse and worse. I was talking to a journalist an hour ago or so, and he kept asking me, “You told me a week earlier that things are bad. And are these now the same? Because you’re telling me things are very bad, as well, now.” I told him, “Yeah, this was probably a very strange answer from my side, because things were really bad one, two weeks into war, but now they are getting really worse.” We have patients admitted to emergency departments where they shouldn’t be admitted, where there should be vacant beds for newcomers, for new patients. We have patients admitted to dialysis unit. You know, dialysis unit is a closed unit where you offer a service, and when you’re done with your patients, you close your doors. But we can’t do this anymore. We are allowing people to live in the unit, actually. And we are admitting now patients who need care other than dialysis patients.
As the few trucks that were allowed in with aid to Gazan people actually is almost nothing compared to what we need, and there was — many of the contents of these trucks that were allowed into Gaza had water, gloves and gauze, and this is not what we are looking for. We are looking for devices, medications, things of really major help and concern for providing real healthcare for people in need. Number of injured patients is increasing. The number of people with chronic medical illnesses who need regular follow-up and regular maintenance of and the provision of medications is increasing. We are not capable of providing the care, other than keeping people dying from death. This is the only thing we can do. And we can’t properly provide this care, because we are getting — we are running out of medications and supply.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Hammam Alloh, you’ve said, “Every day, I see a fear in their eyes that I can’t do much about. It’s very painful. If you have kids, you know how horrible it is not to be able to comfort them, to ensure they are alright, to make them hope for anything beyond living one more day.” If you can talk about that in the hospital, which, as you said, is not just a hospital for sick people? Thousands are taking refuge at Al-Shifa and al-Quds and the other hospitals. And also, we’re talking to you as you just left Al-Shifa. How do you comfort your family? What’s happening to your family as you’re at the hospital?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: I tell them at least we still have a house with a door to close. But many thousand refugees, people like us, who used to live in dignity have no longer houses and no doors to close to protect them as they are surrounded by wastewater, by garbage. They don’t have a liquid, continuous supply of clean water to drink. Many of them have a lot of missing members of their families. They don’t know if they are alive or not. I tell them at least we still have a house to live in, but they don’t have. And surprisingly, my 4- and 5-year-old kids, they accept this as a comfort, as a better situation compared to those refugees living — they are living actually in hospitals, but it’s not like they are living inside the hospital departments. Many of them do not have enough space to go into hospital hallways, so they are living around the buildings and in the garden. So, yeah, surprisingly, my very young kids accept this.
AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli military has dropped thousands of pamphlets warning people where you are, in northern Gaza, to leave. Why don’t you go with your family south?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: And if I go, who treats my patients? We are not animals. We have the right to receive proper healthcare. So we can’t just leave.
AMY GOODMAN: The World Health Organization talked about this issue of telling doctors to leave their patients, choosing your own lives over your patients. Can you talk about that choice, since so many patients can’t leave — for example, babies in incubators?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: You think I went to medical school and for my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years so I think only about my life and not my patients? I’m asking you, Ma’am. Do you think this is the reason I went to med school, to think only about my life? This is not the reason why I became a doctor.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what’s happening to the hospitals? Just in our headlines today, we talked about, and in the last few days, the attack on the Indonesia Hospital. The Turkish Hospital is the only cancer hospital?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the significance of these places, both as a sanctuary, thousands of people taking refuge, and for patients?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Yeah. Indonesian Hospital is providing healthcare for over 400,000 citizens in the Gaza Strip. And this part of the Gaza Strip is being split from the rest of the Gaza Strip. If this hospital stops providing care, so we are exposing many thousand Palestinian souls to the dangers of disease and death.
Turkish Hospital, with its very modest capabilities even before war, was the only hospital providing care and medications for cancer patients from around the Gaza Strip. It was airstruck yesterday. I don’t know how many patients and healthcare professionals were wounded. And many patients are dying now because they are not safe with their families to go to receive care and to continue their chemotherapy.
Ministry of Health has declared two hours ago also that the electricity would be cut off from Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital, representing 40% of the healthcare power in the Gaza Strip and providing services for many machine-dependent patients, like the ventilated patients and the hemodialysis patients. So, if electricity is cut out from this hospital, so we are directly deciding those patients are going to necessarily die. Ventilated patients will die in minutes. Dialysis patients will die in hours to days after stopping their hemodialysis. Many patients are now being treated with the modest supplies we have. Many diabetic patients are now being admitted to hospital because of their insulin is not being kept in the refrigerator, so it’s not working. We are out — we ran out of many medications, like antifungal medications. We have a patient who died earlier this week with mucormycosis. This is an invasive, ugly type of fungal infection that killed her because we had no amphotericin to offer her. So, my very simple answer to your question is that death is coming to so many people in the Gaza Strip, in hours to days, if this continues the same way it’s going on.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Alloh, the Middle East Eye reports on a baby who died, says, “His death certificate has been issued before his birth certificate.” A 1-day-old baby has been killed by Israeli bombing in Gaza. Israel, the military, the government, says that Al-Shifa, your hospital, is Hamas —
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — the site of Hamas command and control. Can you respond to that, Dr. Alloh?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: I’ve been working this hospital for over two years, and I never saw this. So, I’m no lawyer, I’m no attorney, but this is how I am simply replying. I never saw this for over two years. If this is true, I would see at least a clue.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about the shipments of aid coming in. Normally, in normal times — if there’s ever a normal time in Gaza — over 400 trucks a day. We’re talking about a trickle of trucks now, maybe a dozen, maybe eight in a day. Have you ever seen this aid arriving at the hospital? And can you talk about what you need right now?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Well, that number you just mentioned that was allowed into Gaza Strip is actually — is actually what you were referring to. It is nothing compared to what we need, nothing compared to the shortage in supplies, machines and medications we are in need for. The only thing, came just as I was leaving the hospital today, was a carton of IV fluid bottles. This is the only thing I saw. And I don’t really know if this came through the aid trucks in the few couple of days, or that was from the stores of the Ministry of Health. In addition, I happened to ask about in the hospital administration, and what they mentioned that was all about the gloves and gauze. And this is not what we are actually only in need for. This is what maybe the least we care for, the least we are in need for. So this is, again, nothing compared to what we are in need for in terms of supplies and medications.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Dr. Hammam Alloh, your message at this point to the United States, where we’re based, and to the world?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Actually, the message hasn’t changed since the beginning of this war. First, we need this war to end, because we are real humans. We are no animals. We have the right to live freely.
Second, if you were, and your citizens, to live under these circumstances, what would you do for them? This is what we exactly would like you to do for us as a superpower country, as the United States, because we are really as human as your U.S. citizens are.
We were expecting more — earlier, I mean, solutions for that humanitarian and healthcare catastrophes and the crises, but what we are seeing, mainly through trucks allowed into Gaza, is nothing compared to us. So, we are being exterminated. We are being massly eradicated. And you pretend to care for humanitarian and human rights, which is not what we are living now. To prove us wrong, please do something. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Hammam Alloh, speaking to us from Gaza City, where he works at the largest hospital, Al-Shifa Hospital. Please be safe.
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: I hope I will be. Let’s hope, both together, I will be. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you. Coming up, we speak to the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, author of many books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Palestine Will Be Free” by the Lebanese Swedish singer Maher Zain, who sung at an Istanbul solidarity protest on Saturday.
*************************
Israeli Historian Ilan Pappé on Gaza War, Hostages & the Context Behind Current Violence
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 31, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/31 ... transcript
We speak with Israeli historian Ilan Pappé about Israel’s escalating war on Gaza, as well as a leaked document from the country’s Ministry of Intelligence that suggests permanently expelling Gaza’s entire population to the Sinai Desert in Egypt. “This is a massive operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing, of depopulation,” says Pappé. He also says the only way to secure the release of the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas is to agree to an all-for-all swap for the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners held by Israel, including many women, children and elderly people. “This is the only way to release the people who were taken.” Pappé is a leading critic of the Israeli occupation, a professor of history and the director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. His books include The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples and The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Internal Israeli government documents have revealed the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence is recommending the forcible transfer of the entire population of Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. The 10-page document, which is dated October 13th, has been published in full by the Israeli news outlets Local Call and +972. The document recommends transferring all Palestinians to Egypt, then setting up a, quote, “sterile” zone of several kilometers near the border between Egypt and Gaza. In addition, the document recommends Israel then prevent the, quote, “return of the population to activities/residences near the border with Israel,” unquote.
Fears of a new Nakba, or Catastrophe, have been growing ever since Israel ordered all Palestinians living in Gaza City and in north Gaza to vacate their homes and head south. On Monday, Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour accused Israel of trying to depopulate Gaza.
RIYAD MANSOUR: They want to depopulate the Gaza Strip completely from the entire population and throw them in the lap of Egypt in the Sinai Desert. … No one should justify our killing or find reasons to give more time to the killer. Call for an end of this assault on an entire nation. Stop the killings in the West Bank by settlers and occupation forces and the forced displacement underway there.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Haifa in Israel, where we’re joined by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé. He’s professor of history and the director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. He’s the author of several books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, as well as The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge. Fifty years ago, Ilan Pappé fought in the Israeli military during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, has since become a leading critic of Israel’s occupation.
Professor Pappé, welcome back to Democracy Now!
ILAN PAPPÉ: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can start off by talking about your take on what’s happening today? You just heard the doctor in Gaza, who just left Al-Shifa a few minutes ago.
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes, I think — Amy, it’s good to be back on your program. Thank you for having me.
I think what we are seeing now, what unfolds in front of our eyes, is a genocidal situation, by which people are targeted, whether they are children, babies, in hospital or in schools. And this is a massive operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing, of depopulation. The pretext for that kind of savagery is revenge for what the Hamas did on the 7th of October, but I think the real intention here is not just revenge but trying to exploit what happened on the 7th of October to create new realities in historical Palestine. You called it a new Nakba. I think that this is — the Nakba has never really ended for the Palestinians, so it’s a new horrific chapter in the ongoing Nakba that the Palestinians are suffering here. So, this is a really horrific situation that can only be stopped from the outside, because there is no motivation inside Israel to stop the operations, nor to care more about the lives of innocent people, despite what the Israeli army claims to do in the field itself.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to play a short clip of Prime Minister Netanyahu speaking over the weekend.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember, and we are fighting. Our brave troops and combatants, who are now in Gaza or around Gaza and in all other regions in Israel, are joining this chain of Jewish heroes, a chain that has started 3,000 years ago, from Joshua ben Nun until the heroes of 1948, the Six-Day War, the ’73 October War and all other wars in this country. Our hero troops, they have one supreme main goal: to completely defeat the murderous enemy and to guarantee our existence in this country. We have always said, “Never again.” Never again is now.
AMY GOODMAN: And I want to play Netanyahu from last night.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. That will not happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you respond to the Israeli prime minister, Professor Pappé?
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes. I think the main attempt here is to make sure that people do not understand the context in which the Hamas operation occurred, to totally dishistoricize that event, to forget about the 15 years of inhuman siege on Gaza, of 56 years of a ruthless occupation and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and 75 years of not allowing refugees to come back to their homes. I think this is an attempt to Nazify the Palestinians, which is not new, by the way. The Israelis, every now and then, use it. If you remember, Menachem Begin compared Yasser Arafat in the bunker in 1982 to Hitler in the bunker. The Nazification of the Palestinians is meant to, first of all, license Israeli policies without any consideration to international law or human rights, and, secondly, to divert us from talking about the real issue here, which is not the Hamas or its actions on the 7th of October, but rather the situation that bred this kind of violence. Rather than talking about the symptom of violence, we should talk about the source of violence. And the source of violence has not changed. We have millions of Palestinians for years being oppressed, ruled and controlled by Israel, and they are fighting with the means that they have. And this is going to go on, unless, of course, there is a willingness to go back to the negotiation table and ask why the violence erupted in the first place and what are the best ways to prevent another cycle of violence in the future.
There’s a second reason for Netanyahu’s rhetoric. Of course, he doesn’t want the Israeli media or the international community to deal with his own problems, that were very acute before the 7th of October, and to say, “This is now a situation where you cannot at all — well, this is a domestic issue. You cannot talk about me or my failures. This is a moment of existential threat to Israel.” And therefore, this kind of rhetoric will continue. And it’s very dangerous, not to mention the fact that it abuses — when they use the Holocaust, it abuses the Holocaust memory, because with all the horror of what happened on the 7th of October, this is not the Holocaust. And there’s no comparison between Palestinians, who act after years of oppression and siege, to Nazis, who just target Jews because they are Jews. There’s no comparison. This whole language is not the one to be used. And I think that Netanyahu is trying to galvanize a very vindictive Israel behind him. And the results of this kind of policy are unfolding in front of our eyes, and we just had this horrific and very moving kind of report that you had with the doctor from Gaza before me.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Pappé, can you talk about the hostage families? They don’t get a lot of attention, what they’re calling for, though they get tremendous attention for who these hostages are, and the people who were killed on October 7th. But there are many. For example, we interviewed Noy Katsman, the brother of Hayim, who was killed by Hamas on October 7th. He said his brother was a peace activist, and he himself said, “Not in my brother’s name.” He called for a ceasefire. And I wanted to ask you about this force of the hostage families and about the everybody-for-everybody proposal. On Friday, just after we got off the broadcast, it said, you know, “imminent major release.” And some thought that Netanyahu was pushing forward with the invasion more quickly because he didn’t want this possibility to happen. But explain the proposal of all hostages, over 200 of them, in return for all Palestinian prisoners, and who these prisoners are, close to 7,000 of them.
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes, I think that not everybody among the families, because I don’t think they’re all made of the same cloth, but many of them understand that the only way to bring their dear ones back home is this kind of an exchange of prisoners. We are talking about thousands of Palestinians who are incarcerated in Israeli jails, many of them without trials. And they are kind of — the allegations against them vary, from actual participation in guerrilla or violent actions against Israeli citizens or soldiers, and those who are incarcerated for being a member of a Palestinian organization. Some of them are very young. Some of them are women. Some of them are very old and have been there for a very long time. And some of them were just recently incarcerated without trial in the West Bank. They are all part of the Palestinian liberation movement. And it needs a very different Israeli perception of the Palestinian struggle and those who participated in its struggle to be able to say, indeed, this is only way forward — namely, to release all of them, to the last one, and receive all of the people who were taken by the Hamas on the 7th of October.
What I can tell you, Amy, which is very interesting, is that former generals in the Israeli army, former heads of the Israeli Mossad and Shabak, the secret service, are supporting this kind of exchange. And this is a very important position that they are holding. And that may explain the fear on Netanyahu’s side to let this issue extend longer, because the voices that are calling for such an exchange are not coming from the extreme Israeli left or the liberal Zionists. They’re coming from some very powerful people, who were heading some of Israel’s most important institutions, such as the Mossad, the army and the secret service.
Will it take place? I don’t know. It depends very much on how things unfold on the ground itself with the invasion, that nobody in Israel gives the Israeli public any details of how it goes on, but it seems that it doesn’t go as well as the Israelis claim it does, and depends a lot, of course, on the international community, because quite a few of the people who are held by the Hamas have also dual citizenship. But there’s no doubt, Amy, this is the only way to release the people who were taken on Saturday. Neither Israeli commando salvage operation nor piecemeal deal will bring all the people back. This is a situation where you can solve the problem and not delay it for another five or six years, with babies and old people who might not survive a long stay in captivity.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Pappé, you were born to German Jewish parents who fled German persecution, the Nazis, in the 1930s. You fought in 1973 in the Israeli military. Can you talk about your life trajectory and how you came to write a book talking about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and the response in Israeli society, your university, University of Haifa, and how you ended up at Exeter?
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes, it was — Amy, it was a journey. There was no one moment of epiphany or awakening that makes you actually take positions which will frame you as a traitor in your own society, and definitely would leave you with no reference group in your own society. For me, it was a journey that had many important stations, such as spending some time as a postgraduate student outside of Israel; having an Arab supervisor; looking, as an historian who was interested in the history of my own country, in the documentation that became available about 1948. So, all these possibilities outside to meet Palestinians on equal footing, to be able to research as a professional historian history or documentation that revealed evidence that contradicted, in a very significant way, the narrative on which I grew up on, all this led me to a moment where I thought that I understand what is going on in historical Palestine, what went on in historical Palestine. And I saw quite clearly, at least from my perspective, who were the victimizers, who were the victim, who was the colonizer, who was the colonized, who was the ethnic cleanser, and who was the victims of ethnic cleansing.
And because my parents came from Germany, and because we lost a lot of people in the Holocaust, exactly because of that legacy, I felt I could not be indifferent to the suffering of the Palestinians, nor did I want to be part of the society that caused this suffering. And I think that as the years go by and the research becomes more and more intensive, and my understanding and relationship with the Palestinians become increased and widened, I am even more confident today than I was in the early years of my career, either as an activist or as a professional historian, that I’m very at peace with my moral positions toward Israel and Zionism.
In 2006, that position led to pressure from my university to leave the university and to resign. So I had no choice. I had to resign, and I had to leave. I was very lucky to be offered a position in a university in Britain, where I founded the Centre for Palestine Studies. I am still a citizen of Israel. I’m still going to Israel and spending time in Israel and spending time in Britain, trying to divide between the two places. And I still believe that what I cherish as human rights, as human morality, is the only basis for better life for everyone concerned, Jews and Palestinians alike, in a state in the future that would be based on equality, that would not discriminate against people because of their nationality, religion or culture, and one which will rectify past evils and would allow refugees to return, and hopefully build a state that would radiate and influence the Middle East as a whole.
AMY GOODMAN: Ilan Pappé, we want to thank you for being with us, professor of history, director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter, author of many books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and Gaza in Crisis, which he co-wrote with Noam Chomsky.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 31, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/31 ... transcript
As Israeli tanks and other ground forces enter Gaza, we speak with a doctor in the besieged territory. Dr. Hammam Alloh is working at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in the area, and says tens of thousands of people have sought shelter to escape Israel’s heavy bombardment. He describes making harrowing decisions with rapidly dwindling supplies, such as not resuscitating a patient who went into cardiac arrest because of a lack of ventilators. He also remains steadfast in staying at the hospital, despite Israeli demands to evacuate south. “You think I went to medical school and for my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years so I think only about my life and not my patients?” he says. “This is not the reason why I became a doctor.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Top United Nations officials are expressing growing alarm over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as the enclave’s last remaining hospitals are on the verge of shutting down due to a lack of fuel, as Israel intensifies its ground invasion while rejecting growing calls for a humanitarian ceasefire. Palestinian health officials say over 8,500 people, mostly women and children, have been killed over the past 26 days. The head of UNICEF said, “The lack of clean water and safe sanitation is on the verge of becoming a catastrophe.” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestine refugees, repeated his call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, saying it’s, quote, “become a matter of life and death for millions.”
PHILIPPE LAZZARINI: The current siege imposed on Gaza is collective punishment. Two weeks of full siege followed by the trickle of aid last week mean that basic services are crumbling, medicine is running out, food and water are running out, fuel is running out. The streets of Gaza have started overflowing with sewage, which will cause a massive health hazard very soon.
AMY GOODMAN: In north Gaza, Israel attacked areas next to the Indonesian Hospital Monday, where Dr. Moaeen al-Masry said the staff is struggling to treat patients.
DR. MOAEEN AL-MASRY: [translated] The damage has been caused to more than one area in this unit. The damage has directly led to the disconnection of the electricity line of this unit. As you know, this means no electricity for the patients and injured here, which directly threatens their lives and could lead to the death of many of these patients. … In a few hours from now, the power will be cut due to the limited fuel available in the generators. Running out of fuel means power will be cut, meaning certain death for many of the patients in the ICU, some of whom need respirators, as well as patients in the surgical suites and patients in other units who numbered around 240 or 250.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Gaza City, where we’re joined by Dr. Hammam Alloh, who works at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza.
Dr. Alloh, thanks so much for joining us. I know you’ve just left the hospital a few minutes ago. You told Jewish Currents yesterday, “I had to stop the resuscitation of a patient who went into cardiac arrest in the dialysis unit, because if she made it back to life, we had no ventilator to offer her. We have to prioritize patients who are younger, healthier. We have lost the ability to provide true care.” If you can talk about the situation right now at your hospital and overall?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Hey. Thank you for contacting me.
This is not an incident I would really love to keep remembering, but this is — what you just said was exactly what happened to me. As physicians, we are trained to resuscitate patients who go into cardiac arrest, hoping they would make it back again to life, and consequently put them on ventilators to help them live again, go back to life. But I had to stop my co-nurses and my physicians from doing this. They asked me, “Why are you asking us to stop resuscitating the patients? It’s like you’re asking us to kill her.” I told them, “We have no better options. We have no other choices, because in case she makes it back to life, we have no ventilators to offer her. And if there is any, we would prevent a younger, healthier injured patient from entertaining that victory — I mean the ventilator.” So, I don’t know if you would imagine the amount of regret, the amount of sadness I’m living with since this happened with me, but I’m sorry to say there was no better options to go for except stopping that resuscitation.
And if this tells us anything, this tells us how things are really getting worse and worse. I was talking to a journalist an hour ago or so, and he kept asking me, “You told me a week earlier that things are bad. And are these now the same? Because you’re telling me things are very bad, as well, now.” I told him, “Yeah, this was probably a very strange answer from my side, because things were really bad one, two weeks into war, but now they are getting really worse.” We have patients admitted to emergency departments where they shouldn’t be admitted, where there should be vacant beds for newcomers, for new patients. We have patients admitted to dialysis unit. You know, dialysis unit is a closed unit where you offer a service, and when you’re done with your patients, you close your doors. But we can’t do this anymore. We are allowing people to live in the unit, actually. And we are admitting now patients who need care other than dialysis patients.
As the few trucks that were allowed in with aid to Gazan people actually is almost nothing compared to what we need, and there was — many of the contents of these trucks that were allowed into Gaza had water, gloves and gauze, and this is not what we are looking for. We are looking for devices, medications, things of really major help and concern for providing real healthcare for people in need. Number of injured patients is increasing. The number of people with chronic medical illnesses who need regular follow-up and regular maintenance of and the provision of medications is increasing. We are not capable of providing the care, other than keeping people dying from death. This is the only thing we can do. And we can’t properly provide this care, because we are getting — we are running out of medications and supply.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Hammam Alloh, you’ve said, “Every day, I see a fear in their eyes that I can’t do much about. It’s very painful. If you have kids, you know how horrible it is not to be able to comfort them, to ensure they are alright, to make them hope for anything beyond living one more day.” If you can talk about that in the hospital, which, as you said, is not just a hospital for sick people? Thousands are taking refuge at Al-Shifa and al-Quds and the other hospitals. And also, we’re talking to you as you just left Al-Shifa. How do you comfort your family? What’s happening to your family as you’re at the hospital?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: I tell them at least we still have a house with a door to close. But many thousand refugees, people like us, who used to live in dignity have no longer houses and no doors to close to protect them as they are surrounded by wastewater, by garbage. They don’t have a liquid, continuous supply of clean water to drink. Many of them have a lot of missing members of their families. They don’t know if they are alive or not. I tell them at least we still have a house to live in, but they don’t have. And surprisingly, my 4- and 5-year-old kids, they accept this as a comfort, as a better situation compared to those refugees living — they are living actually in hospitals, but it’s not like they are living inside the hospital departments. Many of them do not have enough space to go into hospital hallways, so they are living around the buildings and in the garden. So, yeah, surprisingly, my very young kids accept this.
AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli military has dropped thousands of pamphlets warning people where you are, in northern Gaza, to leave. Why don’t you go with your family south?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: And if I go, who treats my patients? We are not animals. We have the right to receive proper healthcare. So we can’t just leave.
AMY GOODMAN: The World Health Organization talked about this issue of telling doctors to leave their patients, choosing your own lives over your patients. Can you talk about that choice, since so many patients can’t leave — for example, babies in incubators?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: You think I went to medical school and for my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years so I think only about my life and not my patients? I’m asking you, Ma’am. Do you think this is the reason I went to med school, to think only about my life? This is not the reason why I became a doctor.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what’s happening to the hospitals? Just in our headlines today, we talked about, and in the last few days, the attack on the Indonesia Hospital. The Turkish Hospital is the only cancer hospital?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the significance of these places, both as a sanctuary, thousands of people taking refuge, and for patients?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Yeah. Indonesian Hospital is providing healthcare for over 400,000 citizens in the Gaza Strip. And this part of the Gaza Strip is being split from the rest of the Gaza Strip. If this hospital stops providing care, so we are exposing many thousand Palestinian souls to the dangers of disease and death.
Turkish Hospital, with its very modest capabilities even before war, was the only hospital providing care and medications for cancer patients from around the Gaza Strip. It was airstruck yesterday. I don’t know how many patients and healthcare professionals were wounded. And many patients are dying now because they are not safe with their families to go to receive care and to continue their chemotherapy.
Ministry of Health has declared two hours ago also that the electricity would be cut off from Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital, representing 40% of the healthcare power in the Gaza Strip and providing services for many machine-dependent patients, like the ventilated patients and the hemodialysis patients. So, if electricity is cut out from this hospital, so we are directly deciding those patients are going to necessarily die. Ventilated patients will die in minutes. Dialysis patients will die in hours to days after stopping their hemodialysis. Many patients are now being treated with the modest supplies we have. Many diabetic patients are now being admitted to hospital because of their insulin is not being kept in the refrigerator, so it’s not working. We are out — we ran out of many medications, like antifungal medications. We have a patient who died earlier this week with mucormycosis. This is an invasive, ugly type of fungal infection that killed her because we had no amphotericin to offer her. So, my very simple answer to your question is that death is coming to so many people in the Gaza Strip, in hours to days, if this continues the same way it’s going on.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Alloh, the Middle East Eye reports on a baby who died, says, “His death certificate has been issued before his birth certificate.” A 1-day-old baby has been killed by Israeli bombing in Gaza. Israel, the military, the government, says that Al-Shifa, your hospital, is Hamas —
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — the site of Hamas command and control. Can you respond to that, Dr. Alloh?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: I’ve been working this hospital for over two years, and I never saw this. So, I’m no lawyer, I’m no attorney, but this is how I am simply replying. I never saw this for over two years. If this is true, I would see at least a clue.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about the shipments of aid coming in. Normally, in normal times — if there’s ever a normal time in Gaza — over 400 trucks a day. We’re talking about a trickle of trucks now, maybe a dozen, maybe eight in a day. Have you ever seen this aid arriving at the hospital? And can you talk about what you need right now?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Well, that number you just mentioned that was allowed into Gaza Strip is actually — is actually what you were referring to. It is nothing compared to what we need, nothing compared to the shortage in supplies, machines and medications we are in need for. The only thing, came just as I was leaving the hospital today, was a carton of IV fluid bottles. This is the only thing I saw. And I don’t really know if this came through the aid trucks in the few couple of days, or that was from the stores of the Ministry of Health. In addition, I happened to ask about in the hospital administration, and what they mentioned that was all about the gloves and gauze. And this is not what we are actually only in need for. This is what maybe the least we care for, the least we are in need for. So this is, again, nothing compared to what we are in need for in terms of supplies and medications.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Dr. Hammam Alloh, your message at this point to the United States, where we’re based, and to the world?
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Actually, the message hasn’t changed since the beginning of this war. First, we need this war to end, because we are real humans. We are no animals. We have the right to live freely.
Second, if you were, and your citizens, to live under these circumstances, what would you do for them? This is what we exactly would like you to do for us as a superpower country, as the United States, because we are really as human as your U.S. citizens are.
We were expecting more — earlier, I mean, solutions for that humanitarian and healthcare catastrophes and the crises, but what we are seeing, mainly through trucks allowed into Gaza, is nothing compared to us. So, we are being exterminated. We are being massly eradicated. And you pretend to care for humanitarian and human rights, which is not what we are living now. To prove us wrong, please do something. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Hammam Alloh, speaking to us from Gaza City, where he works at the largest hospital, Al-Shifa Hospital. Please be safe.
DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: I hope I will be. Let’s hope, both together, I will be. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you. Coming up, we speak to the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, author of many books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Palestine Will Be Free” by the Lebanese Swedish singer Maher Zain, who sung at an Istanbul solidarity protest on Saturday.
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Israeli Historian Ilan Pappé on Gaza War, Hostages & the Context Behind Current Violence
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 31, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/31 ... transcript
We speak with Israeli historian Ilan Pappé about Israel’s escalating war on Gaza, as well as a leaked document from the country’s Ministry of Intelligence that suggests permanently expelling Gaza’s entire population to the Sinai Desert in Egypt. “This is a massive operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing, of depopulation,” says Pappé. He also says the only way to secure the release of the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas is to agree to an all-for-all swap for the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners held by Israel, including many women, children and elderly people. “This is the only way to release the people who were taken.” Pappé is a leading critic of the Israeli occupation, a professor of history and the director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. His books include The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples and The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Internal Israeli government documents have revealed the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence is recommending the forcible transfer of the entire population of Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. The 10-page document, which is dated October 13th, has been published in full by the Israeli news outlets Local Call and +972. The document recommends transferring all Palestinians to Egypt, then setting up a, quote, “sterile” zone of several kilometers near the border between Egypt and Gaza. In addition, the document recommends Israel then prevent the, quote, “return of the population to activities/residences near the border with Israel,” unquote.
Fears of a new Nakba, or Catastrophe, have been growing ever since Israel ordered all Palestinians living in Gaza City and in north Gaza to vacate their homes and head south. On Monday, Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour accused Israel of trying to depopulate Gaza.
RIYAD MANSOUR: They want to depopulate the Gaza Strip completely from the entire population and throw them in the lap of Egypt in the Sinai Desert. … No one should justify our killing or find reasons to give more time to the killer. Call for an end of this assault on an entire nation. Stop the killings in the West Bank by settlers and occupation forces and the forced displacement underway there.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Haifa in Israel, where we’re joined by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé. He’s professor of history and the director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. He’s the author of several books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, as well as The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge. Fifty years ago, Ilan Pappé fought in the Israeli military during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, has since become a leading critic of Israel’s occupation.
Professor Pappé, welcome back to Democracy Now!
ILAN PAPPÉ: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can start off by talking about your take on what’s happening today? You just heard the doctor in Gaza, who just left Al-Shifa a few minutes ago.
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes, I think — Amy, it’s good to be back on your program. Thank you for having me.
I think what we are seeing now, what unfolds in front of our eyes, is a genocidal situation, by which people are targeted, whether they are children, babies, in hospital or in schools. And this is a massive operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing, of depopulation. The pretext for that kind of savagery is revenge for what the Hamas did on the 7th of October, but I think the real intention here is not just revenge but trying to exploit what happened on the 7th of October to create new realities in historical Palestine. You called it a new Nakba. I think that this is — the Nakba has never really ended for the Palestinians, so it’s a new horrific chapter in the ongoing Nakba that the Palestinians are suffering here. So, this is a really horrific situation that can only be stopped from the outside, because there is no motivation inside Israel to stop the operations, nor to care more about the lives of innocent people, despite what the Israeli army claims to do in the field itself.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to play a short clip of Prime Minister Netanyahu speaking over the weekend.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember, and we are fighting. Our brave troops and combatants, who are now in Gaza or around Gaza and in all other regions in Israel, are joining this chain of Jewish heroes, a chain that has started 3,000 years ago, from Joshua ben Nun until the heroes of 1948, the Six-Day War, the ’73 October War and all other wars in this country. Our hero troops, they have one supreme main goal: to completely defeat the murderous enemy and to guarantee our existence in this country. We have always said, “Never again.” Never again is now.
AMY GOODMAN: And I want to play Netanyahu from last night.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. That will not happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you respond to the Israeli prime minister, Professor Pappé?
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes. I think the main attempt here is to make sure that people do not understand the context in which the Hamas operation occurred, to totally dishistoricize that event, to forget about the 15 years of inhuman siege on Gaza, of 56 years of a ruthless occupation and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and 75 years of not allowing refugees to come back to their homes. I think this is an attempt to Nazify the Palestinians, which is not new, by the way. The Israelis, every now and then, use it. If you remember, Menachem Begin compared Yasser Arafat in the bunker in 1982 to Hitler in the bunker. The Nazification of the Palestinians is meant to, first of all, license Israeli policies without any consideration to international law or human rights, and, secondly, to divert us from talking about the real issue here, which is not the Hamas or its actions on the 7th of October, but rather the situation that bred this kind of violence. Rather than talking about the symptom of violence, we should talk about the source of violence. And the source of violence has not changed. We have millions of Palestinians for years being oppressed, ruled and controlled by Israel, and they are fighting with the means that they have. And this is going to go on, unless, of course, there is a willingness to go back to the negotiation table and ask why the violence erupted in the first place and what are the best ways to prevent another cycle of violence in the future.
There’s a second reason for Netanyahu’s rhetoric. Of course, he doesn’t want the Israeli media or the international community to deal with his own problems, that were very acute before the 7th of October, and to say, “This is now a situation where you cannot at all — well, this is a domestic issue. You cannot talk about me or my failures. This is a moment of existential threat to Israel.” And therefore, this kind of rhetoric will continue. And it’s very dangerous, not to mention the fact that it abuses — when they use the Holocaust, it abuses the Holocaust memory, because with all the horror of what happened on the 7th of October, this is not the Holocaust. And there’s no comparison between Palestinians, who act after years of oppression and siege, to Nazis, who just target Jews because they are Jews. There’s no comparison. This whole language is not the one to be used. And I think that Netanyahu is trying to galvanize a very vindictive Israel behind him. And the results of this kind of policy are unfolding in front of our eyes, and we just had this horrific and very moving kind of report that you had with the doctor from Gaza before me.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Pappé, can you talk about the hostage families? They don’t get a lot of attention, what they’re calling for, though they get tremendous attention for who these hostages are, and the people who were killed on October 7th. But there are many. For example, we interviewed Noy Katsman, the brother of Hayim, who was killed by Hamas on October 7th. He said his brother was a peace activist, and he himself said, “Not in my brother’s name.” He called for a ceasefire. And I wanted to ask you about this force of the hostage families and about the everybody-for-everybody proposal. On Friday, just after we got off the broadcast, it said, you know, “imminent major release.” And some thought that Netanyahu was pushing forward with the invasion more quickly because he didn’t want this possibility to happen. But explain the proposal of all hostages, over 200 of them, in return for all Palestinian prisoners, and who these prisoners are, close to 7,000 of them.
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes, I think that not everybody among the families, because I don’t think they’re all made of the same cloth, but many of them understand that the only way to bring their dear ones back home is this kind of an exchange of prisoners. We are talking about thousands of Palestinians who are incarcerated in Israeli jails, many of them without trials. And they are kind of — the allegations against them vary, from actual participation in guerrilla or violent actions against Israeli citizens or soldiers, and those who are incarcerated for being a member of a Palestinian organization. Some of them are very young. Some of them are women. Some of them are very old and have been there for a very long time. And some of them were just recently incarcerated without trial in the West Bank. They are all part of the Palestinian liberation movement. And it needs a very different Israeli perception of the Palestinian struggle and those who participated in its struggle to be able to say, indeed, this is only way forward — namely, to release all of them, to the last one, and receive all of the people who were taken by the Hamas on the 7th of October.
What I can tell you, Amy, which is very interesting, is that former generals in the Israeli army, former heads of the Israeli Mossad and Shabak, the secret service, are supporting this kind of exchange. And this is a very important position that they are holding. And that may explain the fear on Netanyahu’s side to let this issue extend longer, because the voices that are calling for such an exchange are not coming from the extreme Israeli left or the liberal Zionists. They’re coming from some very powerful people, who were heading some of Israel’s most important institutions, such as the Mossad, the army and the secret service.
Will it take place? I don’t know. It depends very much on how things unfold on the ground itself with the invasion, that nobody in Israel gives the Israeli public any details of how it goes on, but it seems that it doesn’t go as well as the Israelis claim it does, and depends a lot, of course, on the international community, because quite a few of the people who are held by the Hamas have also dual citizenship. But there’s no doubt, Amy, this is the only way to release the people who were taken on Saturday. Neither Israeli commando salvage operation nor piecemeal deal will bring all the people back. This is a situation where you can solve the problem and not delay it for another five or six years, with babies and old people who might not survive a long stay in captivity.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Pappé, you were born to German Jewish parents who fled German persecution, the Nazis, in the 1930s. You fought in 1973 in the Israeli military. Can you talk about your life trajectory and how you came to write a book talking about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and the response in Israeli society, your university, University of Haifa, and how you ended up at Exeter?
ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes, it was — Amy, it was a journey. There was no one moment of epiphany or awakening that makes you actually take positions which will frame you as a traitor in your own society, and definitely would leave you with no reference group in your own society. For me, it was a journey that had many important stations, such as spending some time as a postgraduate student outside of Israel; having an Arab supervisor; looking, as an historian who was interested in the history of my own country, in the documentation that became available about 1948. So, all these possibilities outside to meet Palestinians on equal footing, to be able to research as a professional historian history or documentation that revealed evidence that contradicted, in a very significant way, the narrative on which I grew up on, all this led me to a moment where I thought that I understand what is going on in historical Palestine, what went on in historical Palestine. And I saw quite clearly, at least from my perspective, who were the victimizers, who were the victim, who was the colonizer, who was the colonized, who was the ethnic cleanser, and who was the victims of ethnic cleansing.
And because my parents came from Germany, and because we lost a lot of people in the Holocaust, exactly because of that legacy, I felt I could not be indifferent to the suffering of the Palestinians, nor did I want to be part of the society that caused this suffering. And I think that as the years go by and the research becomes more and more intensive, and my understanding and relationship with the Palestinians become increased and widened, I am even more confident today than I was in the early years of my career, either as an activist or as a professional historian, that I’m very at peace with my moral positions toward Israel and Zionism.
In 2006, that position led to pressure from my university to leave the university and to resign. So I had no choice. I had to resign, and I had to leave. I was very lucky to be offered a position in a university in Britain, where I founded the Centre for Palestine Studies. I am still a citizen of Israel. I’m still going to Israel and spending time in Israel and spending time in Britain, trying to divide between the two places. And I still believe that what I cherish as human rights, as human morality, is the only basis for better life for everyone concerned, Jews and Palestinians alike, in a state in the future that would be based on equality, that would not discriminate against people because of their nationality, religion or culture, and one which will rectify past evils and would allow refugees to return, and hopefully build a state that would radiate and influence the Middle East as a whole.
AMY GOODMAN: Ilan Pappé, we want to thank you for being with us, professor of history, director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter, author of many books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and Gaza in Crisis, which he co-wrote with Noam Chomsky.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Sat Nov 04, 2023 12:12 am
“Horrific”: Resident of Jabaliya Refugee Camp Speaks Out After Israeli Airstrikes Kill Over 50
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 01, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/1/ ... transcript
We get an update on Gaza’s largest refugee camp, Jabaliya, which was hit by a massive Israeli airstrike Tuesday that destroyed housing blocks in the densely populated settlement and killed at least 50 Palestinians and wounded over 150 others. Israel claims it was targeting a Hamas commander accused of helping to orchestrate the militant group’s October 7 attack inside Israel. Yousef Hammash, who was born and raised in Jabaliya and is the advocacy officer in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council, describes it as a “small city within a city” and “one of the most crowded places on Earth.” Speaking from Khan Younis, Hammash also chronicles dire humanitarian conditions in the so-called safe southern region of Gaza and says he hopes his two young children “can see a brighter future.”
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.
Massive Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s largest refugee camp, Jabaliya, killed at least 50 Palestinians Tuesday and wounded over 150 others, sparking new outrage over Israel’s 26-day bombardment of the besieged territory. Israel bombed the refugee camp again today. Numerous residential buildings collapsed in Tuesday’s blast, trapping families under rubble. One engineer from Al Jazeera, Mohamed Abu Al-Qumsan, reportedly lost at least 18 members of his family, including his father and two of his sisters. A long line of dead bodies wrapped in white sheets were placed outside the Indonesian Hospital in the refugee camp, where doctors scrambled to treat survivors.
DR. SUAIB IDAIS: [translated] A large number of injured have come to us after the large explosion that shook the entire Jabaliya refugee camp. Hundreds of injuries, hundreds of martyrs. They were just sitting in their homes. They were targeted while they were in their homes. Children, all martyrs. Children, women, elderly. We have no idea what to do. There are injured everywhere. All the volunteers went down hand in hand just to help people.
AMY GOODMAN: Israeli officials acknowledged carrying out the airstrike on the refugee camp, describing it as a, quote, “wide-scale strike” targeting a Hamas commander accused of helping to orchestrate Hamas’s October 7th attack inside Israel that resulted in the deaths of about 1,400 people in Israel and the capture of over 220 hostages.
The attack on Jabaliya came as the United Nations and aid groups issued new dire warnings about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. James Elder of UNICEF said Gaza is becoming a “graveyard for children.”
JAMES ELDER: The numbers are appalling. Reportedly, now more than 3,450 children have been killed. Staggeringly, this number rises significantly every single day. Gaza has become a graveyard for children. It’s a living hell for everyone else. And yet the threats to children go beyond bombs and mortars. I want to speak briefly now on two of those: water and trauma. The more than 1 million children of Gaza have a critical water crisis. Gaza’s water production now, its capacity is at 5%, 5% of its daily output. So child deaths to dehydration, particularly infant deaths to dehydration, are a growing threat.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier today, the Rafah border crossing with Gaza was opened to allow dozens of Egyptian ambulances in to evacuate injured patients.
We go now to Gaza, where we’re joined by Yousef Hammash, advocacy officer in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council, who lives in the Gaza Strip with his wife and two children. He’s from the Jabaliya refugee camp but is joining us today from Khan Younis.
Yousef, thanks so much for joining us again. You grew up in, you were born in the Jabaliya refugee camp. Can you talk about the significance of what took place yesterday?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: So, yes, proudly, I’m born and raised in Jabaliya camp as a refugee. And Jabaliya camp was not a place that — for us to consider. It’s more than a place. And the place where they attacked is the center of the Jabaliya camp. It’s the heart of the camp. And everyone knows that Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Jabaliya camp is the most densely populated — the most densely populated place in Gaza. And so, people who doesn’t know how it’s Jabaliya camp, it’s a block of concrete. Houses are next to each other. And the widest street in Jabaliya camp is half a meter. And 90% of the houses are one roof. It’s one floor. And it’s one of the most crowded places on Earth.
The attack yesterday, the massive amount of casualties, it was, first of all, the massive bombardment, and also because it’s very populated place. And I don’t think, both, yeah, I mean, the Israelis really care about that, and they want to target someone. And I’m not sure about these accusations, who were they targeting, what’s going on there. But it’s a really horrific situation. And if you look to the images, what was going on, it’s really horror.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you respond to the Israeli military saying they bombed — they aimed for the alleyways, not the buildings, and that they were going for one of the commanders of Hamas, and that people should have left, that they warned Palestinians to leave northern Gaza and go south?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: First of all, if they are pushing people to leave, where people should go, first of all? I was lucky because I have relatives in the south in Khan Younis. But thousands of people are in the streets or in UNRWA schools, and there is not enough place for anyone anymore in the south. And even there is no safe passage for people to move from the north toward the south. People cannot leave their houses without knowing where they are going. And this is one thing. If you live in Jabaliya, it means that you can handle your situation and keep up and with handling your needs in Jabaliya. If you are going to a new place without somewhere to go, and even doesn’t know where to go, how people will keep up when they are displaced? This is completely illegal, first of all. And you cannot push more than 1 million people to move in a few days. And until now, for example, since few days, even the roads have been cutted between — they split Gaza in two parts. How people are going to go from Jabaliya in the north or Gaza City towards the south? This is the first thing. And the other thing, I think the images and the amount of casualties can answer what the Israeli forces are saying.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play for you a clip of the IDF, Israeli Defense Forces, spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, who appeared on CNN, where he was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer.
WOLF BLITZER: But you know that there are a lot of refugees, a lot of innocent civilians, men, women and children, in that refugee camp, as well, right?
LT. COL. RICHARD HECHT: This is the tragedy of war, Wolf. I mean, we — as you know, we’ve been saying for days, move south. Civilians that are not involved with Hamas, please move south. We —
WOLF BLITZER: Yeah, I’m just trying to get a little bit more information. You knew there were civilians there. You knew there were refugees, all sorts of refugees. But you decided to still drop a bomb on that refugee camp attempting to kill this Hamas commander. By the way, was he killed?
LT. COL. RICHARD HECHT: I can’t confirm, yeah. There will be more updated. He, yes, we know that he was killed. About the civilians there, we’re doing everything we can to minimize.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can respond to the IDF Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: I just need to understand what they did to minimize the loss, casualties, the loss of civilians. And asking people to leave is not a justification. This is not a justification to use this massive amount of bombardment targeting something. And even then, they cannot confirm it. And it’s a bit weird how world is looking to that and how they are trying to justify the killing of civilians. This is unacceptable, how to justify killings of that amount of civilians by saying that you ordered everyone to evacuate. First, even this is illegal to push — these people are forced to flee, and also, there is no place that people can go to.
And even here in Khan Younis, people who were displaced, people like me, we are facing tragedy to provide our daily need, like water and bread. And everything is challenging here because there is not enough space in the south to host all these hundreds of thousands of people who fled from Gaza and the north. People who decided to stay there, they don’t have any other solution. They don’t have any other options. And there is nothing on this planet can justify killing civilians.
AMY GOODMAN: You are in Khan Younis, Yousef Hammash, where you moved. Were you living in Jabaliya?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: I’m born and raised in Jabaliya camp. Yes, I live in Jabaliya.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about who lives there. Talk about the refugee camp, this largest refugee camp, how it was established.
YOUSEF HAMMASH: So, this northern — refugee camps all across Gaza have been established after the Nakba 1948 and then have been expanded more and more. It became small cities. It’s a block of concrete. It’s not like the other camps that we see on the planet, like what’s seen now in Khan Younis, for example. They had to designate another camp which is a tent camp. No, it’s a small city within the city, as the refugee camp. And it’s very densely populated. I know every corner there. I know the people who live there are refugees. And this is generations of refugees who are living in this refugee camp, who is getting expanded day by day because the amount of people are getting more and more, and there is no solutions also for refugees. So it became not a refugee camp. It became a small city within a city. This is how the camp. It’s different than other camps in the world.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you moved with your family to other family in Khan Younis. After the Israeli military told people to move south, dropped thousands of pamphlets and said they would consider you terrorists if you didn’t, they bombed Khan Younis. Is that right? They bombed places in the south, where they said you should go.
YOUSEF HAMMASH: Even here in Khan Younis, it’s not safe. Yesterday, 50 meters away from us, they bombed a family. Eighteen members were killed. And it take us until the daylight to evacuate people who were killed, and most of them were children. There is no safe place all over Gaza. And that’s also another reason why people are not leaving. It’s not safe in the north. It’s not safe in the middle area. It’s not safe in the south also. All across Gaza Strip, the bombardment didn’t stop since the first day. So, this is another reason why people are not moving from the north, because it’s not different. Every day there is a lot of bombardment in Rafah, in Khan Younis, in Deir al-Balah, in the middle area, in Gaza City and the north. There is no difference wherever you are in Gaza City. You are always thinking when you are going to be the next target.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re there in Khan Younis. In an interview you did with Channel 4, you said it took you five hours to look for one liter of fuel in Khan Younis. If you can talk about why fuel is important? And respond to what the Israeli military is saying, why they’re not letting any fuel come in, which runs hospitals, of course, saving lives, the incubators that have premature babies in them, etc. What this fuel shortage looks like for you, not only you as a person, a Palestinian in Gaza, but as advocacy officer in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council, where you’re responsible for so many refugees?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: So, unfortunately, even as humanitarian actors, we cannot do our own, because there is no difference between anyone here. Everyone is under the same circumstances. Fuel is very important because there is no electricity at all. Even when we have one week — one time per week, we have water from the municipality because they have schedule for each area. We need the fuel to push the water from the municipality lines up to the houses. That’s why everything is challenging. And it’s a matter — it’s a layer of complexities. If you have water, you need fuel to push it to the house. To find water, you need to find a way to get it. And it’s almost impossible. Five hours, and I was lucky to did it. Since three days, we are trying to find another liter, and I couldn’t make it. I was lucky because I found someone who’s a friend of mine, and his car was having some fuel. Now, unfortunately, since three days, we don’t have fuel. Today we have the water again that’s from the municipality lines. And unfortunately, we couldn’t push it to the house. So we have had to fill small gallons, and we had to create lines of us inside the house to hand each other, to push, to get — to carry the water to the house tanks. Everything is challenging. And day by day, everything becomes more impossible. And it’s layers above layer of complexities and needs. We don’t have electricity. We don’t have fuel. We don’t have water. And we are lacking everything. We don’t have access for our basic needs.
And unfortunately, we don’t see that effort to push to allow for fuel, for other basic needs for Palestinians. Even these trucks that came in on a daily basis, the maximum amount of trucks reached 50 trucks per day. Before this war started, Gaza was having more than 500 trucks per day, without that amount of need from the war. So, it’s really unacceptable how the world is behaving toward that. It’s not a victory that they succeeded to manage to get these trucks to come. This is not a victory for anyone. This is a drop in the ocean of needs.
AMY GOODMAN: Yousef Hammash, they cut off communication again. We didn’t even know if we’d be able to talk to you. But now the electricity, at least where you are, is back on. Can you talk about the significance of this cutting off of cellphone and electricity, that also happened over the weekend, what it means for you? And also, what’s happening at Rafah today?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: So, this is the second time —
AMY GOODMAN: But first start with, yes, the cutoff.
YOUSEF HAMMASH: So, this is the second time that — so, this is the second time that they isolated us from the rest of the planet. We didn’t have access to phone calls, internet or even radio stations. So, literally, we didn’t know what was happening in the next city. We were completely isolated inside our houses. And here to find internet, I think there is a lot of chaos around me, because I need to go to a cafe where there is — at least they have generator, they have some electricity, so I can have access to internet to have this interview with you. Everything is challenging. And being isolated from the rest of the world, we wasn’t knowing what’s happening in the north or in Gaza City or anywhere else in Gaza. We were just completely in a blackout. I don’t know how it’s acceptable to do this to us. And I don’t think we are — we are very good people in coping. We have a very good coping mechanism. But we cannot cope with this. We didn’t have communication. It’s lacking us from everything.
And this is very dangerous, especially for the emergency situations. You cannot call an ambulance. When they did it a few days ago, it was for two days, 36 hours. People who were trying to get an ambulance after an attack, or even if they have a medical situation inside the house, they had to go to the hospital, informing them, and bring them back with them to the house to take someone who is, for example, very sick, or even if they were injured from an attack. It’s an impossible situation without connection. And this is the second time we see it. This time, it was around 14 hours. And let’s hope — because we cannot find alternatives, let’s hope they are not going to keep continuing doing that, because this is not only affecting us as people who have become more isolated, it’s affecting the emergency situation, the emergency response from the medical teams and civil affairs teams. It’s really dangerous.
AMY GOODMAN: How old are your children, Yousef? Yousef, you’re frozen. How old are your children?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: So, I have two children. Ilya is 5 years old, and Ahmed, two-and-a-half. And hopefully, we will manage to stay alive during this chaos and madness, and they can see a brighter future. And because — my son Ahmed is 2 years old. He have witnessed a lot. My 5-years-old daughter witnessed more than a lot for a child to witness from this madness around us. And I feel, again — I keep saying that to myself, and I can tell you clearly, I feel guilty because I brought my children in this place. I feel responsible towards my children, and I regret having them in this chaotic situation.
AMY GOODMAN: Yousef Hammash, I want to thank you so much for being with us, advocacy officer in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council, born in the Jabaliya refugee camp. We have 30 seconds. Your final message — we are based here in the United States — to the U.S. government, to the American population, and also globally around the world?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: I think the world needs to react and to act seriously stopping this madness. I think it’s more than enough for us to suffer and to see what we are seeing currently. World need to extend and hold their responsibilities toward us as a human being. It’s more than enough since the first day. Now we’re stopping — we have already stopped calculating days, because it’s all similar, all its amount of bombardment and horror nights. The world needs to stand and hold their responsibilities toward us as human beings.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you, Yousef Hammash, for making the effort, despite all of these difficulties to speak to us today. Again, Yousef Hammash is the —
YOUSEF HAMMASH: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: — advocacy officer in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council, grew up, was born in the Jabaliya refugee camp, the largest refugee camp in Gaza.
When we come back, we’ll be joined by Craig Mokhiber, top U.N. official in New York, who’s resigned, saying the U.N. is failing to stop what he calls a “genocide” unfolding in Gaza. Back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Giving Up Everything” by Natalie Merchant. Natalie Merchant recently signed an open letter titled “Artists Call for Ceasefire Now,” alongside actors like Joaquin Phoenix, the playwright Tony Kushner and Miranda July, the letter supported by Oxfam American and ActionAid USA.
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"Text-Book Case of Genocide”: Top U.N. Official Craig Mokhiber Resigns, Denounces Israeli Assault on Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 01, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/1/ ... transcript
A former top United Nations official in New York joins us for an in-depth interview about why he has resigned after publicly accusing the U.N. of failing to address what he calls a “text-book case of genocide” unfolding in Gaza. Craig Mokhiber is a longtime international human rights lawyer who served as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. His resignation letter (embedded below) has gone viral. In one of his first interviews since leaving his post, Mokhiber tells Democracy Now! the U.N. follows a “different set of rules” when addressing Israel’s violations of international law, refusing to utilize its enforcement mechanisms and thus “effectively” acting as “a smokescreen behind which we have seen further and worsening dispossession of Palestinians.” He says it is an “open secret inside the halls of the United Nations that the so-called two-state solution is effectively impossible,” and calls for international actors to push for a “new paradigm” in the region based on “equality for all.” We also discuss the inaction of the International Criminal Court, global suppression of pro-Palestinian advocacy, bad-faith accusations of antisemitism and more.
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.
A top United Nations official in New York has resigned and accused the United Nations of failing to address what he calls a “text-book case of genocide” unfolding in Gaza. Craig Mokhiber is a longtime international human rights lawyer who served as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. He had worked at the United Nations since 1992 and lived in Gaza in the 1990s.
In a letter addressed to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, Craig Mokhiber wrote, “In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units. Across the land, Apartheid rules.”
Craig Mokhiber went on to write, “What’s more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations 'to ensure respect' for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel’s atrocities,” unquote.
On Tuesday, the U.N. released statement about Mokhiber’s resignation, saying, quote, “I can confirm he is retiring today. He informed the U.N. in March of his upcoming retirement, which takes effect tomorrow. The views in his letter made public today are his personal views,” the U.N. said.
Craig Mokhiber joins us now in New York, the first day he’s not working for the United Nations.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Thank you, Amy. Good to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about why you left.
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I originally registered my concerns in writing to the high commissioner in March, as you heard from that statement, in the wake of a wave of human rights violations on the West Bank, including the pogrom Huwara at that time. And at that time, I complained, really, about what I saw as a trepidatious response by many in the United Nations, and an effort to try to silence some of the human rights critique of U.N. officials, including myself. And I admit to feeling a great deal of frustration, and at that moment indicating that I would be resigning from the U.N., effective this month. So, of course, the situation got much worse since then, which is why I was — particularly the events in Gaza — which is why I was compelled to write this latest letter to the high commissioner, to put on record my very serious concerns about how we were failing to address the unfolding events in the Occupied Territories.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think the United Nations, the United States, the West, U.K. should be doing right now?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I think there is an obligation on the part of all member states of the United Nations, including those states in the West, to respond in accordance with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law. My central point in the most recent letter was that we had effectively left international law behind when the international community embraced the Oslo process, which sort of raised up notions of political expediency above the requirements of international law. And that was a real loss for human rights in Palestine. I think there is an obligation on the part of all states not just to respect international humanitarian law and international human rights law, but, under the Geneva Conventions, to ensure respect. And it’s clear that many states, including the United States itself, have not only — are not only in breach of their obligation to ensure respect vis-à-vis those states over which they have influence — in this case, Israel — but have been actively complicit, actively engaged in arming, in diplomatic cover, in political support, intelligence support and so on. That is a breach of international humanitarian law. We need the opposite of that. We need all states, members of the United Nations, to use whatever influence they have to ensure an end to these attacks on civilians in Gaza, to ensure as well accountability for the perpetrators, redress for the victims, protection for the vulnerable there.
It’s interesting, Amy. We have a formula at the United Nations that is applied to virtually every other conflict situation. But when it comes to the situation in Israel and Palestine, there’s a different set of rules, apparently. And that’s, I think, a big source of my frustration. Where is the transitional justice process? Where is the U.N. protection force to protect all civilians? Where is the tribunal for accountability? Where is the action on the part of the Security Council, the only mechanism in the United Nations that has enforcement to ensure protection in the Occupied Territories? Obviously, every effort in the Security Council is vetoed by the United States itself, a further indication of the kind of complicity about which I am referring.
And I think the other thing that needs to happen in the international community is that we have to abandon the failed paradigms of the past on a political level and get back to the roots, which is international law, international human rights. What has happened in the context of the so-called Oslo process, the two-state solution, the U.N. Quartet, is that they have acted effectively as a smokescreen, behind which we have seen further and worsening dispossession of Palestinians, massive atrocities, such as those as we are witnessing now, the loss of homes and land, further settlement activity. You know, it’s an open secret inside the halls of the United Nations that the so-called two-state solution is effectively impossible now — there’s nothing left for a sustainable state for the Palestinian people — and takes no account of the fundamental human rights of the Palestinian people. The new paradigm has to be one based upon equality of all people there, equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews. And that needs to be the new approach.
And I think, as well, you know, it’s interesting that this year we are commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948. That same year, the Nakba occurred in Palestine, and apartheid was adopted in South Africa. We have seen, because of a consistent international law and international human rights approach in the U.N. and the international community, that apartheid in South Africa fell. We did not take the same approach in Palestine. We’ve deferred to these political processes. And as a result, not only have we not seen an end to the oppression of the Palestinian people, we’ve seen a continuing worsening of the situation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re a longtime human rights lawyer. I want you to respond — I played this already for Yousef Hammash in Gaza right now, in Khan Younis, to respond, but I’d like you to respond to it, as well. After Israel’s attack on Jabaliya yesterday, the IDF spokesperson, Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, appeared on CNN and was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer.
WOLF BLITZER: But you know that there are a lot of refugees, a lot of innocent civilians, men, women and children, in that refugee camp, as well, right?
LT. COL. RICHARD HECHT: This is the tragedy of war, Wolf. I mean, we — as you know, we’ve been saying for days, move south. Civilians that are not involved with Hamas, please move south. We —
WOLF BLITZER: Yeah, I’m just trying to get a little bit more information. You knew there were civilians there. You knew there were refugees, all sorts of refugees. But you decided to still drop a bomb on that refugee camp attempting to kill this Hamas commander. By the way, was he killed?
LT. COL. RICHARD HECHT: I can’t confirm, yeah. There will be more updated. He, yes, we know that he was killed. About the civilians there, we’re doing everything we can to minimize.
AMY GOODMAN: So, he’s saying they’re doing everything they can to minimize. He’s talking about Ibrahim Biari, whom it identified — Israel has identified as Hamas’s commander of the Jabaliya center battalion, saying he was killed in those recent strikes. Can you respond to every aspect of what he said? They were trying to get a high-value target, as they put it, and they are not trying to kill civilians.
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I think what’s important in that interview is that is another of many indications of intent on the part of Israeli authorities, that will be very important in a court of law. He has said very openly that they knew of the concentrations of civilians there, and yet, in violation of the principle of distinction in international humanitarian law, and on the pretext of killing one combatant, wiped out the better part of an entire refugee camp, densely populated refugee camp. And I think what’s been interesting in this war is the very open statement of intents. I referred in my letter to the case for genocide which is happening now. And, you know, “genocide” is a very politicized term, often abused. But in this case, the hardest part of proving genocide has been proven for us with these very open statements of genocidal intent by Israeli officials, including the prime minister and the president and senior Cabinet ministers and military officials, who in their public statements have indicated very clearly their intention not to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and to carry out the kinds of wholesale slaughter that we are witnessing in Gaza. That is not a justification in international law, saying that there was a combatant there, for that very disproportionate use of firepower against what was a civilian target. And that’s what we’ve been seeing in all of Gaza, from the north to the south.
The other thing is this claim that, “Well, we told them to move south, and therefore we can kill everybody who didn’t move.” This is an extremely dangerous and unlawful tactic that is being used, first because we know that evacuations in Gaza in the best of times, in this densely populated small territory with 2.3 million civilians crowded in, with very limited infrastructure, is a huge challenge. But most of Gaza has been bombed into rubble. It is just not physically possible for civilians to move en masse in the ways that Israel has required them to do so. And we know, already well documented, that when they do so, they’re still subjected to bombings even in the south of the Gaza Strip. So, all of this, it seems to me, is evidence of intent and a prima facie case for violations of the laws of war.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel has called for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to resign, after he said Hamas’s October 7th attack did not happen in a vacuum. This is Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan.
GILAD ERDAN: Mr. Secretary-General, the U.N. was established to prevent atrocities, to prevent such atrocities like the barbaric atrocities that Hamas committed. But the U.N. is failing. The U.N. is failing. And you, Mr. Secretary-General, have lost all morality and impartiality, because when you say those terrible words that these heinous attacks did not happen in a vacuum, you are tolerating terrorism. And by tolerating terrorism, you are justifying terrorism.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. Craig Mokhiber, your response?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, of course, you can imagine why the ambassador would want to start the clock only in October and to ignore the decades upon decades of persecution against the Palestinian people in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, inside Israel proper. But that is not the kind of assessment that leads to peace or leads to an improved situation on the ground. The secretary-general was doing his job. He had condemned the loss of civilian life in the Hamas attack, and he also criticized not just what Israel was doing in Gaza, but all of the events that have led up to this situation.
And that’s what I mean by a need to break from the failed paradigm of the past. We really need to get into something that says that human beings are entitled to human rights under international law and that the duty of the international community is to ensure protection for all under the rule of law, but also accountability for perpetrators and redress for victims.
So, I am not surprised at that statement. We’ve seen a lot of extreme statements from that particular ambassador, a lot of theater, as well. I don’t think we should allow it to distract us to what’s happening on the ground, which is the wholesale loss of life of innocent civilians in their thousands, including thousands of children in the Gaza Strip, and the need to get to an immediate ceasefire and then to shift into a new approach that will prevent this from happening again and again and again.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering about the role of Karim Khan, the lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. I think he was in Rafah just a few days ago. We see the world’s response, or the West’s response, when it came to Russia invading Ukraine and occupying Ukraine. Karim Khan, very soon after, opened a whole investigation into crimes against humanity that Putin was committing in Ukraine. Can you respond to the difference in approach to Russia and Ukraine and Israel and the Occupied Territories, officially, international law, the OPT, the Occupied Palestinian Territories?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, there has been a stunning inconsistency with the rapidity with which the court was able to move and the prosecutor was able to move with regard to Ukraine and the years upon years in which it has dragged its feet with regard to Palestine. This is just one of many critiques of the court, including the fact that it does not have a very strong record of holding Northern countries — Israel, the United States and others — to account for their crimes under international criminal law, and yet is very anxious to move forward on cases in the Global South.
Now, that is not to condemn the court. The court is a young institution. It needs to be strengthened. It needs to insulate itself from the kinds of political pressure that have led to its inaction in the case of Palestine. But our hope, ultimately, is the peaceful resolution of disputes through the use of international law. And if that’s going to happen, we need a robust and fair International Criminal Court that doesn’t provide for exceptionalism for powerful countries of the North, like Israel, for example, but that holds all perpetrators of international crimes to account. The court has a long way to go before it’s going to have the reputation that will bring confidence globally that it’s meeting its mandate under the Rome Statute.
AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre compared pro-Palestinian protesters to the white supremacists who took part in the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. She made the comment in response to a question from Fox News’s Peter Doocy.
PETER DOOCY: Does President Biden think the anti-Israel protesters in this country are extremists?
PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: What I can say is what we’ve been very clear about this: When it comes to antisemitism, there is no place. We have to make sure that we speak against it very loud and be — and be very clear about that. Remember, what the president decided to — when the president decided to run for president is what he saw in Charlottesville in 2017, when we — he saw neo-Nazis marching down the streets of Charlottesville with vile, antisemitic just hatred. And he was very clear then, and he’s very clear now. He’s taken actions against this over the past two years. And he’s continued to be clear: There is no place — no place — for this type of vile and despite — this kind of rhetoric.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s President Biden’s spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre. Craig Mokhiber, your response?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I think one of the most disturbing aspects of this current situation in the North, in countries like the U.S. and in Europe, has been this rather unprecedented crackdown on human rights defenders speaking up to defend the human rights of people in Gaza during this situation. And that has come from official statements that try to critique in that way people who are defending human rights, and to compare them with far-right neofascist protesters, for example. I mean, it’s an outrageous comparison to make. And it doesn’t stop there. We have also seen very strong efforts on the part of government institutions, including local governments and state governments and the federal government, and universities and employers and others to punish people for daring to speak up, criticizing the human rights violations that are happening, or criticizing the U.S. role in these violations.
But I think what is most hopeful, Amy, and where there is a glimmer of hope, which has, I have to say, moved me very much, it’s that people are not allowing themselves to be intimidated by these tactics. We have seen massive demonstrations, in all parts of the country and in Europe, from people many times risking arrest, risking police beatings, risking other consequences, because they refuse to allow this to go forward and to have the human rights claim be silenced. And I think most encouraging, we have seen — you know, just a few blocks from here a few days ago, we saw a large group, organized by Jewish Voices for Peace, IfNotNow, of Jewish protesters standing up and saying, “Not in our name,” and taking over Grand Central Station, and in one move stripping away the Israeli propaganda point that they are somehow acting in the defense of Jews. Jewish people are not represented by Israel. These protesters have made that perfectly clear. Israel pushes an old antisemitic trope that it somehow represents Jewish people around the world. Not only is that not factual, but it’s very dangerous. And everyone needs to know that Israel is a state that’s responsible for its own crimes, and that responsibility does not extend to our Jewish brothers and sisters, many of whom are standing up alongside Muslim and Christian and others in demonstrations across this country and across Europe, saying that this must end.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get your response to a comment in The Guardian by Anne Bayefsky, who directs Touro College’s Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust in New York, who accused you of overt antisemitism, saying you used U.N. letterhead to call for wiping Israel off the map. Craig Mokhiber, if you could respond?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, Anne Bayefsky is a well-known entity amongst human rights defenders. She has made a career of attacking anyone who dares to criticize Israeli human rights violations, in particular. I have responded to this idea of wiping Israel off the map by saying I’m not looking for an end to Israel, I’m looking for an end to apartheid. And it’s very telling, what Anne Bayefsky tweeted in her attack on me. She accused me of antisemitism, and the quote that she took from my letter to prove that was my call for equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews. I had to reply to her tweet by saying that she had become a parody of herself, because if calling for equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews is a new form of antisemitism, then there’s no conversation to be had.
But I don’t think people are falling for these smears anymore. They are almost automatic. But the point needs to be made again and again that criticism of Israeli human rights violations is not antisemitic, just as criticism of Saudi violations is not Islamophobic, criticism of Myanmar violations is not anti-Buddhist, criticism of Indian violations is not anti-Hindu. If any of those are true, then there is no international human rights framework. And if only the case of Israel is true, well, that’s a racist proposition that only Palestinians can’t have their human rights defended in this globe. So, I don’t think anyone listens too much to those kinds of smears anymore. And luckily, people are speaking up louder, not lowering their voices, to demand human rights in the Occupied Territories.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what do you go off to do, Craig Mokhiber? I mean, you have been at the United Nations for decades. Talk about your plans now. Today is your first day that you’re not working at the U.N.
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I intend to remain involved in the cause of international human rights, in which I’ve been involved since 1980, in fact. There’s no question about that. I will do it under my own name, unconstrained by diplomatic protocol and the constraints of the U.N. I will continue to support my colleagues. I don’t want to leave the impression that I’m criticizing the whole U.N. You know, U.N. humanitarian workers, U.N. human rights workers, the UNRWA colleagues in Gaza, dozens of whom have lost their life just in the last couple of weeks under Israeli bombs, are doing absolutely heroic work all around the world. But I want to try to influence the political side of the house to take up a more realistic and principled approach to this particular conflict, one based in international human rights, one based in international humanitarian law, and one based in achievable goals, if not in the immediate term, of a paradigm based upon equality, an end to apartheid, and, as I said, equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get your final response to the protesters just yesterday in Washington, D.C., in the Senate, repeatedly disrupting Secretary of State Antony Blinken while he was testifying before the Senate on President Biden’s request for $106 billion for Ukraine, Israel and militarizing the U.S.-Mexico border. A group of protesters with members of Muslims for Just Futures and Detention Watch Network, sitting behind Blinken, held up their hands covered in fake blood. He was also interrupted by members of CodePink, including the former State Department official Ann Wright, who resigned over the Iraq War. This is what she said.
ANN WRIGHT: Three thousand five hundred kids dead. Come on. I’m an Army colonel. I’m a former diplomat. I resigned on that War in Iraq that you talked about. That was a terrible thing. And what you’re doing right now in supporting Israel’s genocide of Gaza is a terrible thing, too. Stop the war! Ceasefire now!
AMY GOODMAN: She was holding a sign as she was taken out by security, “Ceasefire in Gaza.” Craig Mokhiber, your final comments?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: This is where I find the most hope, Amy. I have lost confidence in official institutions of government after all these years in the international human rights movement. I am losing hope in international — important parts of international institutions. Where there is hope, it is in civil society. It is in those ordinary people, here in the United States and elsewhere, who are willing to stand up and demand respect for human life and for human rights. And these kinds of protests in the halls of Congress, before the State Department, in front of the White House, in Grand Central Station, in the streets, everywhere, particularly with this climate that is trying to —
AMY GOODMAN: Three seconds.
CRAIG MOKHIBER: — suppress critique of these current policies, it’s only going to come from civil society —
AMY GOODMAN: Craig Mokhiber —
CRAIG MOKHIBER: — that these will be shaken loose.
AMY GOODMAN: — we thank you so much, international human rights lawyer.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 01, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/1/ ... transcript
We get an update on Gaza’s largest refugee camp, Jabaliya, which was hit by a massive Israeli airstrike Tuesday that destroyed housing blocks in the densely populated settlement and killed at least 50 Palestinians and wounded over 150 others. Israel claims it was targeting a Hamas commander accused of helping to orchestrate the militant group’s October 7 attack inside Israel. Yousef Hammash, who was born and raised in Jabaliya and is the advocacy officer in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council, describes it as a “small city within a city” and “one of the most crowded places on Earth.” Speaking from Khan Younis, Hammash also chronicles dire humanitarian conditions in the so-called safe southern region of Gaza and says he hopes his two young children “can see a brighter future.”
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.
Massive Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s largest refugee camp, Jabaliya, killed at least 50 Palestinians Tuesday and wounded over 150 others, sparking new outrage over Israel’s 26-day bombardment of the besieged territory. Israel bombed the refugee camp again today. Numerous residential buildings collapsed in Tuesday’s blast, trapping families under rubble. One engineer from Al Jazeera, Mohamed Abu Al-Qumsan, reportedly lost at least 18 members of his family, including his father and two of his sisters. A long line of dead bodies wrapped in white sheets were placed outside the Indonesian Hospital in the refugee camp, where doctors scrambled to treat survivors.
DR. SUAIB IDAIS: [translated] A large number of injured have come to us after the large explosion that shook the entire Jabaliya refugee camp. Hundreds of injuries, hundreds of martyrs. They were just sitting in their homes. They were targeted while they were in their homes. Children, all martyrs. Children, women, elderly. We have no idea what to do. There are injured everywhere. All the volunteers went down hand in hand just to help people.
AMY GOODMAN: Israeli officials acknowledged carrying out the airstrike on the refugee camp, describing it as a, quote, “wide-scale strike” targeting a Hamas commander accused of helping to orchestrate Hamas’s October 7th attack inside Israel that resulted in the deaths of about 1,400 people in Israel and the capture of over 220 hostages.
The attack on Jabaliya came as the United Nations and aid groups issued new dire warnings about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. James Elder of UNICEF said Gaza is becoming a “graveyard for children.”
JAMES ELDER: The numbers are appalling. Reportedly, now more than 3,450 children have been killed. Staggeringly, this number rises significantly every single day. Gaza has become a graveyard for children. It’s a living hell for everyone else. And yet the threats to children go beyond bombs and mortars. I want to speak briefly now on two of those: water and trauma. The more than 1 million children of Gaza have a critical water crisis. Gaza’s water production now, its capacity is at 5%, 5% of its daily output. So child deaths to dehydration, particularly infant deaths to dehydration, are a growing threat.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier today, the Rafah border crossing with Gaza was opened to allow dozens of Egyptian ambulances in to evacuate injured patients.
We go now to Gaza, where we’re joined by Yousef Hammash, advocacy officer in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council, who lives in the Gaza Strip with his wife and two children. He’s from the Jabaliya refugee camp but is joining us today from Khan Younis.
Yousef, thanks so much for joining us again. You grew up in, you were born in the Jabaliya refugee camp. Can you talk about the significance of what took place yesterday?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: So, yes, proudly, I’m born and raised in Jabaliya camp as a refugee. And Jabaliya camp was not a place that — for us to consider. It’s more than a place. And the place where they attacked is the center of the Jabaliya camp. It’s the heart of the camp. And everyone knows that Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Jabaliya camp is the most densely populated — the most densely populated place in Gaza. And so, people who doesn’t know how it’s Jabaliya camp, it’s a block of concrete. Houses are next to each other. And the widest street in Jabaliya camp is half a meter. And 90% of the houses are one roof. It’s one floor. And it’s one of the most crowded places on Earth.
The attack yesterday, the massive amount of casualties, it was, first of all, the massive bombardment, and also because it’s very populated place. And I don’t think, both, yeah, I mean, the Israelis really care about that, and they want to target someone. And I’m not sure about these accusations, who were they targeting, what’s going on there. But it’s a really horrific situation. And if you look to the images, what was going on, it’s really horror.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you respond to the Israeli military saying they bombed — they aimed for the alleyways, not the buildings, and that they were going for one of the commanders of Hamas, and that people should have left, that they warned Palestinians to leave northern Gaza and go south?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: First of all, if they are pushing people to leave, where people should go, first of all? I was lucky because I have relatives in the south in Khan Younis. But thousands of people are in the streets or in UNRWA schools, and there is not enough place for anyone anymore in the south. And even there is no safe passage for people to move from the north toward the south. People cannot leave their houses without knowing where they are going. And this is one thing. If you live in Jabaliya, it means that you can handle your situation and keep up and with handling your needs in Jabaliya. If you are going to a new place without somewhere to go, and even doesn’t know where to go, how people will keep up when they are displaced? This is completely illegal, first of all. And you cannot push more than 1 million people to move in a few days. And until now, for example, since few days, even the roads have been cutted between — they split Gaza in two parts. How people are going to go from Jabaliya in the north or Gaza City towards the south? This is the first thing. And the other thing, I think the images and the amount of casualties can answer what the Israeli forces are saying.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play for you a clip of the IDF, Israeli Defense Forces, spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, who appeared on CNN, where he was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer.
WOLF BLITZER: But you know that there are a lot of refugees, a lot of innocent civilians, men, women and children, in that refugee camp, as well, right?
LT. COL. RICHARD HECHT: This is the tragedy of war, Wolf. I mean, we — as you know, we’ve been saying for days, move south. Civilians that are not involved with Hamas, please move south. We —
WOLF BLITZER: Yeah, I’m just trying to get a little bit more information. You knew there were civilians there. You knew there were refugees, all sorts of refugees. But you decided to still drop a bomb on that refugee camp attempting to kill this Hamas commander. By the way, was he killed?
LT. COL. RICHARD HECHT: I can’t confirm, yeah. There will be more updated. He, yes, we know that he was killed. About the civilians there, we’re doing everything we can to minimize.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can respond to the IDF Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: I just need to understand what they did to minimize the loss, casualties, the loss of civilians. And asking people to leave is not a justification. This is not a justification to use this massive amount of bombardment targeting something. And even then, they cannot confirm it. And it’s a bit weird how world is looking to that and how they are trying to justify the killing of civilians. This is unacceptable, how to justify killings of that amount of civilians by saying that you ordered everyone to evacuate. First, even this is illegal to push — these people are forced to flee, and also, there is no place that people can go to.
And even here in Khan Younis, people who were displaced, people like me, we are facing tragedy to provide our daily need, like water and bread. And everything is challenging here because there is not enough space in the south to host all these hundreds of thousands of people who fled from Gaza and the north. People who decided to stay there, they don’t have any other solution. They don’t have any other options. And there is nothing on this planet can justify killing civilians.
AMY GOODMAN: You are in Khan Younis, Yousef Hammash, where you moved. Were you living in Jabaliya?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: I’m born and raised in Jabaliya camp. Yes, I live in Jabaliya.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about who lives there. Talk about the refugee camp, this largest refugee camp, how it was established.
YOUSEF HAMMASH: So, this northern — refugee camps all across Gaza have been established after the Nakba 1948 and then have been expanded more and more. It became small cities. It’s a block of concrete. It’s not like the other camps that we see on the planet, like what’s seen now in Khan Younis, for example. They had to designate another camp which is a tent camp. No, it’s a small city within the city, as the refugee camp. And it’s very densely populated. I know every corner there. I know the people who live there are refugees. And this is generations of refugees who are living in this refugee camp, who is getting expanded day by day because the amount of people are getting more and more, and there is no solutions also for refugees. So it became not a refugee camp. It became a small city within a city. This is how the camp. It’s different than other camps in the world.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you moved with your family to other family in Khan Younis. After the Israeli military told people to move south, dropped thousands of pamphlets and said they would consider you terrorists if you didn’t, they bombed Khan Younis. Is that right? They bombed places in the south, where they said you should go.
YOUSEF HAMMASH: Even here in Khan Younis, it’s not safe. Yesterday, 50 meters away from us, they bombed a family. Eighteen members were killed. And it take us until the daylight to evacuate people who were killed, and most of them were children. There is no safe place all over Gaza. And that’s also another reason why people are not leaving. It’s not safe in the north. It’s not safe in the middle area. It’s not safe in the south also. All across Gaza Strip, the bombardment didn’t stop since the first day. So, this is another reason why people are not moving from the north, because it’s not different. Every day there is a lot of bombardment in Rafah, in Khan Younis, in Deir al-Balah, in the middle area, in Gaza City and the north. There is no difference wherever you are in Gaza City. You are always thinking when you are going to be the next target.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re there in Khan Younis. In an interview you did with Channel 4, you said it took you five hours to look for one liter of fuel in Khan Younis. If you can talk about why fuel is important? And respond to what the Israeli military is saying, why they’re not letting any fuel come in, which runs hospitals, of course, saving lives, the incubators that have premature babies in them, etc. What this fuel shortage looks like for you, not only you as a person, a Palestinian in Gaza, but as advocacy officer in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council, where you’re responsible for so many refugees?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: So, unfortunately, even as humanitarian actors, we cannot do our own, because there is no difference between anyone here. Everyone is under the same circumstances. Fuel is very important because there is no electricity at all. Even when we have one week — one time per week, we have water from the municipality because they have schedule for each area. We need the fuel to push the water from the municipality lines up to the houses. That’s why everything is challenging. And it’s a matter — it’s a layer of complexities. If you have water, you need fuel to push it to the house. To find water, you need to find a way to get it. And it’s almost impossible. Five hours, and I was lucky to did it. Since three days, we are trying to find another liter, and I couldn’t make it. I was lucky because I found someone who’s a friend of mine, and his car was having some fuel. Now, unfortunately, since three days, we don’t have fuel. Today we have the water again that’s from the municipality lines. And unfortunately, we couldn’t push it to the house. So we have had to fill small gallons, and we had to create lines of us inside the house to hand each other, to push, to get — to carry the water to the house tanks. Everything is challenging. And day by day, everything becomes more impossible. And it’s layers above layer of complexities and needs. We don’t have electricity. We don’t have fuel. We don’t have water. And we are lacking everything. We don’t have access for our basic needs.
And unfortunately, we don’t see that effort to push to allow for fuel, for other basic needs for Palestinians. Even these trucks that came in on a daily basis, the maximum amount of trucks reached 50 trucks per day. Before this war started, Gaza was having more than 500 trucks per day, without that amount of need from the war. So, it’s really unacceptable how the world is behaving toward that. It’s not a victory that they succeeded to manage to get these trucks to come. This is not a victory for anyone. This is a drop in the ocean of needs.
AMY GOODMAN: Yousef Hammash, they cut off communication again. We didn’t even know if we’d be able to talk to you. But now the electricity, at least where you are, is back on. Can you talk about the significance of this cutting off of cellphone and electricity, that also happened over the weekend, what it means for you? And also, what’s happening at Rafah today?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: So, this is the second time —
AMY GOODMAN: But first start with, yes, the cutoff.
YOUSEF HAMMASH: So, this is the second time that — so, this is the second time that they isolated us from the rest of the planet. We didn’t have access to phone calls, internet or even radio stations. So, literally, we didn’t know what was happening in the next city. We were completely isolated inside our houses. And here to find internet, I think there is a lot of chaos around me, because I need to go to a cafe where there is — at least they have generator, they have some electricity, so I can have access to internet to have this interview with you. Everything is challenging. And being isolated from the rest of the world, we wasn’t knowing what’s happening in the north or in Gaza City or anywhere else in Gaza. We were just completely in a blackout. I don’t know how it’s acceptable to do this to us. And I don’t think we are — we are very good people in coping. We have a very good coping mechanism. But we cannot cope with this. We didn’t have communication. It’s lacking us from everything.
And this is very dangerous, especially for the emergency situations. You cannot call an ambulance. When they did it a few days ago, it was for two days, 36 hours. People who were trying to get an ambulance after an attack, or even if they have a medical situation inside the house, they had to go to the hospital, informing them, and bring them back with them to the house to take someone who is, for example, very sick, or even if they were injured from an attack. It’s an impossible situation without connection. And this is the second time we see it. This time, it was around 14 hours. And let’s hope — because we cannot find alternatives, let’s hope they are not going to keep continuing doing that, because this is not only affecting us as people who have become more isolated, it’s affecting the emergency situation, the emergency response from the medical teams and civil affairs teams. It’s really dangerous.
AMY GOODMAN: How old are your children, Yousef? Yousef, you’re frozen. How old are your children?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: So, I have two children. Ilya is 5 years old, and Ahmed, two-and-a-half. And hopefully, we will manage to stay alive during this chaos and madness, and they can see a brighter future. And because — my son Ahmed is 2 years old. He have witnessed a lot. My 5-years-old daughter witnessed more than a lot for a child to witness from this madness around us. And I feel, again — I keep saying that to myself, and I can tell you clearly, I feel guilty because I brought my children in this place. I feel responsible towards my children, and I regret having them in this chaotic situation.
AMY GOODMAN: Yousef Hammash, I want to thank you so much for being with us, advocacy officer in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council, born in the Jabaliya refugee camp. We have 30 seconds. Your final message — we are based here in the United States — to the U.S. government, to the American population, and also globally around the world?
YOUSEF HAMMASH: I think the world needs to react and to act seriously stopping this madness. I think it’s more than enough for us to suffer and to see what we are seeing currently. World need to extend and hold their responsibilities toward us as a human being. It’s more than enough since the first day. Now we’re stopping — we have already stopped calculating days, because it’s all similar, all its amount of bombardment and horror nights. The world needs to stand and hold their responsibilities toward us as human beings.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you, Yousef Hammash, for making the effort, despite all of these difficulties to speak to us today. Again, Yousef Hammash is the —
YOUSEF HAMMASH: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: — advocacy officer in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council, grew up, was born in the Jabaliya refugee camp, the largest refugee camp in Gaza.
When we come back, we’ll be joined by Craig Mokhiber, top U.N. official in New York, who’s resigned, saying the U.N. is failing to stop what he calls a “genocide” unfolding in Gaza. Back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Giving Up Everything” by Natalie Merchant. Natalie Merchant recently signed an open letter titled “Artists Call for Ceasefire Now,” alongside actors like Joaquin Phoenix, the playwright Tony Kushner and Miranda July, the letter supported by Oxfam American and ActionAid USA.
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"Text-Book Case of Genocide”: Top U.N. Official Craig Mokhiber Resigns, Denounces Israeli Assault on Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 01, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/1/ ... transcript
A former top United Nations official in New York joins us for an in-depth interview about why he has resigned after publicly accusing the U.N. of failing to address what he calls a “text-book case of genocide” unfolding in Gaza. Craig Mokhiber is a longtime international human rights lawyer who served as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. His resignation letter (embedded below) has gone viral. In one of his first interviews since leaving his post, Mokhiber tells Democracy Now! the U.N. follows a “different set of rules” when addressing Israel’s violations of international law, refusing to utilize its enforcement mechanisms and thus “effectively” acting as “a smokescreen behind which we have seen further and worsening dispossession of Palestinians.” He says it is an “open secret inside the halls of the United Nations that the so-called two-state solution is effectively impossible,” and calls for international actors to push for a “new paradigm” in the region based on “equality for all.” We also discuss the inaction of the International Criminal Court, global suppression of pro-Palestinian advocacy, bad-faith accusations of antisemitism and more.
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.
A top United Nations official in New York has resigned and accused the United Nations of failing to address what he calls a “text-book case of genocide” unfolding in Gaza. Craig Mokhiber is a longtime international human rights lawyer who served as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. He had worked at the United Nations since 1992 and lived in Gaza in the 1990s.
In a letter addressed to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, Craig Mokhiber wrote, “In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units. Across the land, Apartheid rules.”
Craig Mokhiber went on to write, “What’s more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations 'to ensure respect' for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel’s atrocities,” unquote.
On Tuesday, the U.N. released statement about Mokhiber’s resignation, saying, quote, “I can confirm he is retiring today. He informed the U.N. in March of his upcoming retirement, which takes effect tomorrow. The views in his letter made public today are his personal views,” the U.N. said.
Craig Mokhiber joins us now in New York, the first day he’s not working for the United Nations.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Thank you, Amy. Good to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about why you left.
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I originally registered my concerns in writing to the high commissioner in March, as you heard from that statement, in the wake of a wave of human rights violations on the West Bank, including the pogrom Huwara at that time. And at that time, I complained, really, about what I saw as a trepidatious response by many in the United Nations, and an effort to try to silence some of the human rights critique of U.N. officials, including myself. And I admit to feeling a great deal of frustration, and at that moment indicating that I would be resigning from the U.N., effective this month. So, of course, the situation got much worse since then, which is why I was — particularly the events in Gaza — which is why I was compelled to write this latest letter to the high commissioner, to put on record my very serious concerns about how we were failing to address the unfolding events in the Occupied Territories.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think the United Nations, the United States, the West, U.K. should be doing right now?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I think there is an obligation on the part of all member states of the United Nations, including those states in the West, to respond in accordance with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law. My central point in the most recent letter was that we had effectively left international law behind when the international community embraced the Oslo process, which sort of raised up notions of political expediency above the requirements of international law. And that was a real loss for human rights in Palestine. I think there is an obligation on the part of all states not just to respect international humanitarian law and international human rights law, but, under the Geneva Conventions, to ensure respect. And it’s clear that many states, including the United States itself, have not only — are not only in breach of their obligation to ensure respect vis-à-vis those states over which they have influence — in this case, Israel — but have been actively complicit, actively engaged in arming, in diplomatic cover, in political support, intelligence support and so on. That is a breach of international humanitarian law. We need the opposite of that. We need all states, members of the United Nations, to use whatever influence they have to ensure an end to these attacks on civilians in Gaza, to ensure as well accountability for the perpetrators, redress for the victims, protection for the vulnerable there.
It’s interesting, Amy. We have a formula at the United Nations that is applied to virtually every other conflict situation. But when it comes to the situation in Israel and Palestine, there’s a different set of rules, apparently. And that’s, I think, a big source of my frustration. Where is the transitional justice process? Where is the U.N. protection force to protect all civilians? Where is the tribunal for accountability? Where is the action on the part of the Security Council, the only mechanism in the United Nations that has enforcement to ensure protection in the Occupied Territories? Obviously, every effort in the Security Council is vetoed by the United States itself, a further indication of the kind of complicity about which I am referring.
And I think the other thing that needs to happen in the international community is that we have to abandon the failed paradigms of the past on a political level and get back to the roots, which is international law, international human rights. What has happened in the context of the so-called Oslo process, the two-state solution, the U.N. Quartet, is that they have acted effectively as a smokescreen, behind which we have seen further and worsening dispossession of Palestinians, massive atrocities, such as those as we are witnessing now, the loss of homes and land, further settlement activity. You know, it’s an open secret inside the halls of the United Nations that the so-called two-state solution is effectively impossible now — there’s nothing left for a sustainable state for the Palestinian people — and takes no account of the fundamental human rights of the Palestinian people. The new paradigm has to be one based upon equality of all people there, equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews. And that needs to be the new approach.
And I think, as well, you know, it’s interesting that this year we are commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948. That same year, the Nakba occurred in Palestine, and apartheid was adopted in South Africa. We have seen, because of a consistent international law and international human rights approach in the U.N. and the international community, that apartheid in South Africa fell. We did not take the same approach in Palestine. We’ve deferred to these political processes. And as a result, not only have we not seen an end to the oppression of the Palestinian people, we’ve seen a continuing worsening of the situation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re a longtime human rights lawyer. I want you to respond — I played this already for Yousef Hammash in Gaza right now, in Khan Younis, to respond, but I’d like you to respond to it, as well. After Israel’s attack on Jabaliya yesterday, the IDF spokesperson, Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, appeared on CNN and was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer.
WOLF BLITZER: But you know that there are a lot of refugees, a lot of innocent civilians, men, women and children, in that refugee camp, as well, right?
LT. COL. RICHARD HECHT: This is the tragedy of war, Wolf. I mean, we — as you know, we’ve been saying for days, move south. Civilians that are not involved with Hamas, please move south. We —
WOLF BLITZER: Yeah, I’m just trying to get a little bit more information. You knew there were civilians there. You knew there were refugees, all sorts of refugees. But you decided to still drop a bomb on that refugee camp attempting to kill this Hamas commander. By the way, was he killed?
LT. COL. RICHARD HECHT: I can’t confirm, yeah. There will be more updated. He, yes, we know that he was killed. About the civilians there, we’re doing everything we can to minimize.
AMY GOODMAN: So, he’s saying they’re doing everything they can to minimize. He’s talking about Ibrahim Biari, whom it identified — Israel has identified as Hamas’s commander of the Jabaliya center battalion, saying he was killed in those recent strikes. Can you respond to every aspect of what he said? They were trying to get a high-value target, as they put it, and they are not trying to kill civilians.
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I think what’s important in that interview is that is another of many indications of intent on the part of Israeli authorities, that will be very important in a court of law. He has said very openly that they knew of the concentrations of civilians there, and yet, in violation of the principle of distinction in international humanitarian law, and on the pretext of killing one combatant, wiped out the better part of an entire refugee camp, densely populated refugee camp. And I think what’s been interesting in this war is the very open statement of intents. I referred in my letter to the case for genocide which is happening now. And, you know, “genocide” is a very politicized term, often abused. But in this case, the hardest part of proving genocide has been proven for us with these very open statements of genocidal intent by Israeli officials, including the prime minister and the president and senior Cabinet ministers and military officials, who in their public statements have indicated very clearly their intention not to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and to carry out the kinds of wholesale slaughter that we are witnessing in Gaza. That is not a justification in international law, saying that there was a combatant there, for that very disproportionate use of firepower against what was a civilian target. And that’s what we’ve been seeing in all of Gaza, from the north to the south.
The other thing is this claim that, “Well, we told them to move south, and therefore we can kill everybody who didn’t move.” This is an extremely dangerous and unlawful tactic that is being used, first because we know that evacuations in Gaza in the best of times, in this densely populated small territory with 2.3 million civilians crowded in, with very limited infrastructure, is a huge challenge. But most of Gaza has been bombed into rubble. It is just not physically possible for civilians to move en masse in the ways that Israel has required them to do so. And we know, already well documented, that when they do so, they’re still subjected to bombings even in the south of the Gaza Strip. So, all of this, it seems to me, is evidence of intent and a prima facie case for violations of the laws of war.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel has called for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to resign, after he said Hamas’s October 7th attack did not happen in a vacuum. This is Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan.
GILAD ERDAN: Mr. Secretary-General, the U.N. was established to prevent atrocities, to prevent such atrocities like the barbaric atrocities that Hamas committed. But the U.N. is failing. The U.N. is failing. And you, Mr. Secretary-General, have lost all morality and impartiality, because when you say those terrible words that these heinous attacks did not happen in a vacuum, you are tolerating terrorism. And by tolerating terrorism, you are justifying terrorism.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. Craig Mokhiber, your response?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, of course, you can imagine why the ambassador would want to start the clock only in October and to ignore the decades upon decades of persecution against the Palestinian people in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, inside Israel proper. But that is not the kind of assessment that leads to peace or leads to an improved situation on the ground. The secretary-general was doing his job. He had condemned the loss of civilian life in the Hamas attack, and he also criticized not just what Israel was doing in Gaza, but all of the events that have led up to this situation.
And that’s what I mean by a need to break from the failed paradigm of the past. We really need to get into something that says that human beings are entitled to human rights under international law and that the duty of the international community is to ensure protection for all under the rule of law, but also accountability for perpetrators and redress for victims.
So, I am not surprised at that statement. We’ve seen a lot of extreme statements from that particular ambassador, a lot of theater, as well. I don’t think we should allow it to distract us to what’s happening on the ground, which is the wholesale loss of life of innocent civilians in their thousands, including thousands of children in the Gaza Strip, and the need to get to an immediate ceasefire and then to shift into a new approach that will prevent this from happening again and again and again.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering about the role of Karim Khan, the lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. I think he was in Rafah just a few days ago. We see the world’s response, or the West’s response, when it came to Russia invading Ukraine and occupying Ukraine. Karim Khan, very soon after, opened a whole investigation into crimes against humanity that Putin was committing in Ukraine. Can you respond to the difference in approach to Russia and Ukraine and Israel and the Occupied Territories, officially, international law, the OPT, the Occupied Palestinian Territories?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, there has been a stunning inconsistency with the rapidity with which the court was able to move and the prosecutor was able to move with regard to Ukraine and the years upon years in which it has dragged its feet with regard to Palestine. This is just one of many critiques of the court, including the fact that it does not have a very strong record of holding Northern countries — Israel, the United States and others — to account for their crimes under international criminal law, and yet is very anxious to move forward on cases in the Global South.
Now, that is not to condemn the court. The court is a young institution. It needs to be strengthened. It needs to insulate itself from the kinds of political pressure that have led to its inaction in the case of Palestine. But our hope, ultimately, is the peaceful resolution of disputes through the use of international law. And if that’s going to happen, we need a robust and fair International Criminal Court that doesn’t provide for exceptionalism for powerful countries of the North, like Israel, for example, but that holds all perpetrators of international crimes to account. The court has a long way to go before it’s going to have the reputation that will bring confidence globally that it’s meeting its mandate under the Rome Statute.
AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre compared pro-Palestinian protesters to the white supremacists who took part in the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. She made the comment in response to a question from Fox News’s Peter Doocy.
PETER DOOCY: Does President Biden think the anti-Israel protesters in this country are extremists?
PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: What I can say is what we’ve been very clear about this: When it comes to antisemitism, there is no place. We have to make sure that we speak against it very loud and be — and be very clear about that. Remember, what the president decided to — when the president decided to run for president is what he saw in Charlottesville in 2017, when we — he saw neo-Nazis marching down the streets of Charlottesville with vile, antisemitic just hatred. And he was very clear then, and he’s very clear now. He’s taken actions against this over the past two years. And he’s continued to be clear: There is no place — no place — for this type of vile and despite — this kind of rhetoric.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s President Biden’s spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre. Craig Mokhiber, your response?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I think one of the most disturbing aspects of this current situation in the North, in countries like the U.S. and in Europe, has been this rather unprecedented crackdown on human rights defenders speaking up to defend the human rights of people in Gaza during this situation. And that has come from official statements that try to critique in that way people who are defending human rights, and to compare them with far-right neofascist protesters, for example. I mean, it’s an outrageous comparison to make. And it doesn’t stop there. We have also seen very strong efforts on the part of government institutions, including local governments and state governments and the federal government, and universities and employers and others to punish people for daring to speak up, criticizing the human rights violations that are happening, or criticizing the U.S. role in these violations.
But I think what is most hopeful, Amy, and where there is a glimmer of hope, which has, I have to say, moved me very much, it’s that people are not allowing themselves to be intimidated by these tactics. We have seen massive demonstrations, in all parts of the country and in Europe, from people many times risking arrest, risking police beatings, risking other consequences, because they refuse to allow this to go forward and to have the human rights claim be silenced. And I think most encouraging, we have seen — you know, just a few blocks from here a few days ago, we saw a large group, organized by Jewish Voices for Peace, IfNotNow, of Jewish protesters standing up and saying, “Not in our name,” and taking over Grand Central Station, and in one move stripping away the Israeli propaganda point that they are somehow acting in the defense of Jews. Jewish people are not represented by Israel. These protesters have made that perfectly clear. Israel pushes an old antisemitic trope that it somehow represents Jewish people around the world. Not only is that not factual, but it’s very dangerous. And everyone needs to know that Israel is a state that’s responsible for its own crimes, and that responsibility does not extend to our Jewish brothers and sisters, many of whom are standing up alongside Muslim and Christian and others in demonstrations across this country and across Europe, saying that this must end.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get your response to a comment in The Guardian by Anne Bayefsky, who directs Touro College’s Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust in New York, who accused you of overt antisemitism, saying you used U.N. letterhead to call for wiping Israel off the map. Craig Mokhiber, if you could respond?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, Anne Bayefsky is a well-known entity amongst human rights defenders. She has made a career of attacking anyone who dares to criticize Israeli human rights violations, in particular. I have responded to this idea of wiping Israel off the map by saying I’m not looking for an end to Israel, I’m looking for an end to apartheid. And it’s very telling, what Anne Bayefsky tweeted in her attack on me. She accused me of antisemitism, and the quote that she took from my letter to prove that was my call for equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews. I had to reply to her tweet by saying that she had become a parody of herself, because if calling for equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews is a new form of antisemitism, then there’s no conversation to be had.
But I don’t think people are falling for these smears anymore. They are almost automatic. But the point needs to be made again and again that criticism of Israeli human rights violations is not antisemitic, just as criticism of Saudi violations is not Islamophobic, criticism of Myanmar violations is not anti-Buddhist, criticism of Indian violations is not anti-Hindu. If any of those are true, then there is no international human rights framework. And if only the case of Israel is true, well, that’s a racist proposition that only Palestinians can’t have their human rights defended in this globe. So, I don’t think anyone listens too much to those kinds of smears anymore. And luckily, people are speaking up louder, not lowering their voices, to demand human rights in the Occupied Territories.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what do you go off to do, Craig Mokhiber? I mean, you have been at the United Nations for decades. Talk about your plans now. Today is your first day that you’re not working at the U.N.
CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I intend to remain involved in the cause of international human rights, in which I’ve been involved since 1980, in fact. There’s no question about that. I will do it under my own name, unconstrained by diplomatic protocol and the constraints of the U.N. I will continue to support my colleagues. I don’t want to leave the impression that I’m criticizing the whole U.N. You know, U.N. humanitarian workers, U.N. human rights workers, the UNRWA colleagues in Gaza, dozens of whom have lost their life just in the last couple of weeks under Israeli bombs, are doing absolutely heroic work all around the world. But I want to try to influence the political side of the house to take up a more realistic and principled approach to this particular conflict, one based in international human rights, one based in international humanitarian law, and one based in achievable goals, if not in the immediate term, of a paradigm based upon equality, an end to apartheid, and, as I said, equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get your final response to the protesters just yesterday in Washington, D.C., in the Senate, repeatedly disrupting Secretary of State Antony Blinken while he was testifying before the Senate on President Biden’s request for $106 billion for Ukraine, Israel and militarizing the U.S.-Mexico border. A group of protesters with members of Muslims for Just Futures and Detention Watch Network, sitting behind Blinken, held up their hands covered in fake blood. He was also interrupted by members of CodePink, including the former State Department official Ann Wright, who resigned over the Iraq War. This is what she said.
ANN WRIGHT: Three thousand five hundred kids dead. Come on. I’m an Army colonel. I’m a former diplomat. I resigned on that War in Iraq that you talked about. That was a terrible thing. And what you’re doing right now in supporting Israel’s genocide of Gaza is a terrible thing, too. Stop the war! Ceasefire now!
AMY GOODMAN: She was holding a sign as she was taken out by security, “Ceasefire in Gaza.” Craig Mokhiber, your final comments?
CRAIG MOKHIBER: This is where I find the most hope, Amy. I have lost confidence in official institutions of government after all these years in the international human rights movement. I am losing hope in international — important parts of international institutions. Where there is hope, it is in civil society. It is in those ordinary people, here in the United States and elsewhere, who are willing to stand up and demand respect for human life and for human rights. And these kinds of protests in the halls of Congress, before the State Department, in front of the White House, in Grand Central Station, in the streets, everywhere, particularly with this climate that is trying to —
AMY GOODMAN: Three seconds.
CRAIG MOKHIBER: — suppress critique of these current policies, it’s only going to come from civil society —
AMY GOODMAN: Craig Mokhiber —
CRAIG MOKHIBER: — that these will be shaken loose.
AMY GOODMAN: — we thank you so much, international human rights lawyer.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Sat Nov 04, 2023 12:17 am
“This Is Your Money”: Palestinian Father Pleads with Americans to Stop Funding Israeli Assault on Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 02, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/2/ ... transcript
As the overall death toll from Israel’s 27-day bombardment tops 9,000, we speak with Just Vision’s Fadi Abu Shammalah in Gaza about his family’s experiences on the ground as the besieged territory runs out of water, food and fuel. “We have only one thing: that we are being killed,” says Shammalah, who calls for Americans to “keep going” in demonstrations for Palestinian rights. “We are being killed by your taxes.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Gaza.
PALESTINIAN CHILD: [screaming]
NERMEEN SHAIKH: A Palestinian child screams out, “We did nothing wrong! We did nothing wrong!” as Israel bombs the Jabaliya refugee camp for a third day in a row, this time hitting a school run UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. At least 195 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza’s largest refugee camp in a series of devastating Israeli airstrikes in recent days. The U.N. Human Rights Office said in a statement, quote, “we have serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes.”
The overall death toll from Israel’s 27-day bombardment has topped 9,000, including 3,700 children. UNICEF is warning children are paying the heaviest price in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Khan Younis, where we’re joined by Fadi Abu Shammalah. He is Just Vision’s outreach associate in Gaza and the executive director of Gaza’s General Union of Cultural Centers. His recent op-ed for The New York Times is headlined “What More Must the Children of Gaza Suffer?”
Fadi, if you can talk to us about the last few weeks through the eyes of your three children — Ali, 13; Karam, 10; and Adam, 5?
FADI ABU SHAMMALAH: Thank you so much, Amy and Nermeen, for having me in this interview in a very critical situation.
I start from, from the heavy airstrike and the shelling over all of Gaza Strip every single minute that we have been bombed. The numbers talked about, 10,000 rockets have been launched over Gaza Strip. More than 12,000 of civilian people have been killed. Hundreds of people, civilian people, are still under rubbles, and [inaudible] are not able to rescue them and pull them out from under the rubbles.
Or should I talk about the entire neighborhoods that’s flattened, the road that is cut off, the water, the severe shortage of water, the severe shortage of food, fuel? We don’t have electricity for more than 20 days now or more. I don’t know, to talk about the UNRWA shelters, that it has around more than half-million of displaced people.
Israel asked us to evacuate the Gaza City and the north, because in there — and they killed, they assassinated, they targeted the convoy of cars while they were traveling and evacuating to the south of Gaza Strip. Should I talk about the live video that’s recorded by and broadcasted by a journalist, Palestinian local journalist? His name is Hassan Saifi. He filmed and recorded a video while the tank launched and bombed a civilian car while they were evacuating to the south.
What should I talk about? That we don’t have bread? That we don’t have water? We don’t have fuel. Nothing. We have only one thing: that we are being killed. There is — and, of course, with a green light with the international community, with the U.S. administration. This is the situation. People are scared. From what? For being killed. Really, we are having now a second Nakba, if you know it. The first one happened in 1948. We feel that it’s another Nakba that we are going through, to go through it.
The most horrible thing for us, that’s the officials. The Israeli officials say that we are human animals. Human animals? Animal humans? I don’t remember exactly. Like, we are treated like animals. You know what happen to animals? They’re slaughtered. So, we are slaughtered now by the Israeli genocide government. This is what’s happening now. Like, they now [inaudible]. This is what is going on here, a genocide. A real genocide and massacre is happening now. Like, in previous wars, we used to have like 10 persons of a family is killed. Now the whole building, the entire neighborhoods is bombed, flattened. It’s happening in Jabaliya for three days, in Nuseirat, in Khan Younis city, in every single mid-Gaza Strip cities. This is what is happening here now.
I’m a father of three kids, as you have mentioned. They think that I’m a hero. I’m not. I’m scared exactly like them. I’m scared of the bombing. I’m scared of not having water. We were lucky that we had yesterday, before yesterday, drinking water. We have been without drinking water for around a day. Like, we don’t have electricity here. Like, we are also lucky that we have two solar panels at the roof of my family. I’m evacuated, by the way. I’m originally living in Gaza City, but I’m already evacuated to my parents. So I’m so lucky that my parents’ home — are living in Khan Younis refugees camp.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Fadi —
FADI ABU SHAMMALAH: I can’t imagine that there’s millions — millions — [inaudible] evacuated their homes. Yeah.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Fadi, you’re speaking now — as you said, the international community, led by the United States, has been supporting Israel absolutely in its operation in Gaza. If you could say, what is your message to Americans as Gaza is under this systemic — systematic military assault that is ongoing? And you’re describing the devastating conditions under which you and all these children, your own, of course, three children — but we’ve just said 3,700 children have been killed in Gaza. What is your message to Americans?
FADI ABU SHAMMALAH: I would say that I’m so, so, so proud of the hundred thousands of Americans who went to demonstrate for us. We are here in Gaza Strip. Believe us, we are following the news, and we feel, like, more comfortable when we’re watching in TVs, like, thousands and hundreds of thousands of American peoples who went to the streets in order to support us, to express the sympathy and in solidarity with the Palestinian people here in Gaza Strip. That makes us more relaxed and comfortable that we are not alone, that there is a lot of people who they still have a live heart. That’s my message to you: Please keep going. We are listening to you. We are following you. I’m sure that no one can stop our voice, our voices for justice. Please keep doing what you’re doing now, because at the end, I’m sure that the U.S. administration will listen to you and stop, or at least [inaudible] the green light that it’s giving to the Israeli government of killing us.
But, please, this is your money. This is the taxes money that you are paying to the American administration. It’s used by buying bombs and rockets and providing it to [inaudible] government. We are being killed by your taxes now. Please say no to your administration, that’s [inaudible] this unlimited, unlimited and ongoing support. The Israeli occupation are checking the humanitarian aid that’s entered Gaza Strip. It’s milk for kids. It’s a medicine. It’s white flour for making bread. So, can you at least make double check this support by the American administration, where it goes, what it’s used for? It would be like our main priority for you guys in the U.S.
I will say it again, and I have mentioned it before, that I was in the U.S. in March, and I met tens of Americans, of people. I was so lucky that I have met them in March. I saw these people who have live hearts, who still have conscience, and they believe in justice. We are depending on these kind of people, who can stay the truth, and they can tell the truth, and they have the courages, and they are brave enough to say to their administration, that “Stop of standing with the massacre’s implementers, with the occupation.”
It’s not about Gaza. It’s not a war between Israel and Hamas anymore. It’s a war between the Israelis, in the most strong forces in the Middle East, against a civilian people. Like, look at West Bank. They don’t have Hamas there. How many one is killed since October 10 — 7? Sorry.
As Palestinians, we are off of the double standards by the international community. And I’m talking about the politicians, about the governments, not the people, because we also followed the great demonstration in the street in the European Union, also hundreds of thousands of people. Also in London, like half-million of British people were in the streets.
Come on, people all over the world know the truth. You can’t hide it. It happened in the past that a lot of media were hiding the truth. But now we have social media. We have Zoom. We have WhatsApp. We have a lot of applications that people in Gaza Strip and in Palestine that can use, and that we can keep telling the truth for what is going on now here in Gaza Strip. No one will stop us. We have a lot of English speakers. We will keep telling the truth loudly. We will not stop. We will keep speaking up, until the international community will respect our willing and self-determination and, of course, stop the horrific genocide that is happening now.
The numbers, again, the numbers of the killed people, it’s not the truth. Yeah, that’s right. It’s not the real number, of course, because we have a lot of missed people. We have a lot of killed people who are still under rubble, the rubbles. Another horrific number, by the way, it didn’t happen before, that the number of the injured people is double of the killed people. It’s horrible. Like, the bombing, they meant to kill the people while they are bombing the civilian peoples here. You can see. Of course, millions and billions of people over the TVs, they can watch. They can judge what is going on here. You can see. Like, come on! It’s entire neighborhoods. Entire neighborhoods, they bombed it. Like, it’s crazy. And, of course, if Israel has no one to tell them that they have to stop, they will keep killing us.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Fadi, I want to ask —
FADI ABU SHAMMALAH: They only — yes.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I want to ask, Fadi, you — I mean, these attacks are taking place in response to the Hamas attack on October 7th. Obviously, as you’ve said, it’s a genocide that’s taking place. But I want to ask you about the response that Israel has had to nonviolent resistance by Palestinians. You wrote in 2018 a piece called “Why I March in Gaza.” Explain what the response was of Israel to this nonviolent resistance, the Great March of Return.
FADI ABU SHAMMALAH: Oh, that’s [inaudible], by the way. In fact, the Israeli provision is very [inaudible] in killing the Palestinians, even if they are struggling with nonviolence, even if they are staying at their homes, even if they are in West Bank. For example, they kept invading and invading the West Bank cities and towns, and they killed a lot of Palestinians there. And there is — by the way, like couple of months ago or few months ago, there is American old man. He had been detained under hard circumstances until he died. I mean, what this 67-years-old, that man, has done for the Israeli occupation?
Even when Palestinian — and, by the way, the nonviolent struggle, it didn’t happen and started in the 2018 in what we have named and called the Great March. The Palestinians were creative in starting the anniversary [inaudible] in the 1987, when the First Intifada happened, started. What happened there? Even so, the Israeli occupation were killing us, arresting us, shooting at us, demolishing homes. This is the policy of the — an apartheid country. That’s the — I’m so surprised sometimes when someone — as I watch an interview that’s like it’s defending on the Israeli occupation.
Like, we did it in 2018. We were marching. I was there. I participated there, and I was one of the witnesses of the Great Return March. What happened? Snipers. They were, like, [inaudible], if he will shoot the knee of the kids. I know many kids that they have been — their legs were amputated by the snipers. They killed more than 350 in this nonviolent resistance, and also what happened by the U.S. administration at that time. I mean, this [inaudible] eliminate, or I would love, of course, to be stopped. So, whenever and whatever the Palestinians will do, we will — I mean, Israel will keep killing us. It started before 1948, and it will keep going until they have the support from the European, with the U.S. administrations. They will keep killing us, until one day the entire world will believe, like, [inaudible] —
AMY GOODMAN: Fadi Abu Shammalah, we want to thank you so much for being with us. Fadi is Just Vision’s outreach associate in Gaza, executive director of Gaza’s General Union of Cultural Centers, speaking to us from Khan Younis, which has also been bombed repeatedly. We’ll link to your New York Times piece, “What More Must the Children of Gaza Suffer?”
Coming up, the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates on a recent trip to the occupied West Bank and how it changed him. Stay with us.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates Speaks Out Against Israel’s “Segregationist Apartheid Regime” After West Bank Visit
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 02, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/2/ ... transcript
As pressure builds for a ceasefire after 27 days of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates joins us in a broadcast exclusive interview to discuss his journey to Palestine and Israel and learning about the connection between the struggle of African Americans and Palestinians. “The most shocking thing about my time over there was how uncomplicated it actually is,” says Coates, who calls segregation in Palestine and Israel “evil.” “There’s no way for me, as an African American, to come back and stand before you, to witness segregation and not say anything about it.” Coates acknowledges the suppression of those advocating for Palestinian rights but says this is not new for Black writers and journalists. “I have to measure my fear against the misery that I saw.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As pressure builds for a ceasefire after 27 days of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, we spend the rest of the hour with the acclaimed author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates. This summer, he spoke at a literary festival in the West Bank that connected the Palestinian struggle with decolonization struggles around the world. In Ramallah, he opened his remarks with a comparison between the struggle of African Americans and Palestinians.
In recent weeks, Coates joined dozens of other writers and artists in signing “An Open Letter from Participants in the Palestine Festival of Literature,” that was published in The New York Review of Books and called for, quote, “the international community to commit to ending the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza and to finally pursuing a comprehensive and just political solution in Palestine.”
AMY GOODMAN: Last night, Ta-Nehisi Coates participated in another event hosted by organizers of the Palestine Festival of Literature, or PalFest, in the James Chapel at Union Theological Seminary here in New York City. It was called “But We Must Speak: On Palestine and the Mandates of Conscience.”
Ta-Nehisi is the recipient of a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship and the recipient of numerous prizes, including the National Book Award for his book Between the World and Me. We Were Eight Years in Power is another book, An American Tragedy, and his memoir, The Beautiful Struggle. His novel is titled The Water Dancer. In 2014, he wrote an award-winning cover story for The Atlantic magazine headlined “The Case for Reparations.”
Ta-Nehisi, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us, under extremely difficult circumstances. Last night, this remarkable event almost didn’t happen. I mean, it was in the James Chapel of Union Theological Seminary, but venue after venue had said no to this gathering. And without almost any publicity, well over a thousand people turned out, but the place only held 300, so people went over across the street to another place of 300, overcrowd, overflow, and then thousands watched on the live video stream. Can you talk about your experience being in the West Bank, going to the Occupied Territories, and how it changed you?
TA-NEHISI COATES: Oh wow. I spent 10 days in Palestine, in the Occupied Territories and in Israel proper. I’ve had the great luxury over the past 10 years of seeing a few countries. I have not spent more time or seen more of another country or another territory than I did this summer.
I think what shocked me the most was, in any sort of opinion piece or reported piece, or whatever you want to call it, that I’ve read about Israel and about the conflict with the Palestinians, there’s a word that comes up all the time, and it is “complexity,” that and its closely related adjective, “complicated.” And so, while I had my skepticisms and I had my suspicions of the Israeli government, of the occupation, what I expected was that I would find a situation in which it was hard to discern right from wrong, it was hard to understand the morality at play, it was hard to understand the conflict. And perhaps the most shocking thing was I immediately understood what was going on over there.
Probably the best example I can think of is the second day, when we went to Hebron, and the reality of the occupation became clear. We were driving out of East Jerusalem. I was with PalFest, and we were driving out of East Jerusalem into the West Bank. And, you know, you could see the settlements, and they would point out the settlements. And it suddenly dawned on me that I was in a region of the world where some people could vote and some people could not. And that was obviously very, very familiar to me. I got to Hebron, and we got out as a group of writers, and we were given a tour by our Palestinian guide. And we got to a certain street, and he said to us, “I can’t walk down this street. If you want to continue, you have to continue without me.” And that was shocking to me.
And we walked down the street, and we came back, and there was a market area. Hebron is very, very poor. It wasn’t always very poor, but it’s very, very poor. Its market area has been shut down. But there are a few vendors there that I wanted to support. And I was walking to try to get to the vendor, and I was stopped at a checkpoint. Checkpoints all through the city, checkpoints obviously all through the West Bank. Your mobility is completely inhibited, and the mobility of the Palestinians is totally inhibited.
And I was walking to the checkpoint, and an Israeli guard stepped out, probably about the age of my son. And he said to me, “What’s your religion, bro?” And I said, “Well, you know, I’m not really religious.” And he said, “Come on. Stop messing around. What is your religion?” I said, “I’m not playing. I’m not really religious.” And it became clear to me that unless I professed my religion, and the right religion, I wasn’t going to be allowed to walk forward. So, he said, “Well, OK, so what was your parents’ religion?” I said, “Well, they weren’t that religious, either.” He says, “What were your grandparents’ religion?” And I said, “My grandmother was a Christian.” And then he allowed me to pass.
And it became very, very clear to me what was going on there. And I have to say it was quite familiar. Again, I was in a territory where your mobility is inhibited, where your voting rights are inhibited, where your right to the water is inhibited, where your right to housing is inhibited. And it’s all inhibited based on ethnicity. And that sounded extremely, extremely familiar to me.
And so, the most shocking thing about my time over there was how uncomplicated it actually is. Now, I’m not saying the details of it are not complicated. History is always complicated. Present events are always complicated. But the way this is reported in the Western media is as though one needs a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern studies to understand the basic morality of holding a people in a situation in which they don’t have basic rights, including the right that we treasure most, the franchise, the right to vote, and then declaring that state a democracy. It’s actually not that hard to understand. It’s actually quite familiar to those of us with a familiarity to African American history.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Ta-Nehisi Coates, last night you were asked about the significance of Martin Luther King’s words on Vietnam. You said it’s taken you years to, quote, “understand nonviolence as an ethic” and that you understood that ethic in Israel. Could you explain?
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, sure, I mean, and I think the thing to do is just to proceed off of what I said. Martin Luther King dedicated his life to the fight against segregation. His was a segregated society. The Occupied Territories are segregated, de jure segregated. It’s not, you know, hard to understand. There are different signs for where different people can go. There are different license plates forbidding different people from going different places. Now, what the authorities will tell you is that this is a security measure. But if you go back to the history of Jim Crow in this country, they would tell you the exact same thing. People always have good reasons, besides, you know, “I hate you, and I don’t like you,” to justify their right for imposing an oppressive regime on other people. It’s never quite that simple. And so, that was the first thing.
But the second thing I think that you’re referring to is, you know, I — you know, this is like really personal for me, because I came up in a time and in a place where I did not really understand the ethic of nonviolence. And by “ethic,” I mean the notion that violence itself is corrupting, that it corrupts the soul. And I didn’t quite understand that. If I’m truly honest with you, as much as I saw my relationship with the Palestinian people and as much as it was clear what the relationship was, it was at the same time clear that there was some sort of relationship with the Israeli people, too. And it wasn’t one that I particularly enjoyed, because I understood the rage that comes when you have a history of oppression. I understood the anger. I understood the sense of humiliation that comes when people subject you to just manifold oppression, to genocide, and people look away from that. I come from the descendants of 250 years of enslavement. I come from a people who sexual violence and rape is marked in our very bones and in our DNA. And I understand how when you feel that the world has turned its back on you, how you can then turn your back on the ethics of the world. But I also understood how corrupting that can be.
I was listening, actually, to my congressman last night, or I guess it was two nights ago, talk on the news. And a journalist asked him, “How many children, how many people must be killed to justify this operation? Is there an upper limit for the number of people that could be killed, when you would say, 'This is just too much. This just doesn't — this just doesn’t, you know, compute. This does not add up’?” And I will tell you, that congressman couldn’t give a number. And I thought, “That man has been corrupted. That man has lost himself. He’s lost himself in humiliation. He’s lost himself in vengeance. He has lost himself in violence.”
I keep hearing this term repeated over and over again: “the right to self-defense.” What about the right to dignity? What about the right to morality? What about the right to be able to sleep at night? Because what I know is, if I was complicit — and I am complicit — in dropping bombs on children, in dropping bombs on refugee camps, no matter who’s there, it would give me trouble sleeping at night. And I worry for the souls of people who can do this and can sleep at night.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you, Ta-Nehisi, last night, as I said at the beginning, I think Union Theological was the fifth place that PalFest had turned to for this event. I want to point out who was there. Among the speakers was you, you know, a MacArthur “genius” fellow; was Michelle Alexander, the remarkable author and lawyer; Rashid Khalidi, a leading Palestinian American scholar, Edward Said professor of Arab studies at Columbia University; and others. And you being at Union Theological, you know, Dr. Martin Luther King is known for that speech, “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam,” that he gave across the street at Riverside Church, but he started at Union Theological. So many people came, he had to go across the street for it. But can you talk about this difficulty in speaking out? I mean, just last week, we spoke to Viet Thanh Nguyen, who is the Vietnamese American Pulitzer Prize-winning author, who was on a book tour for his latest memoir, and the 92nd Street Y, now known as 92NY, canceled his conversation about his memoir because he had signed on to a letter — I think it was signed by 750 other people — calling for a ceasefire. The U.N. secretary-general has called for a Gaza ceasefire. Can you talk about what it means to break the sound barrier, and if you were nervous about coming out and speaking about Gaza, about the West Bank, even going, to begin with, knowing what you would feel responsible for doing once you came out?
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, I wasn’t just nervous. I was afraid. You know, I hear people talk all the time about how fearlessness is a necessary quality. And I have never had that. I’ve never had that in my life, and I certainly have never had that in my career.
I spent five days with PalFest when I was over there, and then I spent another five days with a group of Israeli Jews. And I knew that whatever I was going to see — like, I had a sentiment. I couldn’t express it like I just expressed it for you right now, because, obviously, I hadn’t been there. But I had a sentiment that what I was going to see was not going to be great. And I know that, A, because of my upbringing, and I know that, B, because of my vocation as a journalist, you can’t behold evil and then return and not speak on it. And segregation is evil. There just is no — there’s no way for me, as an African American, to come back and stand before you, to witness segregation and not say anything about it.
One of the hardest things was to come back and then to read the rhetoric of certain African American politicians who are defending this regime. And I just — I couldn’t understand it. You know, I wanted to know if they had been to Hebron. You know, I wanted to know if they had been to Masafer Yatta, if they had been to Susiya, if they had been to Tuba. Had they seen? Had they really seen what is actually happening here? I don’t know how anybody who benefits, who stands on the shoulders of our ancestors’ struggle against Jim Crow, against segregation, could see what is happening right now, could see the bombs being dropped, 9,000 people dead, an ungodly number of them children, in service of Jim Crow and segregation, which we have exported, and be OK with that. I don’t — I don’t understand it.
So, yes, I have my fears. I do. I do. You know, I’m afraid right now, sitting here talking to you. But I have to measure my fear against the misery that I saw. I have to measure my fear against the promises that I made to the Palestinians who welcomed me into their homes and gave me the facts, to the Israeli Jews who welcomed me into their homes and gave me the facts, to the Holocaust survivors who welcomed me into their homes and gave me the facts. I have to measure it against my own ancestors, against Frederick Douglass, against Ida B. Wells, who certainly faced off against things that were much, much more perilous than going someplace, coming back and telling people what you saw. This is the minimum. It’s scary, but it’s also the minimum. And the fact that people are trying to suppress speech is not an excuse for you not to speak. It’s always been this way for Black writers and journalists. This is our tradition, you know? And so, I feel — as I do feel the fear, I also feel that I am in good company, because I’m in the company of my ancestors.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Ta-Nehisi, I want to ask you about the way in which this conflict is in fact being represented in the media and, as you pointed out, politicians, congressmembers, but also the White House. On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre compared pro-Palestinian protesters to the white supremacists who took part in the deadly —
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, I saw it.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: — Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. She made the comment in response to a question from Fox News’s Peter Doocy.
PETER DOOCY: Does President Biden think the anti-Israel protesters in this country are extremists?
PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: What I can say is what we’ve been very clear about this: When it comes to antisemitism, there is no place. We have to make sure that we speak against it very loud and be — and be very clear about that. Remember, what the president decided to — when the president decided to run for president is what he saw in Charlottesville in 2017, when we — he saw neo-Nazis marching down the streets of Charlottesville with vile, antisemitic just hatred. And he was very clear then, and he’s very clear now. He’s taken actions against this over the past two years. And he’s continued to be clear: There is no place — no place — for this type of vile and despite — this kind of rhetoric.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Ta-Nehisi Coates, that’s the White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Your response?
TA-NEHISI COATES: You know, I don’t want to personalize this. I’m sure she’s a very, you know, nice person and a very, very kind person. But, you see, all of us stand on the shoulders of Martin Luther King. All of us stand on the shoulders of the nonviolent struggle. And on King’s birthday, the White House, like it’s done for years, stands up, and, you know, it praises Dr. King, and it talks about Dr. King as our modern-day prophet. I don’t know how these people do that and sleep at night. I don’t know how you compare people who are trying to stop a war, who are very much in the tradition of nonviolence, who are trying to stop bombs being dropped, literally, on refugee camps, to neo-Nazi protesters. It’s disgraceful, to use her own words. It’s disgraceful. It’s reprehensible. It is offensive, as far as I am concerned, to the shoulders on those whom we stand right now. I just — I don’t understand it.
I would extend this further. I mean, I think hearing President Biden himself — and here I will personalize it — downplay the number of Palestinian deaths, to say that he doesn’t believe the Palestinians, I just — when his own State Department was citing those figures only months ago, you know? At some point, you know, there’s that saying: When people show you who they are, you have to believe them. And so, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to do the political calculus on this. And I think at a certain point we have to just stop and say, “They believe it.” They believe it. They believe bombs should be dropped on children. They just think it’s OK. They think it’s OK, or at the very least they think it’s the price of doing business.
That’s not an ethic I can align myself from, because, as I’ve said several times in this interview, I come from a history where people wanted to make the exact same calculus about us and took stances that we would now say are immoral. But, see, the test isn’t what you did in the past; the test is what you do in the moment right now. I’m a writer. I would be much more comfortable — I was working on a book about this. I would be much more comfortable sitting at home writing about this, before I’m here talking to you guys right now. It is not my nature to talk about things that I have not written about yet. But one has to balance one’s responsibility against the suffering, against the death, against the body count. And to see what is coming out of this White House right now is just — it’s morally reprehensible. Again, I don’t know how people sleep at night.
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve been talking about Dr. King. His daughter, Dr. Bernice King, who heads The King Center, lawyer, Martin Luther King’s youngest daughter, responded to a post by the comedian Amy Schumer, who shared a video of Dr. King condemning antisemitism and defending Israel’s right to exist. Bernice King wrote, quote, “Certainly, my father was against antisemitism. He also believed militarism (along with racism and poverty) to be among the interconnected Triple Evils. I am certain he would call for Israel’s bombing of Palestinians to cease,” Dr. Bernice King said. And so, if you could comment on this and also talk about how the issue of Palestinians, the Occupied Territories, the occupation, has been raised in the Black community, the Movement for Black Lives, for years now, and the pressure you come under when you do?
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, and, look, I think it’s very, very important to talk about the force of antisemitism in history, indeed in American history, in fact. It’s a very, very, very real thing, and I don’t think you can understand the events of the moment without understanding that.
And I think, over the past few weeks especially, much has been made about the historic alliance between Black folks and Jewish activists and Jewish folks and that sort of thing. And it’s a very, very real thing. It’s a very, very important thing. But I think, like any alliance, it is at its best when it grounds itself in moral principle, not in a kind of gang truce, not in a kind of “I had your back, so you’ll have mine.” A moral alliance that is transactional is actually, in fact, not a moral alliance. And we have always been at our best — you know, when I think about the Jewish civil rights workers who went south and put their bodies on the line for the civil rights movement, I like to think — and I think it’s true — that that was not a transactional arrangement. That was not, you know, an attempt to say, “Look, I’m doing this because I think you’ll have my back in the future.” They did it because it was right. They did it based on principle.
And so, you know, I think some of the frustration that certain, certain people feel about the lack of African American support for this war comes from this notion that we should have people’s back as they drop bombs to try to defend a segregationist apartheid regime. We shouldn’t do that. And we haven’t done that. That’s the history that you allude to, I mean, going back to Angela Davis, to SNCC, to Black Lives Matter. I stand here, or I sit here, very, very humbly as a latecomer to the cause, but someone who has come to the cause nonetheless. We have to stand on principle, Ma’am. We have to stand on principle. And if I’m a latecomer to the Palestinian cause, I’m also a latecomer to the cause of nonviolence, but I’m here now. You know? And knowing what that has meant to our history, you know, to our — there is no way in the world that we can leverage the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, there’s no way in the world we can leverage the weight, the ancestry of our movement, in defense of a war, in defense of indiscriminate bombings on refugee camps. We just — we can’t do that. We can’t do that. We would be a disgrace to our ancestors.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Ta-Nehisi, last night, just to end, you said — we’ve just spoken about the fact that it was so difficult for the Palestine Festival of Literature to find a venue for last night’s event. Your own books here in the U.S. have faced book bans, and yours aren’t the only ones, of course. But you’ve said that when people resort to these measures — book banning, limiting public discussions — these are weapons of a weak and a decaying order. Could you explain what you mean by that, and why there is, despite the horror of the moment, some scope for optimism?
TA-NEHISI COATES: Well, I think if you — and a lot of this is, you know, actually from my time talking to Rashid Khalidi, Professor Rashid Khalidi up at Columbia. And one of the points he made — you know, I came back from Palestine, and I just was glass-eyed. I didn’t understand. I had this deep-seated feeling that, in fact, I had been lied to. And I began consulting people and talking to people. And so, I got to spend some time with Professor Khalidi.
And one of the things he said to me was, never has the movement — this is somebody who’s been fighting this war for his entire life. He said, “Never has the movement been as powerful as it is right now.” And, you know, I had to take that in. I also have to take in the fact that, like, when I think about what I did not know, and when I did not know, it wasn’t that I had competing sources and I didn’t know where to turn. The way I think Americans have traditionally, up until very recently, you know —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds, Ta-Nehisi.
TA-NEHISI COATES: — saw this struggle — sure. I’m sorry about that. I will just say that I’m very optimistic about the fight, and I think we’re going to win. I’ll leave it there. Sorry about that.
AMY GOODMAN: Ta-Nehisi Coates, acclaimed writer, National Book Award winner, spoke at an event last night organized by Palestine Festival of Literature here in New York. We will link to the live stream.
Before we end, this update from Gaza: The Palestinian WAFA news agency is reporting at least 27 people were killed today in an Israeli bombing of an UNRWA school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, the largest refugee camp in Gaza. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 02, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/2/ ... transcript
As the overall death toll from Israel’s 27-day bombardment tops 9,000, we speak with Just Vision’s Fadi Abu Shammalah in Gaza about his family’s experiences on the ground as the besieged territory runs out of water, food and fuel. “We have only one thing: that we are being killed,” says Shammalah, who calls for Americans to “keep going” in demonstrations for Palestinian rights. “We are being killed by your taxes.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Gaza.
PALESTINIAN CHILD: [screaming]
NERMEEN SHAIKH: A Palestinian child screams out, “We did nothing wrong! We did nothing wrong!” as Israel bombs the Jabaliya refugee camp for a third day in a row, this time hitting a school run UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. At least 195 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza’s largest refugee camp in a series of devastating Israeli airstrikes in recent days. The U.N. Human Rights Office said in a statement, quote, “we have serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes.”
The overall death toll from Israel’s 27-day bombardment has topped 9,000, including 3,700 children. UNICEF is warning children are paying the heaviest price in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Khan Younis, where we’re joined by Fadi Abu Shammalah. He is Just Vision’s outreach associate in Gaza and the executive director of Gaza’s General Union of Cultural Centers. His recent op-ed for The New York Times is headlined “What More Must the Children of Gaza Suffer?”
Fadi, if you can talk to us about the last few weeks through the eyes of your three children — Ali, 13; Karam, 10; and Adam, 5?
FADI ABU SHAMMALAH: Thank you so much, Amy and Nermeen, for having me in this interview in a very critical situation.
I start from, from the heavy airstrike and the shelling over all of Gaza Strip every single minute that we have been bombed. The numbers talked about, 10,000 rockets have been launched over Gaza Strip. More than 12,000 of civilian people have been killed. Hundreds of people, civilian people, are still under rubbles, and [inaudible] are not able to rescue them and pull them out from under the rubbles.
Or should I talk about the entire neighborhoods that’s flattened, the road that is cut off, the water, the severe shortage of water, the severe shortage of food, fuel? We don’t have electricity for more than 20 days now or more. I don’t know, to talk about the UNRWA shelters, that it has around more than half-million of displaced people.
Israel asked us to evacuate the Gaza City and the north, because in there — and they killed, they assassinated, they targeted the convoy of cars while they were traveling and evacuating to the south of Gaza Strip. Should I talk about the live video that’s recorded by and broadcasted by a journalist, Palestinian local journalist? His name is Hassan Saifi. He filmed and recorded a video while the tank launched and bombed a civilian car while they were evacuating to the south.
What should I talk about? That we don’t have bread? That we don’t have water? We don’t have fuel. Nothing. We have only one thing: that we are being killed. There is — and, of course, with a green light with the international community, with the U.S. administration. This is the situation. People are scared. From what? For being killed. Really, we are having now a second Nakba, if you know it. The first one happened in 1948. We feel that it’s another Nakba that we are going through, to go through it.
The most horrible thing for us, that’s the officials. The Israeli officials say that we are human animals. Human animals? Animal humans? I don’t remember exactly. Like, we are treated like animals. You know what happen to animals? They’re slaughtered. So, we are slaughtered now by the Israeli genocide government. This is what’s happening now. Like, they now [inaudible]. This is what is going on here, a genocide. A real genocide and massacre is happening now. Like, in previous wars, we used to have like 10 persons of a family is killed. Now the whole building, the entire neighborhoods is bombed, flattened. It’s happening in Jabaliya for three days, in Nuseirat, in Khan Younis city, in every single mid-Gaza Strip cities. This is what is happening here now.
I’m a father of three kids, as you have mentioned. They think that I’m a hero. I’m not. I’m scared exactly like them. I’m scared of the bombing. I’m scared of not having water. We were lucky that we had yesterday, before yesterday, drinking water. We have been without drinking water for around a day. Like, we don’t have electricity here. Like, we are also lucky that we have two solar panels at the roof of my family. I’m evacuated, by the way. I’m originally living in Gaza City, but I’m already evacuated to my parents. So I’m so lucky that my parents’ home — are living in Khan Younis refugees camp.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Fadi —
FADI ABU SHAMMALAH: I can’t imagine that there’s millions — millions — [inaudible] evacuated their homes. Yeah.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Fadi, you’re speaking now — as you said, the international community, led by the United States, has been supporting Israel absolutely in its operation in Gaza. If you could say, what is your message to Americans as Gaza is under this systemic — systematic military assault that is ongoing? And you’re describing the devastating conditions under which you and all these children, your own, of course, three children — but we’ve just said 3,700 children have been killed in Gaza. What is your message to Americans?
FADI ABU SHAMMALAH: I would say that I’m so, so, so proud of the hundred thousands of Americans who went to demonstrate for us. We are here in Gaza Strip. Believe us, we are following the news, and we feel, like, more comfortable when we’re watching in TVs, like, thousands and hundreds of thousands of American peoples who went to the streets in order to support us, to express the sympathy and in solidarity with the Palestinian people here in Gaza Strip. That makes us more relaxed and comfortable that we are not alone, that there is a lot of people who they still have a live heart. That’s my message to you: Please keep going. We are listening to you. We are following you. I’m sure that no one can stop our voice, our voices for justice. Please keep doing what you’re doing now, because at the end, I’m sure that the U.S. administration will listen to you and stop, or at least [inaudible] the green light that it’s giving to the Israeli government of killing us.
But, please, this is your money. This is the taxes money that you are paying to the American administration. It’s used by buying bombs and rockets and providing it to [inaudible] government. We are being killed by your taxes now. Please say no to your administration, that’s [inaudible] this unlimited, unlimited and ongoing support. The Israeli occupation are checking the humanitarian aid that’s entered Gaza Strip. It’s milk for kids. It’s a medicine. It’s white flour for making bread. So, can you at least make double check this support by the American administration, where it goes, what it’s used for? It would be like our main priority for you guys in the U.S.
I will say it again, and I have mentioned it before, that I was in the U.S. in March, and I met tens of Americans, of people. I was so lucky that I have met them in March. I saw these people who have live hearts, who still have conscience, and they believe in justice. We are depending on these kind of people, who can stay the truth, and they can tell the truth, and they have the courages, and they are brave enough to say to their administration, that “Stop of standing with the massacre’s implementers, with the occupation.”
It’s not about Gaza. It’s not a war between Israel and Hamas anymore. It’s a war between the Israelis, in the most strong forces in the Middle East, against a civilian people. Like, look at West Bank. They don’t have Hamas there. How many one is killed since October 10 — 7? Sorry.
As Palestinians, we are off of the double standards by the international community. And I’m talking about the politicians, about the governments, not the people, because we also followed the great demonstration in the street in the European Union, also hundreds of thousands of people. Also in London, like half-million of British people were in the streets.
Come on, people all over the world know the truth. You can’t hide it. It happened in the past that a lot of media were hiding the truth. But now we have social media. We have Zoom. We have WhatsApp. We have a lot of applications that people in Gaza Strip and in Palestine that can use, and that we can keep telling the truth for what is going on now here in Gaza Strip. No one will stop us. We have a lot of English speakers. We will keep telling the truth loudly. We will not stop. We will keep speaking up, until the international community will respect our willing and self-determination and, of course, stop the horrific genocide that is happening now.
The numbers, again, the numbers of the killed people, it’s not the truth. Yeah, that’s right. It’s not the real number, of course, because we have a lot of missed people. We have a lot of killed people who are still under rubble, the rubbles. Another horrific number, by the way, it didn’t happen before, that the number of the injured people is double of the killed people. It’s horrible. Like, the bombing, they meant to kill the people while they are bombing the civilian peoples here. You can see. Of course, millions and billions of people over the TVs, they can watch. They can judge what is going on here. You can see. Like, come on! It’s entire neighborhoods. Entire neighborhoods, they bombed it. Like, it’s crazy. And, of course, if Israel has no one to tell them that they have to stop, they will keep killing us.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Fadi, I want to ask —
FADI ABU SHAMMALAH: They only — yes.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I want to ask, Fadi, you — I mean, these attacks are taking place in response to the Hamas attack on October 7th. Obviously, as you’ve said, it’s a genocide that’s taking place. But I want to ask you about the response that Israel has had to nonviolent resistance by Palestinians. You wrote in 2018 a piece called “Why I March in Gaza.” Explain what the response was of Israel to this nonviolent resistance, the Great March of Return.
FADI ABU SHAMMALAH: Oh, that’s [inaudible], by the way. In fact, the Israeli provision is very [inaudible] in killing the Palestinians, even if they are struggling with nonviolence, even if they are staying at their homes, even if they are in West Bank. For example, they kept invading and invading the West Bank cities and towns, and they killed a lot of Palestinians there. And there is — by the way, like couple of months ago or few months ago, there is American old man. He had been detained under hard circumstances until he died. I mean, what this 67-years-old, that man, has done for the Israeli occupation?
Even when Palestinian — and, by the way, the nonviolent struggle, it didn’t happen and started in the 2018 in what we have named and called the Great March. The Palestinians were creative in starting the anniversary [inaudible] in the 1987, when the First Intifada happened, started. What happened there? Even so, the Israeli occupation were killing us, arresting us, shooting at us, demolishing homes. This is the policy of the — an apartheid country. That’s the — I’m so surprised sometimes when someone — as I watch an interview that’s like it’s defending on the Israeli occupation.
Like, we did it in 2018. We were marching. I was there. I participated there, and I was one of the witnesses of the Great Return March. What happened? Snipers. They were, like, [inaudible], if he will shoot the knee of the kids. I know many kids that they have been — their legs were amputated by the snipers. They killed more than 350 in this nonviolent resistance, and also what happened by the U.S. administration at that time. I mean, this [inaudible] eliminate, or I would love, of course, to be stopped. So, whenever and whatever the Palestinians will do, we will — I mean, Israel will keep killing us. It started before 1948, and it will keep going until they have the support from the European, with the U.S. administrations. They will keep killing us, until one day the entire world will believe, like, [inaudible] —
AMY GOODMAN: Fadi Abu Shammalah, we want to thank you so much for being with us. Fadi is Just Vision’s outreach associate in Gaza, executive director of Gaza’s General Union of Cultural Centers, speaking to us from Khan Younis, which has also been bombed repeatedly. We’ll link to your New York Times piece, “What More Must the Children of Gaza Suffer?”
Coming up, the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates on a recent trip to the occupied West Bank and how it changed him. Stay with us.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates Speaks Out Against Israel’s “Segregationist Apartheid Regime” After West Bank Visit
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 02, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/2/ ... transcript
As pressure builds for a ceasefire after 27 days of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates joins us in a broadcast exclusive interview to discuss his journey to Palestine and Israel and learning about the connection between the struggle of African Americans and Palestinians. “The most shocking thing about my time over there was how uncomplicated it actually is,” says Coates, who calls segregation in Palestine and Israel “evil.” “There’s no way for me, as an African American, to come back and stand before you, to witness segregation and not say anything about it.” Coates acknowledges the suppression of those advocating for Palestinian rights but says this is not new for Black writers and journalists. “I have to measure my fear against the misery that I saw.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As pressure builds for a ceasefire after 27 days of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, we spend the rest of the hour with the acclaimed author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates. This summer, he spoke at a literary festival in the West Bank that connected the Palestinian struggle with decolonization struggles around the world. In Ramallah, he opened his remarks with a comparison between the struggle of African Americans and Palestinians.
In recent weeks, Coates joined dozens of other writers and artists in signing “An Open Letter from Participants in the Palestine Festival of Literature,” that was published in The New York Review of Books and called for, quote, “the international community to commit to ending the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza and to finally pursuing a comprehensive and just political solution in Palestine.”
AMY GOODMAN: Last night, Ta-Nehisi Coates participated in another event hosted by organizers of the Palestine Festival of Literature, or PalFest, in the James Chapel at Union Theological Seminary here in New York City. It was called “But We Must Speak: On Palestine and the Mandates of Conscience.”
Ta-Nehisi is the recipient of a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship and the recipient of numerous prizes, including the National Book Award for his book Between the World and Me. We Were Eight Years in Power is another book, An American Tragedy, and his memoir, The Beautiful Struggle. His novel is titled The Water Dancer. In 2014, he wrote an award-winning cover story for The Atlantic magazine headlined “The Case for Reparations.”
Ta-Nehisi, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us, under extremely difficult circumstances. Last night, this remarkable event almost didn’t happen. I mean, it was in the James Chapel of Union Theological Seminary, but venue after venue had said no to this gathering. And without almost any publicity, well over a thousand people turned out, but the place only held 300, so people went over across the street to another place of 300, overcrowd, overflow, and then thousands watched on the live video stream. Can you talk about your experience being in the West Bank, going to the Occupied Territories, and how it changed you?
TA-NEHISI COATES: Oh wow. I spent 10 days in Palestine, in the Occupied Territories and in Israel proper. I’ve had the great luxury over the past 10 years of seeing a few countries. I have not spent more time or seen more of another country or another territory than I did this summer.
I think what shocked me the most was, in any sort of opinion piece or reported piece, or whatever you want to call it, that I’ve read about Israel and about the conflict with the Palestinians, there’s a word that comes up all the time, and it is “complexity,” that and its closely related adjective, “complicated.” And so, while I had my skepticisms and I had my suspicions of the Israeli government, of the occupation, what I expected was that I would find a situation in which it was hard to discern right from wrong, it was hard to understand the morality at play, it was hard to understand the conflict. And perhaps the most shocking thing was I immediately understood what was going on over there.
Probably the best example I can think of is the second day, when we went to Hebron, and the reality of the occupation became clear. We were driving out of East Jerusalem. I was with PalFest, and we were driving out of East Jerusalem into the West Bank. And, you know, you could see the settlements, and they would point out the settlements. And it suddenly dawned on me that I was in a region of the world where some people could vote and some people could not. And that was obviously very, very familiar to me. I got to Hebron, and we got out as a group of writers, and we were given a tour by our Palestinian guide. And we got to a certain street, and he said to us, “I can’t walk down this street. If you want to continue, you have to continue without me.” And that was shocking to me.
And we walked down the street, and we came back, and there was a market area. Hebron is very, very poor. It wasn’t always very poor, but it’s very, very poor. Its market area has been shut down. But there are a few vendors there that I wanted to support. And I was walking to try to get to the vendor, and I was stopped at a checkpoint. Checkpoints all through the city, checkpoints obviously all through the West Bank. Your mobility is completely inhibited, and the mobility of the Palestinians is totally inhibited.
And I was walking to the checkpoint, and an Israeli guard stepped out, probably about the age of my son. And he said to me, “What’s your religion, bro?” And I said, “Well, you know, I’m not really religious.” And he said, “Come on. Stop messing around. What is your religion?” I said, “I’m not playing. I’m not really religious.” And it became clear to me that unless I professed my religion, and the right religion, I wasn’t going to be allowed to walk forward. So, he said, “Well, OK, so what was your parents’ religion?” I said, “Well, they weren’t that religious, either.” He says, “What were your grandparents’ religion?” And I said, “My grandmother was a Christian.” And then he allowed me to pass.
And it became very, very clear to me what was going on there. And I have to say it was quite familiar. Again, I was in a territory where your mobility is inhibited, where your voting rights are inhibited, where your right to the water is inhibited, where your right to housing is inhibited. And it’s all inhibited based on ethnicity. And that sounded extremely, extremely familiar to me.
And so, the most shocking thing about my time over there was how uncomplicated it actually is. Now, I’m not saying the details of it are not complicated. History is always complicated. Present events are always complicated. But the way this is reported in the Western media is as though one needs a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern studies to understand the basic morality of holding a people in a situation in which they don’t have basic rights, including the right that we treasure most, the franchise, the right to vote, and then declaring that state a democracy. It’s actually not that hard to understand. It’s actually quite familiar to those of us with a familiarity to African American history.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Ta-Nehisi Coates, last night you were asked about the significance of Martin Luther King’s words on Vietnam. You said it’s taken you years to, quote, “understand nonviolence as an ethic” and that you understood that ethic in Israel. Could you explain?
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, sure, I mean, and I think the thing to do is just to proceed off of what I said. Martin Luther King dedicated his life to the fight against segregation. His was a segregated society. The Occupied Territories are segregated, de jure segregated. It’s not, you know, hard to understand. There are different signs for where different people can go. There are different license plates forbidding different people from going different places. Now, what the authorities will tell you is that this is a security measure. But if you go back to the history of Jim Crow in this country, they would tell you the exact same thing. People always have good reasons, besides, you know, “I hate you, and I don’t like you,” to justify their right for imposing an oppressive regime on other people. It’s never quite that simple. And so, that was the first thing.
But the second thing I think that you’re referring to is, you know, I — you know, this is like really personal for me, because I came up in a time and in a place where I did not really understand the ethic of nonviolence. And by “ethic,” I mean the notion that violence itself is corrupting, that it corrupts the soul. And I didn’t quite understand that. If I’m truly honest with you, as much as I saw my relationship with the Palestinian people and as much as it was clear what the relationship was, it was at the same time clear that there was some sort of relationship with the Israeli people, too. And it wasn’t one that I particularly enjoyed, because I understood the rage that comes when you have a history of oppression. I understood the anger. I understood the sense of humiliation that comes when people subject you to just manifold oppression, to genocide, and people look away from that. I come from the descendants of 250 years of enslavement. I come from a people who sexual violence and rape is marked in our very bones and in our DNA. And I understand how when you feel that the world has turned its back on you, how you can then turn your back on the ethics of the world. But I also understood how corrupting that can be.
I was listening, actually, to my congressman last night, or I guess it was two nights ago, talk on the news. And a journalist asked him, “How many children, how many people must be killed to justify this operation? Is there an upper limit for the number of people that could be killed, when you would say, 'This is just too much. This just doesn't — this just doesn’t, you know, compute. This does not add up’?” And I will tell you, that congressman couldn’t give a number. And I thought, “That man has been corrupted. That man has lost himself. He’s lost himself in humiliation. He’s lost himself in vengeance. He has lost himself in violence.”
I keep hearing this term repeated over and over again: “the right to self-defense.” What about the right to dignity? What about the right to morality? What about the right to be able to sleep at night? Because what I know is, if I was complicit — and I am complicit — in dropping bombs on children, in dropping bombs on refugee camps, no matter who’s there, it would give me trouble sleeping at night. And I worry for the souls of people who can do this and can sleep at night.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you, Ta-Nehisi, last night, as I said at the beginning, I think Union Theological was the fifth place that PalFest had turned to for this event. I want to point out who was there. Among the speakers was you, you know, a MacArthur “genius” fellow; was Michelle Alexander, the remarkable author and lawyer; Rashid Khalidi, a leading Palestinian American scholar, Edward Said professor of Arab studies at Columbia University; and others. And you being at Union Theological, you know, Dr. Martin Luther King is known for that speech, “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam,” that he gave across the street at Riverside Church, but he started at Union Theological. So many people came, he had to go across the street for it. But can you talk about this difficulty in speaking out? I mean, just last week, we spoke to Viet Thanh Nguyen, who is the Vietnamese American Pulitzer Prize-winning author, who was on a book tour for his latest memoir, and the 92nd Street Y, now known as 92NY, canceled his conversation about his memoir because he had signed on to a letter — I think it was signed by 750 other people — calling for a ceasefire. The U.N. secretary-general has called for a Gaza ceasefire. Can you talk about what it means to break the sound barrier, and if you were nervous about coming out and speaking about Gaza, about the West Bank, even going, to begin with, knowing what you would feel responsible for doing once you came out?
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, I wasn’t just nervous. I was afraid. You know, I hear people talk all the time about how fearlessness is a necessary quality. And I have never had that. I’ve never had that in my life, and I certainly have never had that in my career.
I spent five days with PalFest when I was over there, and then I spent another five days with a group of Israeli Jews. And I knew that whatever I was going to see — like, I had a sentiment. I couldn’t express it like I just expressed it for you right now, because, obviously, I hadn’t been there. But I had a sentiment that what I was going to see was not going to be great. And I know that, A, because of my upbringing, and I know that, B, because of my vocation as a journalist, you can’t behold evil and then return and not speak on it. And segregation is evil. There just is no — there’s no way for me, as an African American, to come back and stand before you, to witness segregation and not say anything about it.
One of the hardest things was to come back and then to read the rhetoric of certain African American politicians who are defending this regime. And I just — I couldn’t understand it. You know, I wanted to know if they had been to Hebron. You know, I wanted to know if they had been to Masafer Yatta, if they had been to Susiya, if they had been to Tuba. Had they seen? Had they really seen what is actually happening here? I don’t know how anybody who benefits, who stands on the shoulders of our ancestors’ struggle against Jim Crow, against segregation, could see what is happening right now, could see the bombs being dropped, 9,000 people dead, an ungodly number of them children, in service of Jim Crow and segregation, which we have exported, and be OK with that. I don’t — I don’t understand it.
So, yes, I have my fears. I do. I do. You know, I’m afraid right now, sitting here talking to you. But I have to measure my fear against the misery that I saw. I have to measure my fear against the promises that I made to the Palestinians who welcomed me into their homes and gave me the facts, to the Israeli Jews who welcomed me into their homes and gave me the facts, to the Holocaust survivors who welcomed me into their homes and gave me the facts. I have to measure it against my own ancestors, against Frederick Douglass, against Ida B. Wells, who certainly faced off against things that were much, much more perilous than going someplace, coming back and telling people what you saw. This is the minimum. It’s scary, but it’s also the minimum. And the fact that people are trying to suppress speech is not an excuse for you not to speak. It’s always been this way for Black writers and journalists. This is our tradition, you know? And so, I feel — as I do feel the fear, I also feel that I am in good company, because I’m in the company of my ancestors.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Ta-Nehisi, I want to ask you about the way in which this conflict is in fact being represented in the media and, as you pointed out, politicians, congressmembers, but also the White House. On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre compared pro-Palestinian protesters to the white supremacists who took part in the deadly —
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, I saw it.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: — Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. She made the comment in response to a question from Fox News’s Peter Doocy.
PETER DOOCY: Does President Biden think the anti-Israel protesters in this country are extremists?
PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: What I can say is what we’ve been very clear about this: When it comes to antisemitism, there is no place. We have to make sure that we speak against it very loud and be — and be very clear about that. Remember, what the president decided to — when the president decided to run for president is what he saw in Charlottesville in 2017, when we — he saw neo-Nazis marching down the streets of Charlottesville with vile, antisemitic just hatred. And he was very clear then, and he’s very clear now. He’s taken actions against this over the past two years. And he’s continued to be clear: There is no place — no place — for this type of vile and despite — this kind of rhetoric.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Ta-Nehisi Coates, that’s the White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Your response?
TA-NEHISI COATES: You know, I don’t want to personalize this. I’m sure she’s a very, you know, nice person and a very, very kind person. But, you see, all of us stand on the shoulders of Martin Luther King. All of us stand on the shoulders of the nonviolent struggle. And on King’s birthday, the White House, like it’s done for years, stands up, and, you know, it praises Dr. King, and it talks about Dr. King as our modern-day prophet. I don’t know how these people do that and sleep at night. I don’t know how you compare people who are trying to stop a war, who are very much in the tradition of nonviolence, who are trying to stop bombs being dropped, literally, on refugee camps, to neo-Nazi protesters. It’s disgraceful, to use her own words. It’s disgraceful. It’s reprehensible. It is offensive, as far as I am concerned, to the shoulders on those whom we stand right now. I just — I don’t understand it.
I would extend this further. I mean, I think hearing President Biden himself — and here I will personalize it — downplay the number of Palestinian deaths, to say that he doesn’t believe the Palestinians, I just — when his own State Department was citing those figures only months ago, you know? At some point, you know, there’s that saying: When people show you who they are, you have to believe them. And so, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to do the political calculus on this. And I think at a certain point we have to just stop and say, “They believe it.” They believe it. They believe bombs should be dropped on children. They just think it’s OK. They think it’s OK, or at the very least they think it’s the price of doing business.
That’s not an ethic I can align myself from, because, as I’ve said several times in this interview, I come from a history where people wanted to make the exact same calculus about us and took stances that we would now say are immoral. But, see, the test isn’t what you did in the past; the test is what you do in the moment right now. I’m a writer. I would be much more comfortable — I was working on a book about this. I would be much more comfortable sitting at home writing about this, before I’m here talking to you guys right now. It is not my nature to talk about things that I have not written about yet. But one has to balance one’s responsibility against the suffering, against the death, against the body count. And to see what is coming out of this White House right now is just — it’s morally reprehensible. Again, I don’t know how people sleep at night.
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve been talking about Dr. King. His daughter, Dr. Bernice King, who heads The King Center, lawyer, Martin Luther King’s youngest daughter, responded to a post by the comedian Amy Schumer, who shared a video of Dr. King condemning antisemitism and defending Israel’s right to exist. Bernice King wrote, quote, “Certainly, my father was against antisemitism. He also believed militarism (along with racism and poverty) to be among the interconnected Triple Evils. I am certain he would call for Israel’s bombing of Palestinians to cease,” Dr. Bernice King said. And so, if you could comment on this and also talk about how the issue of Palestinians, the Occupied Territories, the occupation, has been raised in the Black community, the Movement for Black Lives, for years now, and the pressure you come under when you do?
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, and, look, I think it’s very, very important to talk about the force of antisemitism in history, indeed in American history, in fact. It’s a very, very, very real thing, and I don’t think you can understand the events of the moment without understanding that.
And I think, over the past few weeks especially, much has been made about the historic alliance between Black folks and Jewish activists and Jewish folks and that sort of thing. And it’s a very, very real thing. It’s a very, very important thing. But I think, like any alliance, it is at its best when it grounds itself in moral principle, not in a kind of gang truce, not in a kind of “I had your back, so you’ll have mine.” A moral alliance that is transactional is actually, in fact, not a moral alliance. And we have always been at our best — you know, when I think about the Jewish civil rights workers who went south and put their bodies on the line for the civil rights movement, I like to think — and I think it’s true — that that was not a transactional arrangement. That was not, you know, an attempt to say, “Look, I’m doing this because I think you’ll have my back in the future.” They did it because it was right. They did it based on principle.
And so, you know, I think some of the frustration that certain, certain people feel about the lack of African American support for this war comes from this notion that we should have people’s back as they drop bombs to try to defend a segregationist apartheid regime. We shouldn’t do that. And we haven’t done that. That’s the history that you allude to, I mean, going back to Angela Davis, to SNCC, to Black Lives Matter. I stand here, or I sit here, very, very humbly as a latecomer to the cause, but someone who has come to the cause nonetheless. We have to stand on principle, Ma’am. We have to stand on principle. And if I’m a latecomer to the Palestinian cause, I’m also a latecomer to the cause of nonviolence, but I’m here now. You know? And knowing what that has meant to our history, you know, to our — there is no way in the world that we can leverage the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, there’s no way in the world we can leverage the weight, the ancestry of our movement, in defense of a war, in defense of indiscriminate bombings on refugee camps. We just — we can’t do that. We can’t do that. We would be a disgrace to our ancestors.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Ta-Nehisi, last night, just to end, you said — we’ve just spoken about the fact that it was so difficult for the Palestine Festival of Literature to find a venue for last night’s event. Your own books here in the U.S. have faced book bans, and yours aren’t the only ones, of course. But you’ve said that when people resort to these measures — book banning, limiting public discussions — these are weapons of a weak and a decaying order. Could you explain what you mean by that, and why there is, despite the horror of the moment, some scope for optimism?
TA-NEHISI COATES: Well, I think if you — and a lot of this is, you know, actually from my time talking to Rashid Khalidi, Professor Rashid Khalidi up at Columbia. And one of the points he made — you know, I came back from Palestine, and I just was glass-eyed. I didn’t understand. I had this deep-seated feeling that, in fact, I had been lied to. And I began consulting people and talking to people. And so, I got to spend some time with Professor Khalidi.
And one of the things he said to me was, never has the movement — this is somebody who’s been fighting this war for his entire life. He said, “Never has the movement been as powerful as it is right now.” And, you know, I had to take that in. I also have to take in the fact that, like, when I think about what I did not know, and when I did not know, it wasn’t that I had competing sources and I didn’t know where to turn. The way I think Americans have traditionally, up until very recently, you know —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds, Ta-Nehisi.
TA-NEHISI COATES: — saw this struggle — sure. I’m sorry about that. I will just say that I’m very optimistic about the fight, and I think we’re going to win. I’ll leave it there. Sorry about that.
AMY GOODMAN: Ta-Nehisi Coates, acclaimed writer, National Book Award winner, spoke at an event last night organized by Palestine Festival of Literature here in New York. We will link to the live stream.
Before we end, this update from Gaza: The Palestinian WAFA news agency is reporting at least 27 people were killed today in an Israeli bombing of an UNRWA school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, the largest refugee camp in Gaza. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Sat Nov 04, 2023 12:20 am
Another Nakba? Israeli Intel Ministry Proposes Expelling Every Palestinian in Gaza to Egypt
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 03, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/3/ ... transcript
A leaked document from Israel’s Intelligence Ministry dated less than one week after the October 7 Hamas attack proposes the permanent transfer of Gaza’s residents to Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the document’s authenticity but dismissed it as a mere “concept paper,” while Egypt and much of the Arab world has publicly opposed the forced displacement of millions of Palestinians. But the exposed plans have confirmed many Palestinians’ fears that Israel’s ultimate goal during its current offensive is their ethnic cleansing from Gaza, a reenactment of the 1948 Nakba that saw about 700,000 Palestinians pushed out of their homes and turned into refugees during the creation of Israel. For more, we hear from Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, a writer for +972 Magazine and Local Call, who says that while the Intelligence Ministry is not particularly powerful, “this is an official state document essentially recommending the government to carry out an ethnic cleansing of Gaza.” Meanwhile, radical settlers in the West Bank are increasingly using the war on Gaza as cover to push Palestinians out of their homes and villages, often under threat of lethal violence. “Death is now everywhere, and things are deteriorating really, really quickly,” says Abraham.
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 facing growing international condemnation for its 28-day assault on Gaza. More than 9,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the past four weeks, including at least 3,800 children, this according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.
On Thursday, a group of U.N. experts released a statement to express their, quote, “deepening horror” over Israel’s repeated airstrikes on the Jabaliya refugee camp, the largest in Gaza, that have killed at least 195 people in recent days. The group of experts said, quote, “The Israeli airstrike on a residential complex in the Jabalia refugee camp is a brazen violation of international law — and a war crime. Attacking a camp sheltering civilians including women and children is a complete breach of the rules of proportionality and distinction between combatants and civilians,” they said. Residents in Jabaliya say entire sections of the refugee camp have been leveled.
HASSAN AHMED RAYAN: [translated] The area has been completely destroyed. There are no Hamas fighters here. These are all civilians. They are all innocent people. No resistance here. There was a bakery here and houses. One of them had 100 people inside, and another had 50 people. This is destruction. This is a war against God and his prophet. It’s a war of extermination.
AMY GOODMAN: As Israeli troops encircle Gaza City and intensify its aerial bombardment, there are growing questions over Israel’s long-term plan for Gaza. One Israeli government office, the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence, has proposed the permanent transfer of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. In a document dated October 14, the small governmental body stated the forced displacement of Gaza civilians to Egypt would, quote, “yield positive and long-term strategic results.” It lays out a three-stage process — the establishment of tent cities in Sinai and the opening of a humanitarian corridor, followed by construction of permanent cities in northern Sinai, and the creation of a, quote, “sterile zone of several kilometers … within Egypt” — and says, quote, “The return of the population to activities/residences near the border with Israel should not be allowed,” unquote.
Many Palestinians in northern Gaza have refused to follow Israeli orders to vacate their homes, out of fear they will never be allowed back. It’s unclear how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or his Cabinet have responded to the proposals, but the Biden administration has publicly opposed plans for the mass transfer of Palestinians. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is in Israel today, where he’s reportedly seeking a humanitarian pause to the bombing. Blinken is also planning to travel to Jordan, where he’s expected to assure Jordan that the U.S. opposes transferring Palestinians to Egypt or Jordan.
For more, we’re joined by Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist based in Jerusalem who reports for +972 Magazine and Local Call. He helped expose this proposal in his piece headlined “Expel all Palestinians from Gaza, recommends Israeli gov’t ministry.” Yuval has also reported on the growing number of attacks on Palestinians by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank. He joined us Wednesday during a rainstorm in Jerusalem. I asked him to talk about how he knows the document from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence is real.
YUVAL ABRAHAM: I know it’s true because I verified it in front of the Intelligence Ministry. And as you said, Amy, it’s a document that essentially asks the question: What will happen to Gaza’s civilian population after the war? And this Intelligence Ministry writes policy pieces and shares them with the defense establishment inside Israel. And, I mean, as you have mentioned, the 10-page document goes quite into detail and explicitly recommends this process of forced transfer. It also recommends to frame it in front of the international community as a humanitarian necessity, as something that is better than the alternatives that it poses in the documents, which is that the population will stay and die in their tens of thousands.
Now, I think it’s important to stress that this ministry is a small ministry. Despite its name, it does not actually deal with classified information, and it is not actually responsible for an Israeli intelligence organization. And it is not considered a very consequential or influential ministry in Israel. However, this is an official state document essentially recommending the government to carry out an ethnic cleansing of Gaza. And it has been written in a time when these ideas are making their way into the Israeli mainstream public discourse and to Israeli media.
I think, Amy, you know, a lot of us, a lot of people in Israel, are feeling shock. They feel a need that things will not return to the way they were before October 7th. They talk about security, especially after all of the atrocities that were committed by Hamas on October 7th, and the people who were illegally kidnapped and taken to Gaza and the murders. And I think we have politicians who have no political vision for the future. And they are, unfortunately, using this sense of wanting security to commit horrible and terrible war crimes in Gaza and killing already more than 3,000 children.
And I think this document and this bombing campaign are both a reflection of a worldview that only has force in its disposal to try and deal with a political problem. And the dangerous thing about this worldview is that it always fails. And when it fails, there are calls to use more force and more force. And if you push this worldview to the extreme, you will eventually end up with ideas like the ideas that we are reading about in this document.
And that’s why — and this is the final thing that for now I will say — that’s why, you know, as an Israeli, it’s very, very important for me to stress that I don’t think we can have security if Palestinians do not have freedom. And if we do not have a long-term political vision for the future that will end the situation where I have rights and freedom of movement and a way to vote, and Palestinians who are living next to me don’t, we are not going to have security. And I am very worried that — you know, I feel that this war on Gaza will not bring us security, and it will end, even if we topple down Hamas, by killing so many Palestinian civilians, we will create the next Hamas. And I don’t think it’s — I think this killing is unjustifiable. And I worry that the next war will come, and they will say, you know, “It didn’t work. Now we have to use even more force and even more force.” And even though this document right now might not seem feasible, I think this is the dangerous route that we are currently in. And this is why it’s so important to contextualize things and talk about a long-term political solution to the problem. And our leaders are not doing that right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Yuval, can you talk about where this document comes from, who it went to and how real it is?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yes. So, this document came from the Intelligence Ministry, which has a very small budget. And it seems like they have initiated it. They usually send out their documents to the Israeli different government offices and to intelligence organizations and the Israeli security establishment.
AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about what it means to have exposed it, and how they’re responding?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yeah. You know, for me, this is very, very worrying and troubling, because the government has not really acknowledged the paper at all. And none of us really know what the endgame of the government is in Gaza. I think in Israeli media, it has been downplayed as something that is going to harm Israel’s legitimacy for the war abroad. A lot of people are not taking it very seriously. This ministry is not considered, as I said, a very influential ministry. But we did not hear any clear and cut rejection of the document by the government. And yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what the right-wing Israeli Misgav Institute is, who has a similar proposal?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Sure, yeah. It’s a very interesting and strange story. So, this right-wing think tank called Misgav, which is headed by Meir Ben-Shabbat, who was — he’s a very close associate with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and he’s a very senior former Israeli security figure. And they published, a little over two weeks ago, a report that has the same identical conclusion, that Israel needs to transfer, forcibly transfer, all the civilians in Gaza, in Gaza to Egypt.
And this report was authored and written by Amir Weitmann, who is also a Likud member and an associate of Gila Gamliel, which is the Likud member who heads the Ministry of Intelligence, who wrote a report with the same conclusions. Now, these connections between the Likud and the right-wing think tank are also apparent because a month ago the Ministry of Intelligence has hired this Misgav Institute to carry out research as a freelancer for the government ministry.
Now, officially, the Ministry of Intelligence — you know, I’ve spoken to sources there — they’re claiming, you know, “This document, we completely stand behind the recommendation, and we offered it independently.” If you asked me, it’s very clear that there is a mix here between the government ministry and this extreme right-wing think tank. And it all seems to be coming back to different sorts of officials in the ruling party, the Likud.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the role of Egypt? Earlier this month, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said he would reject the forced displacement of millions of Palestinians into Sinai, which is Egypt. This is what he said.
PRESIDENT ABDEL FATTAH EL-SISI: [translated] Egypt rejects any attempt to resolve the Palestinian issue by military means or through the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land, which would come at the expense of the countries of the region. The idea of displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt simply means that a similar situation will occur by the displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan. This means that the idea of a Palestinian state that we are discussing and that the international community is discussing will no longer be possible.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s what President Sisi said, the Egyptian president. And this just came in from Ynet. Middle East Eye reported on the Israeli news outlet, saying, “Israel is proposing writing off a significant chunk of Egypt’s international debts through the World Bank to entice the cash-strapped Abdel Fattah el-Sisi government to open its doors for displaced Palestinians.” Again, that’s according to the Israeli Ynet news site. Yuval?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Wow. Yeah, I mean, it’s clear that the fact that Egypt is refusing to open its borders is one of several reasons why this forced transfer plan will not manifest. You know, I think that it is a feasible scenario, if they do open their borders and tens or hundreds of thousands of Palestinians leave Gaza, that at least some of them will not be allowed to return. This has happened in 1967 and 1948.
And the document, which, by the way, you can read in full on the +972 Magazine website or the Local Call website, actually deals with this. It says — it reads in the document that Egypt will have an obligation under humanitarian law to allow for Palestinian civilians to flee and enter and find refuge in its territory. And it calls on enlisting the United States and other Western countries to pressure Egypt to do this. Now, you know, everything — we’re in a situation of extreme fog, and it’s unclear how this will develop, but the fears are completely justifiable.
AMY GOODMAN: Yuval, I want to thank you for bearing through this rainfall in Jerusalem. But I wanted to go to another piece —
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yeah. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to another piece that you’ve written, saying, the headline, “Settlers take advantage of Gaza war to launch West Bank pogroms.” While the U.S. government, before Hamas’s surprise October 7th attack that killed up to 1,400 Israelis — the U.S. government, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, something like 10 days before, said the Middle East is quiet now, and we can move on to other issues. But, in fact, in the West Bank, it was the deadliest year in years, right? You had more than a Palestinian a day being killed either by the Israeli military or Jewish settlers. And now, since October 7th, Israeli settler attacks have resulted in at least 115 Palestinian deaths, more than 2,000 injured, nearly 1,000 others forced to flee their homes. Can you talk about what it’s like to be in the West Bank, this increased Jewish settler violence? And also, you have a friend who was the target of the violence?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yes, yes, Amy, of course. I mean, I’ve just received a text message 123 Palestinians have been already killed in the West Bank since the beginning of the war, and seven of them have been actually murdered by Israeli settlers. And I spend a lot of my time in the West Bank, specifically in a region called Masafer Yatta, which is a region in the southern edge of the West Bank, a community of villages that for decades have faced really intense pressure and violence from the Israeli army, that constantly destroys their homes and refuses to give them permits, and from settlers that have been attacking them. And I think what is happening now is that settlers and soldiers are using this chaos of the war to continue and to end sort of this forced transfer.
And it was extremely horrifying to be there over the past few nights. We’ve had incidents where settlers entered one village — it’s called Susiya. They grabbed a boy and his father, and they told them, “You have 24 hours to leave the village, or we are going to murder everybody in the village.” We had an incident where one settler went down to the village and actually shot a Palestinian who was standing next to the mosque. There are incidents of torture, of abuse, of humiliation. And it’s happening every night. Like, I stayed up last night with a family. They’re not sleeping. And everybody is just — like, we see the settlers entering the village.
And I think that, you know, according to human rights organization, Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, 13 Palestinian communities have already been displaced in the West Bank due to this settler violence. And yeah, and it will just increase and increase as long as the war continues, the bombing on Gaza continues and this situation continues.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, this is a man who, what, in the last 15 years was convicted in Israeli court of being — supporting a terrorist organization and inciting violence against Palestinians. He announced the purchasing of 10,000 rifles for Israelis in West Bank settlements. Can you talk about what that means? Has that been carried out? And what supporting settler violence — what that means, particularly now?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yeah, of course. So, what is going on right now is a complete inability to even differentiate between who is a soldier and who is a settler. Is it a settler that is in reserves? Is it a settler that received a weapon from Ben-Gvir and put on, you know, his army uniform? Are these soldiers? There is a complete confusion. And we are seeing a lot of, quote-unquote, “independent settler initiatives,” where they are putting on soldier uniforms and going into villages and harassing Palestinians. This is happening all over Area C. This is the way the military refers to it, which is essentially all of the open territories in the West Bank, where there are 180 small Palestinian villages and all the Israeli settlements. And Israel’s policy for many years has been to try to forcibly evict these 180 communities.
And I think now with many more settlers receiving weapons, with all of these incidents of murder and threats, this eviction is taking place. And I think, definitely, the arming of so many people is part of that process, which is, you know, understood in Israeli society also as a response to October the 7th, the need of people to be armed to be able to defend themselves. At least in the West Bank, these weapons are used to evict Palestinians from their homes.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, how have Israeli activists and international charities been involved in supporting Palestinians in the West Bank?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: So, I’m not sure about international charities. I mean, I know that a lot of them have supplied these communities that are at risk of forced transfer, little homes that you can live in, because Israel always comes and destroys their homes. They can’t get building permits. And it was extremely ironic. Like, I was in a village called Zenuta, in this area of Masafer Yatta, two days ago, and the residents were dismantling all of these homes using their own hands. And they were essentially leaving the village. I spoke to a 70-year-old person who told me that — you know, we drank tea, and he said, “This is probably the last time I will drink tea in this place that I grew up in.” So, these international organizations — you know, all of this support is now just being dismantled by the residents, who are afraid for their lives.
I think what we, as Israeli activists, are trying to do there — and this is also not always working, but the fact that we are Israeli, the fact that we speak Hebrew, gives us a certain privilege. And when these attacks happen, we try to deescalate the situation. We try to make sure that the settlers that are attacking the village see us, that we are first, that we can film them, that there are journalists here. We try to talk in Hebrew. But things — you know, death is now everywhere, and things are deteriorating really, really quickly. And I feel like all of the things that we were previously doing are now not working.
And, you know, again, I have to ask the world to wake up, to call for a ceasefire. If we continue to destroy Gaza like this, it will destroy us, as well. We will not have security in the future, and it will destroy the West Bank and the possibility of ever living here in equality and in peace between Israelis and Palestinians. So it’s time to change course and talk about the political issues at hand.
AMY GOODMAN: Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist based in Jerusalem who reports for +972 Magazine and Local Call. We’ll link to his article “Expel all Palestinians from Gaza, recommends Israeli gov’t ministry.”
When we come back, we speak to Josh Paul. He recently resigned from the State Department in protest of the Biden administration’s policies on Israel and Palestine. Back in 30 seconds.
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State Department Official Resigns, Says Israel Is Using U.S. Arms to Massacre Civilians in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 03, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/3/ ... transcript
We speak with Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned last month to protest continued arms sales to Israel amid its bombardment of Gaza, writing in a viral letter that one-sided U.S. support for Israel is “shortsighted,” “destructive” and “contradictory.” Media reports say many others inside the State Department are equally frustrated with the U.S. role in the conflict. Paul tells Democracy Now! he tried to raise his concerns with his superiors but found “no appetite for that discussion” and that unlike all other U.S. arms sales that take humanitarian concerns into account, Israel gets a blank check. Paul says the overall message inside the Biden administration is: “Don’t question the policy because it’s coming from the top.”
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.
Amidst growing international condemnation of Israel’s monthlong assault on Gaza, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is back in Israel today to meet with Israeli officials, where he continued to emphasize Israel’s right to defend itself following the October 7th Hamas attack. Meanwhile, the White House continues to dismiss calls for a full ceasefire, saying instead any pauses in fighting should be temporary and localized.
This comes as the independent news outlet In These Times reports the White House has requested an unprecedented loophole in arms spending to allow it to, quote, “be able to conduct arms deals with Israel in complete secrecy, without oversight from Congress or the public,” unquote, “even as experts say Israel has been using U.S.-supplied weapons to commit war crimes,” unquote.
Meanwhile, a new HuffPost report cites five current and one recently departed State Department official who say their, quote, “expertise and standard decision-making processes are being treated as largely irrelevant to President Joe Biden’s strategy on the war, which prioritizes support for Israel,” unquote. One official described, quote, “particular concern about the town hall for the department’s branch on human rights. Managers, who described the branch as ’State’s conscience,’ indicated that they aren’t sure if they are getting through to more senior officials.”
For more, we’re joined by Josh Paul, the State Department official who resigned last month in protest of Biden’s push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst its siege on Gaza, calling it “shortsighted,” “destructive” and “contradictory.” In his resignation letter, that went viral, Josh Paul wrote, quote, “We cannot be both against occupation, and for it. We cannot be both for freedom, and against it. And we cannot be for a better world, while contributing to one that is materially worse. … I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people — and is not in the long term American interest,” unquote. Josh Paul is former director of congressional and public affairs for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in the State Department, which oversees arms transfers to Israel and other foreign nations.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Josh Paul.
JOSH PAUL: Thank you very much for having me. I’m glad to join you.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you elaborate on why you decided to resign — you’re a veteran State Department official — why you said no?
JOSH PAUL: Yes, thank you. I decided to resign for three reasons, the first and most pressing of which is the very, I believe, uncontroversial fact that U.S.-provided arms should not be used to massacre civilians, should not be used to result in massive civilian casualties. And that is what we are seeing in Gaza and what we were seeing, you know, very soon after the October 7th horrific attack by Hamas. I do not believe arms should be — U.S.-provided arms should be used to kill civilians. It is that simple.
Secondly, I also believe that, you know, as your previous guest identified, there is no military solution here. And we are providing arms to Israel on a path that has not led to peace, has not led to security, neither for Palestinians nor for Israelis. It is a moribund process and a dead-end policy.
And yet, when I tried to raise both of these concerns with State Department leadership, there was no appetite for discussion, no opportunity to look at any of the potential arms sales and raise concerns about them, simply a directive to move forward as quickly as possible. And so I felt I had to resign.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk more about that. Talk more about what kind of dialogue goes on at the State Department and if you, for example, have met with Tony Blinken, the secretary of state, not to mention President Biden, to voice your concerns. And what about other veteran State Department officials?
JOSH PAUL: So, typically, there is a very robust policy process in the State Department for arms transfers. And there are a lot of those, right? So, we’re talking about about 20,000 arms sale cases a year that the State Department processes, which could be anything from bullets to radios to fighter jets. And for each of those, there is a lengthy process, sometimes, that looks at, you know, what are the pros and cons of the sale, what are its human rights implications. That has not happened in this context for Israel. And as I say, when I raised those concerns against the existing laws, against the existing policies, there was no appetite for that discussion.
I have not personally spoken to Secretary Blinken about this, nor, certainly, to President Biden. But I know that in the time since I left, there has been increasing discussion within the State Department, but has not led to any change of policies. In fact, as you heard earlier on your show, Vice President Harris was just saying yesterday that we will not place any conditions whatsoever on our arms to Israel. And that is unlike any arms transfer decision I’ve ever been a part of. There’s always discussion about should we condition this to address human rights issues.
AMY GOODMAN: So, who is leading this, Josh Paul? Who is preventing this? Who is suppressing all of this discussion within the State Department?
JOSH PAUL: I honestly think, in some ways, that it’s coming from the very top of the U.S. government and from the Biden White House. You know, there are many in the State Department, and across government, who have reached out to me in recent weeks, since I left, to express their support, but also to say how difficult and how horrific they are finding U.S. policy, and yet are being told, when they try to raise these concerns, “Look, you can get emotional support if you’re finding this difficult. We’ll find you something else to work on. But don’t question the policy, because it’s coming from the top.”
AMY GOODMAN: The HuffPost has this new piece that reports, “A task force on preventing atrocities did not meet until two weeks into the war, and officials say department leaders are telling them their expertise won’t affect policy.” Explain what goes on.
JOSH PAUL: So, whenever there is a crisis, as there is right now in Israel and Gaza, the department sets up a task forces or multiple task forces that are uniquely shaped to address that crisis. So, for example, in the context of an earthquake, they might bring in experts on refugee issues, on weather issues, on disease issues, you know, that sort of broad swath of people.
In the context of Gaza, they have set up a task force to look at this problem, but, according to the report you cite, it does not include the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, who are responsible for U.S. support to refugee issues. So, it is either a stunning oversight, or it is an intentional disregard for the humanity of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: At a meeting on October 26th, a State Department source told you they recalled a top official advising staff to shift their focus away from Israel-Palestine and seek to make a difference in other parts of the world?
JOSH PAUL: So, I don’t believe that that was a conversation that I had with someone, but that is in the same report in The Huffington Post that you cite, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So, they’re directing them not even to make comments on this, just stop talking about Israel-Palestine.
JOSH PAUL: Yes, that’s right. And I think, look, I mean, that reflects a tension or a censorship — right? — that we are seeing not only in the U.S. government. I think what’s interesting here is this censorship that has existed and expanded to colleges and universities, where you talked about the doxing. I’ve also heard from many people across the American private sector, both from the Arab American community but also more broadly, from all sorts of diverse communities, who have said, “We are afraid to speak up on this, because we are in fear of our jobs.” It’s the same climate in government. And that is just not American.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to ask you about this In These Times report that the White House has requested an unprecedented loophole in arms spending to allow it to be able to conduct arms deals with Israel in complete secrecy, without oversight from Congress or the public.
JOSH PAUL: Yeah. So, we provide Israel with $3.3 billion a year in foreign military financing, which is the State Department and U.S. government’s primary functional — primary mechanism for funding the sale of arms to other countries. Of note, you know, we typically provide — setting aside Ukraine — about $6 billion a year in foreign military financing around the world. So Israel already gets more than half of that.
The language in the supplemental request that the Biden administration set up — sent up would remove the requirement to notify Congress of any arms sales conducted under that funding. Typically, there is a process where, for any major defense sale, Congress is notified of it. And there’s actually a process prior to the formal notification where Congress gets to ask questions, poke, prod, delay, and then, if it wishes to oppose the sale, can raise a joint resolution of disapproval on the floor. What this proposal would do is, essentially, destroy all of that, remove all of that, remove that congressional oversight, remove that congressional ability to object. It is unprecedented. I have never seen anything like it. And I cannot imagine that the committees of jurisdiction are viewing it very favorably, because it is just such a damaging approach that also sets horrible precedent for other countries with whom future administrations may decide they don’t want Congress to be involved.
AMY GOODMAN: Since you were in charge of arms sales, what does this $14 billion that — well, it looks like both houses want to send it to Israel.
JOSH PAUL: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s just that the House one is controversial because they want to take that $14 billion from the IRS, and also they want to sever the funding for Israel from the funding for Ukraine. And Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, says he won’t consider this bill. But it sounds like there is enough support in both houses for that extra — not the $3.8 billion or $3.3 billion yearly aid to Israel, but an extra $14 billion. You’re the expert on arms sales. What would it be used for?
JOSH PAUL: Yeah, and let me just say, I think there is, you know, almost or near-unanimous congressional support for this further military assistance to Israel. And I think what’s fascinating about that is also there’s a massive disconnect between where Congress is on these issues and where, I think, if you look at the polling, the American public are. And I think the current crisis is really crystallizing that difference. I don’t think it will make any difference in terms of the passage of this package, but it may do down the line.
With regards to this package specifically, it includes $3.5 billion in foreign military financing. Israel can draw on that to purchase essentially what it wants. And what’s unusual about this, as well, in addition to the removal of the notification, is that Israel would be entitled, under the proposal sent to Congress, to spend all of this money within its own defense industry. Israel is, of course, a top 10 exporter of arms around the world, often competing with the United States. And the idea that we will be providing funding to subsidize that competition is really unimaginable.
But on top of that, the package also provides further funding from the Defense Department side for air and missile defense for Israel, for Iron Dome. And let me be clear: My concern here is on lethal assistance to Israel. When it comes to protecting civilians from rocket attacks, I believe that they should be. I don’t believe anyone should have to live in fear of their homes — in their homes from rockets raining down on them, although I believe that’s the case whether they are in Israel under the Iron Dome or whether they are in Gaza, for example. And, of course, we never ask that question.
The funding, finally, would also include research and development funding for equipment, such as there is an experimental laser project called Iron Beam, which the U.S. and Israel are working together on, an air and missile defense system. If this is an emergency request, why are we looking at research and development for projects that have not even materialized yet? That doesn’t sound like an emergency to me. So, as with the arms transfers I saw when I was departing from the department, I think there is just a rush to push everything they can while they feel there is a window of political opportunity here where there will be no significant opposition.
AMY GOODMAN: What kind of response was there to your resignation?
JOSH PAUL: So, to my resignation, I would say there has been an overwhelming response that I have heard from folks or from colleagues inside not only in the State Department, but across the U.S. government, actually, on the Hill, in the Defense Department, in the uniformed military services, including in combatant commands around the world. People have reached out to me to say, you know, “We fully agree with you.” You know, obviously, everyone has their own personal circumstances. You know, I think if we had universal healthcare, it would make it a bit easier for people to stand up on principle. I myself am, you know, trying to figure out what I do next on healthcare. But the point is that so many people have reached out to say, “We hear you. We agree with you.”
And I think, you know, one of the things I found is that a lot of people can be in individual offices and say, “There is no — I can’t speak up, because I will lose my job. I will put my career in jeopardy. And there’s no one else here I can talk to.” And yet I’m hearing from someone else just a few desks over who is saying the same thing. So I think there really is a communications crisis, a transparency crisis within the U.S. government, and a policy crisis, because when you can’t talk about foreign policy, when you can’t debate, when you can’t criticize, you don’t end up with good policy.
AMY GOODMAN: Josh Paul, why was this the last straw for you? I mean, for example, if you were in charge of weapons sales, presumably you were dealing with Saudi Arabia, notoriously authoritarian. U.S. agencies concluded, even in just one case, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for this. You oversaw arms sales to them, presumably. Why Israel?
JOSH PAUL: So, let me just be clear: I was one of multiple people involved in the arms sales process. Arms sales themselves are a presidential authority that is delegated to the secretary of state, and then, through the secretary of state, to the undersecretary, who is actually responsible for approving them, for the most part. But you’re right. And as I said in my resignation letter, in my time in the department, I dealt with many morally challenging, controversial arms sales.
I think what made the difference for me here is that for all of those previous instances, even under the Trump administration, mind you, there was always room for discussion and debate and the ability to mitigate some of the worst possible outcomes, to delay sales until crises had passed, so that they weren’t contributing immediately into a humanitarian crisis, to work with Congress and be confident that once the policy debate had ended in the State Department, there would be a congressional piece to it, too. And Congress generally has stood up in the past repeatedly on matters of human rights and arms sales. What was different here was that there was none of that. There was no debate. There was no space for debate. And there was also no congressional appetite or willingness to have debate.
AMY GOODMAN: There’s going to be a major march in Washington tomorrow. Three hundred fifty people were arrested in Philly. We’re going to play some clips of a major protest in Boston that happened last night. How much does grassroots protest like this, the thousands of people who are protesting around the country, the shutdown of Grand Central by Jewish groups just last Friday night, have on the State Department, on the White House?
JOSH PAUL: So, I don’t think it has much impact on the State Department. And that’s OK, because I think policy processes are meant to happen within a policy framework, [inaudible] and the problem is they’re not happening.
I think it does have an impact on the White House. I think we’ve seen a significant change in tone in the last few weeks, not because there is a sudden deep care, frankly, for Palestinian civilian casualties on their own merits, but because there is a sense that there is a political crisis here developing for the Biden administration, that many people are saying, you know, “We’re just going to sit out the next election. We have lost faith in this White House, in this administration.” So, I think that does have an impact.
And let me also say I have found it incredibly moving, as well, to watch these protests. You know, I was up on the Hill for meetings this week and last week and came across, in one office, a sit-in that was happening, where there was a group of Jewish students singing peace songs and holding up signs that said “Save Gaza.” I found that incredibly moving. And I think it also tells Congress and it tells this administration that they are not in line with much of American public opinion. I think it’s a much-needed message.
AMY GOODMAN: Josh Paul, veteran State Department official who worked on arms deals and resigned last month in protest of a push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst the attack on Gaza, thanks so much for joining us.
JOSH PAUL: Thank you very much for having me.
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Boston Interfaith Rally Urges Senators Warren & Markey to Support Gaza Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 03, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/3/ ... transcript
At least 23 people were arrested in Boston on Thursday as faith leaders and clergy led a peace rally to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. The interfaith protest targeted Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey to pressure them to stand up for Palestinian lives. We share footage and voices from the rally.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. We end today’s show with voices from the streets of Boston, where hundreds of faith leaders and clergy rallied Thursday to demand Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey support a ceasefire.
PROTESTER 1: Our elected officials must act. They need to hear from us. We are going to meet with them today. We’re going to send a delegation of faith leaders to bring our letters, our prayers. We are grounded in faith, in many faiths, in many spiritual traditions. We have so many people in our bones. We have the moral courage that our elected officials do not have. And we will keep acting until they have it.
And now we’ll hear from Shir Lovett-Graff, a Jewish community and spiritual leader.
SHIR LOVETT-GRAFF: My grief, our grief, is used by the Israeli military, funded by the United States, to enact violence on thousands of Palestinians every day. How can we navigate this grief when it is used to fuel rhetoric that is Islamophobic, racist and antisemitic?
PROTESTER 2: We’re going to begin walking. We’ll follow the banner that says “ceasefire.” And we’ll be praying with our feet.
PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
NAKIYA HUSSAIN: My name is Nakiya Hussain [phon.]. We’re watching a genocide unfold. I think that the fact our tax dollars are going to pay for this is horrifying. I want change. I want us to see humanity and care about all lives.
PROTESTERS: Hey, Warren, what do you say? We demand a ceasefire today! Hey, Warren, what do you say? We demand a ceasefire today!
ELSA: My name is Elsa. I’m the daughter of Holocaust refugees. And I’m here because it’s outrageous to me the Israeli government is committing genocide in the name of people like my parents. And I work with Jewish Voice for Peace. We demand a ceasefire now, before even more innocent lives get lost.
JILL: I’m Jill. I’m active in Jewish Voice for Peace. I am here to demand Senator Warren declare a ceasefire and to stand up for justice. She usually does stand up for justice in different kinds of ways. For some reason, she just can’t seem to stand up for Palestinian lives. They are bombing everything — churches, hospitals, roads. There’s no place to go. So we are demanding Warren to do the right thing.
PROTESTERS: When do we want it? Now! What do we want? Ceasefire! When do we want it? Now! If we don’t get it? Shut it down!
RAMI: My name is Rami. I am here today marching because I think we need to have a ceasefire. I think it’s really important that the world see that Jewish community believes in a ceasefire and thinks that what Israel is doing right now is wrong, and that the Jewish community is not a monolith, and there isn’t one uniform perspective standing with Israel on this one.
PROTESTERS: Hey, Markey, what do you say? We demand a ceasefire today! Hey, Markey, what do you say? We demand a ceasefire today!
LEORA: My name is Leora. I am a rabbi in Jamaica Plain. Anyone who’s here today might be risking things to be here, relationships or employment. And I’m so proud to be here, across many kinds of difference and united in our call for a ceasefire now. We mourn for all of the dead, and we fight for all of the living.
MOHANAD MOSSALAM: Even refugee camps and hospitals are not safe.
My name is Mohanad Mossalam. I am a khatib here in Massachusetts, in Malden. If ceasefire is not now, when will it be? Are they waiting for the entire population of Gaza to be completely wiped out? Are they waiting for 10 more thousand, 20 more thousand people dying before they call for ceasefire? Enough is enough.
PROTESTERS: I do not come here alone. I carry my people in my bones.
PROTESTER 3: So, we’re here at the office of Senator Warren. We’re a group of faith leaders across the spectrum of the world’s religions, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza right now. Children are dying. That blood is on our hands if we stand silent. And we can be silent no longer.
PROTESTER 4: We’re so glad you’re here, and we’re so grateful for those inside.
LEORA: Inside, a number of people are occupying the lobby of the federal building. They will be there until the senators call for a ceasefire or until they are escorted out.
PROTESTER 5: I’m now very glad to introduce Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who introduced the ceasefire resolution to Boston City Council.
TANIA FERNANDES ANDERSON: Peace and love to everyone. As-salamu alaykum. Shalom. And peace in every language. Paz sea contigo. I am here to simply repeat and echo your heartfelt sentiments and your fight and your tears and all of your sacrifice and your bravery for being here, and for every day that you’ve sacrificed, for every night that you’ve looked through social media, the tears that you’ve shed, the prayers that you’ve put out into the universe.
PROTESTER 6: They’re arresting people now.
PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
REV. REDEEM ROBINSON: Reverend Redeem Robinson. What’s happening right now is a grave injustice. We have faith leaders here who come to pray and demand that Senator Warren calls for a ceasefire, and people are being arrested? This isn’t right. This isn’t right at all. We are calling on Senator Warren to call for a ceasefire. She has a moral duty as a Christian woman to call for a ceasefire. She got faith leaders here at her office being arrested. This is a shame.
PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
HILARY RANTISI: We have been grieving, grieving the killing of our people, the grieving — grieving our fragmentation, the separation of our people into different enclaves, into different areas — West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem.
My name is Hilary Rantisi. So, when you ask a Palestinian where they’re from, they will tell you where they’re from, from before 1948. My family is from — both from Lydda and from Gaza. I was born in Jerusalem, and I grew up in Ramallah. So, as a Palestinian, I have a West Bank ID that only allows me to travel to Ramallah, to be in the West Bank. I can’t go to Jerusalem, where I was born. I can’t go to Gaza, where my grandmother is from. And I can’t go to Lydda, where my father was born and his father was born. But, for me, I am from all these places, and you can’t separate Gaza from me, you can’t separate Jerusalem from me, you can’t separate Lydda from me. So I’m here as a Palestinian recognizing the pain and all the history that all of my family and my ancestors have borne for all these years.
PROTESTERS: Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live.
AMY GOODMAN: Voices from protest in Boston last night calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. At least 23 people were arrested. This comes as 13 Democratic senators call for short-term cessation of hostilities in Gaza.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 03, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/3/ ... transcript
A leaked document from Israel’s Intelligence Ministry dated less than one week after the October 7 Hamas attack proposes the permanent transfer of Gaza’s residents to Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the document’s authenticity but dismissed it as a mere “concept paper,” while Egypt and much of the Arab world has publicly opposed the forced displacement of millions of Palestinians. But the exposed plans have confirmed many Palestinians’ fears that Israel’s ultimate goal during its current offensive is their ethnic cleansing from Gaza, a reenactment of the 1948 Nakba that saw about 700,000 Palestinians pushed out of their homes and turned into refugees during the creation of Israel. For more, we hear from Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, a writer for +972 Magazine and Local Call, who says that while the Intelligence Ministry is not particularly powerful, “this is an official state document essentially recommending the government to carry out an ethnic cleansing of Gaza.” Meanwhile, radical settlers in the West Bank are increasingly using the war on Gaza as cover to push Palestinians out of their homes and villages, often under threat of lethal violence. “Death is now everywhere, and things are deteriorating really, really quickly,” says Abraham.
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 facing growing international condemnation for its 28-day assault on Gaza. More than 9,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the past four weeks, including at least 3,800 children, this according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.
On Thursday, a group of U.N. experts released a statement to express their, quote, “deepening horror” over Israel’s repeated airstrikes on the Jabaliya refugee camp, the largest in Gaza, that have killed at least 195 people in recent days. The group of experts said, quote, “The Israeli airstrike on a residential complex in the Jabalia refugee camp is a brazen violation of international law — and a war crime. Attacking a camp sheltering civilians including women and children is a complete breach of the rules of proportionality and distinction between combatants and civilians,” they said. Residents in Jabaliya say entire sections of the refugee camp have been leveled.
HASSAN AHMED RAYAN: [translated] The area has been completely destroyed. There are no Hamas fighters here. These are all civilians. They are all innocent people. No resistance here. There was a bakery here and houses. One of them had 100 people inside, and another had 50 people. This is destruction. This is a war against God and his prophet. It’s a war of extermination.
AMY GOODMAN: As Israeli troops encircle Gaza City and intensify its aerial bombardment, there are growing questions over Israel’s long-term plan for Gaza. One Israeli government office, the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence, has proposed the permanent transfer of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. In a document dated October 14, the small governmental body stated the forced displacement of Gaza civilians to Egypt would, quote, “yield positive and long-term strategic results.” It lays out a three-stage process — the establishment of tent cities in Sinai and the opening of a humanitarian corridor, followed by construction of permanent cities in northern Sinai, and the creation of a, quote, “sterile zone of several kilometers … within Egypt” — and says, quote, “The return of the population to activities/residences near the border with Israel should not be allowed,” unquote.
Many Palestinians in northern Gaza have refused to follow Israeli orders to vacate their homes, out of fear they will never be allowed back. It’s unclear how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or his Cabinet have responded to the proposals, but the Biden administration has publicly opposed plans for the mass transfer of Palestinians. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is in Israel today, where he’s reportedly seeking a humanitarian pause to the bombing. Blinken is also planning to travel to Jordan, where he’s expected to assure Jordan that the U.S. opposes transferring Palestinians to Egypt or Jordan.
For more, we’re joined by Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist based in Jerusalem who reports for +972 Magazine and Local Call. He helped expose this proposal in his piece headlined “Expel all Palestinians from Gaza, recommends Israeli gov’t ministry.” Yuval has also reported on the growing number of attacks on Palestinians by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank. He joined us Wednesday during a rainstorm in Jerusalem. I asked him to talk about how he knows the document from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence is real.
YUVAL ABRAHAM: I know it’s true because I verified it in front of the Intelligence Ministry. And as you said, Amy, it’s a document that essentially asks the question: What will happen to Gaza’s civilian population after the war? And this Intelligence Ministry writes policy pieces and shares them with the defense establishment inside Israel. And, I mean, as you have mentioned, the 10-page document goes quite into detail and explicitly recommends this process of forced transfer. It also recommends to frame it in front of the international community as a humanitarian necessity, as something that is better than the alternatives that it poses in the documents, which is that the population will stay and die in their tens of thousands.
Now, I think it’s important to stress that this ministry is a small ministry. Despite its name, it does not actually deal with classified information, and it is not actually responsible for an Israeli intelligence organization. And it is not considered a very consequential or influential ministry in Israel. However, this is an official state document essentially recommending the government to carry out an ethnic cleansing of Gaza. And it has been written in a time when these ideas are making their way into the Israeli mainstream public discourse and to Israeli media.
I think, Amy, you know, a lot of us, a lot of people in Israel, are feeling shock. They feel a need that things will not return to the way they were before October 7th. They talk about security, especially after all of the atrocities that were committed by Hamas on October 7th, and the people who were illegally kidnapped and taken to Gaza and the murders. And I think we have politicians who have no political vision for the future. And they are, unfortunately, using this sense of wanting security to commit horrible and terrible war crimes in Gaza and killing already more than 3,000 children.
And I think this document and this bombing campaign are both a reflection of a worldview that only has force in its disposal to try and deal with a political problem. And the dangerous thing about this worldview is that it always fails. And when it fails, there are calls to use more force and more force. And if you push this worldview to the extreme, you will eventually end up with ideas like the ideas that we are reading about in this document.
And that’s why — and this is the final thing that for now I will say — that’s why, you know, as an Israeli, it’s very, very important for me to stress that I don’t think we can have security if Palestinians do not have freedom. And if we do not have a long-term political vision for the future that will end the situation where I have rights and freedom of movement and a way to vote, and Palestinians who are living next to me don’t, we are not going to have security. And I am very worried that — you know, I feel that this war on Gaza will not bring us security, and it will end, even if we topple down Hamas, by killing so many Palestinian civilians, we will create the next Hamas. And I don’t think it’s — I think this killing is unjustifiable. And I worry that the next war will come, and they will say, you know, “It didn’t work. Now we have to use even more force and even more force.” And even though this document right now might not seem feasible, I think this is the dangerous route that we are currently in. And this is why it’s so important to contextualize things and talk about a long-term political solution to the problem. And our leaders are not doing that right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Yuval, can you talk about where this document comes from, who it went to and how real it is?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yes. So, this document came from the Intelligence Ministry, which has a very small budget. And it seems like they have initiated it. They usually send out their documents to the Israeli different government offices and to intelligence organizations and the Israeli security establishment.
AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about what it means to have exposed it, and how they’re responding?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yeah. You know, for me, this is very, very worrying and troubling, because the government has not really acknowledged the paper at all. And none of us really know what the endgame of the government is in Gaza. I think in Israeli media, it has been downplayed as something that is going to harm Israel’s legitimacy for the war abroad. A lot of people are not taking it very seriously. This ministry is not considered, as I said, a very influential ministry. But we did not hear any clear and cut rejection of the document by the government. And yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what the right-wing Israeli Misgav Institute is, who has a similar proposal?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Sure, yeah. It’s a very interesting and strange story. So, this right-wing think tank called Misgav, which is headed by Meir Ben-Shabbat, who was — he’s a very close associate with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and he’s a very senior former Israeli security figure. And they published, a little over two weeks ago, a report that has the same identical conclusion, that Israel needs to transfer, forcibly transfer, all the civilians in Gaza, in Gaza to Egypt.
And this report was authored and written by Amir Weitmann, who is also a Likud member and an associate of Gila Gamliel, which is the Likud member who heads the Ministry of Intelligence, who wrote a report with the same conclusions. Now, these connections between the Likud and the right-wing think tank are also apparent because a month ago the Ministry of Intelligence has hired this Misgav Institute to carry out research as a freelancer for the government ministry.
Now, officially, the Ministry of Intelligence — you know, I’ve spoken to sources there — they’re claiming, you know, “This document, we completely stand behind the recommendation, and we offered it independently.” If you asked me, it’s very clear that there is a mix here between the government ministry and this extreme right-wing think tank. And it all seems to be coming back to different sorts of officials in the ruling party, the Likud.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the role of Egypt? Earlier this month, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said he would reject the forced displacement of millions of Palestinians into Sinai, which is Egypt. This is what he said.
PRESIDENT ABDEL FATTAH EL-SISI: [translated] Egypt rejects any attempt to resolve the Palestinian issue by military means or through the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land, which would come at the expense of the countries of the region. The idea of displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt simply means that a similar situation will occur by the displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan. This means that the idea of a Palestinian state that we are discussing and that the international community is discussing will no longer be possible.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s what President Sisi said, the Egyptian president. And this just came in from Ynet. Middle East Eye reported on the Israeli news outlet, saying, “Israel is proposing writing off a significant chunk of Egypt’s international debts through the World Bank to entice the cash-strapped Abdel Fattah el-Sisi government to open its doors for displaced Palestinians.” Again, that’s according to the Israeli Ynet news site. Yuval?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Wow. Yeah, I mean, it’s clear that the fact that Egypt is refusing to open its borders is one of several reasons why this forced transfer plan will not manifest. You know, I think that it is a feasible scenario, if they do open their borders and tens or hundreds of thousands of Palestinians leave Gaza, that at least some of them will not be allowed to return. This has happened in 1967 and 1948.
And the document, which, by the way, you can read in full on the +972 Magazine website or the Local Call website, actually deals with this. It says — it reads in the document that Egypt will have an obligation under humanitarian law to allow for Palestinian civilians to flee and enter and find refuge in its territory. And it calls on enlisting the United States and other Western countries to pressure Egypt to do this. Now, you know, everything — we’re in a situation of extreme fog, and it’s unclear how this will develop, but the fears are completely justifiable.
AMY GOODMAN: Yuval, I want to thank you for bearing through this rainfall in Jerusalem. But I wanted to go to another piece —
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yeah. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to another piece that you’ve written, saying, the headline, “Settlers take advantage of Gaza war to launch West Bank pogroms.” While the U.S. government, before Hamas’s surprise October 7th attack that killed up to 1,400 Israelis — the U.S. government, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, something like 10 days before, said the Middle East is quiet now, and we can move on to other issues. But, in fact, in the West Bank, it was the deadliest year in years, right? You had more than a Palestinian a day being killed either by the Israeli military or Jewish settlers. And now, since October 7th, Israeli settler attacks have resulted in at least 115 Palestinian deaths, more than 2,000 injured, nearly 1,000 others forced to flee their homes. Can you talk about what it’s like to be in the West Bank, this increased Jewish settler violence? And also, you have a friend who was the target of the violence?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yes, yes, Amy, of course. I mean, I’ve just received a text message 123 Palestinians have been already killed in the West Bank since the beginning of the war, and seven of them have been actually murdered by Israeli settlers. And I spend a lot of my time in the West Bank, specifically in a region called Masafer Yatta, which is a region in the southern edge of the West Bank, a community of villages that for decades have faced really intense pressure and violence from the Israeli army, that constantly destroys their homes and refuses to give them permits, and from settlers that have been attacking them. And I think what is happening now is that settlers and soldiers are using this chaos of the war to continue and to end sort of this forced transfer.
And it was extremely horrifying to be there over the past few nights. We’ve had incidents where settlers entered one village — it’s called Susiya. They grabbed a boy and his father, and they told them, “You have 24 hours to leave the village, or we are going to murder everybody in the village.” We had an incident where one settler went down to the village and actually shot a Palestinian who was standing next to the mosque. There are incidents of torture, of abuse, of humiliation. And it’s happening every night. Like, I stayed up last night with a family. They’re not sleeping. And everybody is just — like, we see the settlers entering the village.
And I think that, you know, according to human rights organization, Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, 13 Palestinian communities have already been displaced in the West Bank due to this settler violence. And yeah, and it will just increase and increase as long as the war continues, the bombing on Gaza continues and this situation continues.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, this is a man who, what, in the last 15 years was convicted in Israeli court of being — supporting a terrorist organization and inciting violence against Palestinians. He announced the purchasing of 10,000 rifles for Israelis in West Bank settlements. Can you talk about what that means? Has that been carried out? And what supporting settler violence — what that means, particularly now?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yeah, of course. So, what is going on right now is a complete inability to even differentiate between who is a soldier and who is a settler. Is it a settler that is in reserves? Is it a settler that received a weapon from Ben-Gvir and put on, you know, his army uniform? Are these soldiers? There is a complete confusion. And we are seeing a lot of, quote-unquote, “independent settler initiatives,” where they are putting on soldier uniforms and going into villages and harassing Palestinians. This is happening all over Area C. This is the way the military refers to it, which is essentially all of the open territories in the West Bank, where there are 180 small Palestinian villages and all the Israeli settlements. And Israel’s policy for many years has been to try to forcibly evict these 180 communities.
And I think now with many more settlers receiving weapons, with all of these incidents of murder and threats, this eviction is taking place. And I think, definitely, the arming of so many people is part of that process, which is, you know, understood in Israeli society also as a response to October the 7th, the need of people to be armed to be able to defend themselves. At least in the West Bank, these weapons are used to evict Palestinians from their homes.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, how have Israeli activists and international charities been involved in supporting Palestinians in the West Bank?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: So, I’m not sure about international charities. I mean, I know that a lot of them have supplied these communities that are at risk of forced transfer, little homes that you can live in, because Israel always comes and destroys their homes. They can’t get building permits. And it was extremely ironic. Like, I was in a village called Zenuta, in this area of Masafer Yatta, two days ago, and the residents were dismantling all of these homes using their own hands. And they were essentially leaving the village. I spoke to a 70-year-old person who told me that — you know, we drank tea, and he said, “This is probably the last time I will drink tea in this place that I grew up in.” So, these international organizations — you know, all of this support is now just being dismantled by the residents, who are afraid for their lives.
I think what we, as Israeli activists, are trying to do there — and this is also not always working, but the fact that we are Israeli, the fact that we speak Hebrew, gives us a certain privilege. And when these attacks happen, we try to deescalate the situation. We try to make sure that the settlers that are attacking the village see us, that we are first, that we can film them, that there are journalists here. We try to talk in Hebrew. But things — you know, death is now everywhere, and things are deteriorating really, really quickly. And I feel like all of the things that we were previously doing are now not working.
And, you know, again, I have to ask the world to wake up, to call for a ceasefire. If we continue to destroy Gaza like this, it will destroy us, as well. We will not have security in the future, and it will destroy the West Bank and the possibility of ever living here in equality and in peace between Israelis and Palestinians. So it’s time to change course and talk about the political issues at hand.
AMY GOODMAN: Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist based in Jerusalem who reports for +972 Magazine and Local Call. We’ll link to his article “Expel all Palestinians from Gaza, recommends Israeli gov’t ministry.”
When we come back, we speak to Josh Paul. He recently resigned from the State Department in protest of the Biden administration’s policies on Israel and Palestine. Back in 30 seconds.
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State Department Official Resigns, Says Israel Is Using U.S. Arms to Massacre Civilians in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 03, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/3/ ... transcript
We speak with Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned last month to protest continued arms sales to Israel amid its bombardment of Gaza, writing in a viral letter that one-sided U.S. support for Israel is “shortsighted,” “destructive” and “contradictory.” Media reports say many others inside the State Department are equally frustrated with the U.S. role in the conflict. Paul tells Democracy Now! he tried to raise his concerns with his superiors but found “no appetite for that discussion” and that unlike all other U.S. arms sales that take humanitarian concerns into account, Israel gets a blank check. Paul says the overall message inside the Biden administration is: “Don’t question the policy because it’s coming from the top.”
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.
Amidst growing international condemnation of Israel’s monthlong assault on Gaza, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is back in Israel today to meet with Israeli officials, where he continued to emphasize Israel’s right to defend itself following the October 7th Hamas attack. Meanwhile, the White House continues to dismiss calls for a full ceasefire, saying instead any pauses in fighting should be temporary and localized.
This comes as the independent news outlet In These Times reports the White House has requested an unprecedented loophole in arms spending to allow it to, quote, “be able to conduct arms deals with Israel in complete secrecy, without oversight from Congress or the public,” unquote, “even as experts say Israel has been using U.S.-supplied weapons to commit war crimes,” unquote.
Meanwhile, a new HuffPost report cites five current and one recently departed State Department official who say their, quote, “expertise and standard decision-making processes are being treated as largely irrelevant to President Joe Biden’s strategy on the war, which prioritizes support for Israel,” unquote. One official described, quote, “particular concern about the town hall for the department’s branch on human rights. Managers, who described the branch as ’State’s conscience,’ indicated that they aren’t sure if they are getting through to more senior officials.”
For more, we’re joined by Josh Paul, the State Department official who resigned last month in protest of Biden’s push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst its siege on Gaza, calling it “shortsighted,” “destructive” and “contradictory.” In his resignation letter, that went viral, Josh Paul wrote, quote, “We cannot be both against occupation, and for it. We cannot be both for freedom, and against it. And we cannot be for a better world, while contributing to one that is materially worse. … I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people — and is not in the long term American interest,” unquote. Josh Paul is former director of congressional and public affairs for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in the State Department, which oversees arms transfers to Israel and other foreign nations.
Why I Resigned From the State Department
by Josh Paul
Counterpunch
October 19, 2023
Today I informed my colleagues that I have resigned from the State Department, due to a policy disagreement concerning our continued lethal assistance to Israel. To further explain my rationale for doing so, I have written the attached note.
I joined the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM) over 11 years ago, and have found it a fascinating job with engaging, and often immensely challenging – intellectually and morally – tasks and objectives. I have been proud in my time of service to have made many differences, both visibly and behind the scenes, from advocating for Afghan refugees, to pushing back (with not insignificant results) on pending Administration decisions to transfer lethal weapons to countries that abuse human rights, to sculpting policies and practices that advance human rights, to working tirelessly to advance those policies and decisions that are good and just; from our global humanitarian demining efforts to our support for Ukraine’s defense in the face of murderous Russian aggression.
When I came to this Bureau, the U.S. Government entity most responsible for the transfer and provision of arms to partners and allies, I knew it was not without its moral complexity and moral compromises, and I made myself a promise that I would stay for as long as I felt I the harm I might do could be outweighed by the good I could do. In my 11 years I have made more moral compromises than I can recall, each heavily, but each with my promise to myself in mind, and intact. I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued – indeed, expanded and expedited – provision of lethal arms to Israel – I have reached the end of that bargain..
Yes, PM can still do an immense amount of good in the world: there is still, sadly, a great need for American security assistance – a need for American arms and defense cooperation to defend against the multiple military perils that democracy, democracies, and humanity itself, face on this earth. But we cannot be both against occupation, and for it. We cannot be both for freedom, and against it. And we cannot be for a better world, while contributing to one that is materially worse.
Let me be clear: Hamas’ attack on Israel was not just a monstrosity; it was a monstrosity of monstrosities. I also believe that potential escalations by Iran-linked groups such as Hezbollah, or by Iran itself, would be a further cynical exploitation of the existing tragedy. But I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people – and is not in the long term American interest. 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. Decades of the same approach have shown that security for peace leads to neither security, nor to peace. The fact is, blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides. I fear we are repeating the same mistakes we have made these past decades, and I decline to be a part of it for longer.
I am not ignorant when it comes to the situation in the Middle East. I was raised surrounded by debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; my Master’s thesis was about Israeli counterterrorism and civil rights (in researching it I met two men who have since been among my lifelong heroes, Uri Avnery, and an Israeli Palestinian advocate I shall not name here); I served for the U.S. Security Coordinator, living in Ramallah while advancing security sector governance within the Palestinian Authority and liaising with the IDF; and, I have deep personal ties to both sides of the conflict. Those who know me best know that I have opinions, and they are strong ones. But this is what is at the core of them: that there is beauty to be found everywhere in this world, and it deserves both protection, and the right to flourish, and that is what I most desire for Palestinians and for Israelis. The murder of civilians is an enemy to that desire – whether by terrorists as they dance at a rave, or by terrorists as they harvest their olive grove. The kidnapping of children is an enemy to that desire – whether taken at gunpoint from their kibbutz or taken at gunpoint from their village. And, collective punishment is an enemy to that desire, whether it involves demolishing one home, or one thousand; as too is ethnic cleansing; as too is occupation; as too is apartheid.
It is my firm belief that in such conflicts, for those of us who are third parties, the side we must pick is not that of one of the combatants, but that of the people caught in the middle, and that of the generations yet to come. It is our responsibility to help the warring parties build a better world. To center human rights, not to hope to sideline or sidestep them through programs of economic growth or diplomatic maneuvering. And, when they happen, to be able to name gross violations of human rights no matter who carries them out, and to be able to hold the perpetrators accountable – when they are adversaries, which is easy, but most particularly, when they are partners.
I acknowledge and am heartened to see the efforts this Administration has made to temper Israel’s response, including advocating for the provision of relief supplies, electricity, and water to Gaza, and for safe passage. In my role in PM, however, my responsibilities lie solidly in the arms transfer space. And that is why I have resigned from the U.S. Government, and from PM: because while I can, and have, worked hard to shape better policy making in the security assistance field, I cannot work in support of a set of major policy decisions, including rushing more arms to one side of the conflict, that I believe to be shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse, and which I wholeheartedly endorse: a world built around a rules-based order, a world that advances both equality and equity, and a world whose arc of history bends towards the promise of liberty, and of justice, for all.
And I would note with concern in parting, as regards competitions well beyond this current conflict, that if we want a world shaped by what we perceive to be our values, it is only by conditioning strategic imperatives with moral ones, by holding our partners, and above all by holding ourselves, to those values, that we will see it.
I want to close by noting that while bureaucracy is not without its automatons, and that, as I have learnt, physical courage comes easier than moral courage, I have had the privilege of working with a large number of truly thoughtful, empathetic, courageous, and good civil servants, and many of them can be found in PM, from its entry level to its most senior level. As they carry on advancing the interests of the nation and the world in a field in which, perhaps more than any other, it is easier to be better than it is to be good, I can say without hesitation that they are the best. I wish them continued success, strength, and courage. And I wish all of us – peace.
Josh Paul, October 18, 2023
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Josh Paul.
JOSH PAUL: Thank you very much for having me. I’m glad to join you.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you elaborate on why you decided to resign — you’re a veteran State Department official — why you said no?
JOSH PAUL: Yes, thank you. I decided to resign for three reasons, the first and most pressing of which is the very, I believe, uncontroversial fact that U.S.-provided arms should not be used to massacre civilians, should not be used to result in massive civilian casualties. And that is what we are seeing in Gaza and what we were seeing, you know, very soon after the October 7th horrific attack by Hamas. I do not believe arms should be — U.S.-provided arms should be used to kill civilians. It is that simple.
Secondly, I also believe that, you know, as your previous guest identified, there is no military solution here. And we are providing arms to Israel on a path that has not led to peace, has not led to security, neither for Palestinians nor for Israelis. It is a moribund process and a dead-end policy.
And yet, when I tried to raise both of these concerns with State Department leadership, there was no appetite for discussion, no opportunity to look at any of the potential arms sales and raise concerns about them, simply a directive to move forward as quickly as possible. And so I felt I had to resign.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk more about that. Talk more about what kind of dialogue goes on at the State Department and if you, for example, have met with Tony Blinken, the secretary of state, not to mention President Biden, to voice your concerns. And what about other veteran State Department officials?
JOSH PAUL: So, typically, there is a very robust policy process in the State Department for arms transfers. And there are a lot of those, right? So, we’re talking about about 20,000 arms sale cases a year that the State Department processes, which could be anything from bullets to radios to fighter jets. And for each of those, there is a lengthy process, sometimes, that looks at, you know, what are the pros and cons of the sale, what are its human rights implications. That has not happened in this context for Israel. And as I say, when I raised those concerns against the existing laws, against the existing policies, there was no appetite for that discussion.
I have not personally spoken to Secretary Blinken about this, nor, certainly, to President Biden. But I know that in the time since I left, there has been increasing discussion within the State Department, but has not led to any change of policies. In fact, as you heard earlier on your show, Vice President Harris was just saying yesterday that we will not place any conditions whatsoever on our arms to Israel. And that is unlike any arms transfer decision I’ve ever been a part of. There’s always discussion about should we condition this to address human rights issues.
AMY GOODMAN: So, who is leading this, Josh Paul? Who is preventing this? Who is suppressing all of this discussion within the State Department?
JOSH PAUL: I honestly think, in some ways, that it’s coming from the very top of the U.S. government and from the Biden White House. You know, there are many in the State Department, and across government, who have reached out to me in recent weeks, since I left, to express their support, but also to say how difficult and how horrific they are finding U.S. policy, and yet are being told, when they try to raise these concerns, “Look, you can get emotional support if you’re finding this difficult. We’ll find you something else to work on. But don’t question the policy, because it’s coming from the top.”
AMY GOODMAN: The HuffPost has this new piece that reports, “A task force on preventing atrocities did not meet until two weeks into the war, and officials say department leaders are telling them their expertise won’t affect policy.” Explain what goes on.
JOSH PAUL: So, whenever there is a crisis, as there is right now in Israel and Gaza, the department sets up a task forces or multiple task forces that are uniquely shaped to address that crisis. So, for example, in the context of an earthquake, they might bring in experts on refugee issues, on weather issues, on disease issues, you know, that sort of broad swath of people.
In the context of Gaza, they have set up a task force to look at this problem, but, according to the report you cite, it does not include the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, who are responsible for U.S. support to refugee issues. So, it is either a stunning oversight, or it is an intentional disregard for the humanity of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: At a meeting on October 26th, a State Department source told you they recalled a top official advising staff to shift their focus away from Israel-Palestine and seek to make a difference in other parts of the world?
JOSH PAUL: So, I don’t believe that that was a conversation that I had with someone, but that is in the same report in The Huffington Post that you cite, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So, they’re directing them not even to make comments on this, just stop talking about Israel-Palestine.
JOSH PAUL: Yes, that’s right. And I think, look, I mean, that reflects a tension or a censorship — right? — that we are seeing not only in the U.S. government. I think what’s interesting here is this censorship that has existed and expanded to colleges and universities, where you talked about the doxing. I’ve also heard from many people across the American private sector, both from the Arab American community but also more broadly, from all sorts of diverse communities, who have said, “We are afraid to speak up on this, because we are in fear of our jobs.” It’s the same climate in government. And that is just not American.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to ask you about this In These Times report that the White House has requested an unprecedented loophole in arms spending to allow it to be able to conduct arms deals with Israel in complete secrecy, without oversight from Congress or the public.
JOSH PAUL: Yeah. So, we provide Israel with $3.3 billion a year in foreign military financing, which is the State Department and U.S. government’s primary functional — primary mechanism for funding the sale of arms to other countries. Of note, you know, we typically provide — setting aside Ukraine — about $6 billion a year in foreign military financing around the world. So Israel already gets more than half of that.
The language in the supplemental request that the Biden administration set up — sent up would remove the requirement to notify Congress of any arms sales conducted under that funding. Typically, there is a process where, for any major defense sale, Congress is notified of it. And there’s actually a process prior to the formal notification where Congress gets to ask questions, poke, prod, delay, and then, if it wishes to oppose the sale, can raise a joint resolution of disapproval on the floor. What this proposal would do is, essentially, destroy all of that, remove all of that, remove that congressional oversight, remove that congressional ability to object. It is unprecedented. I have never seen anything like it. And I cannot imagine that the committees of jurisdiction are viewing it very favorably, because it is just such a damaging approach that also sets horrible precedent for other countries with whom future administrations may decide they don’t want Congress to be involved.
AMY GOODMAN: Since you were in charge of arms sales, what does this $14 billion that — well, it looks like both houses want to send it to Israel.
JOSH PAUL: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s just that the House one is controversial because they want to take that $14 billion from the IRS, and also they want to sever the funding for Israel from the funding for Ukraine. And Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, says he won’t consider this bill. But it sounds like there is enough support in both houses for that extra — not the $3.8 billion or $3.3 billion yearly aid to Israel, but an extra $14 billion. You’re the expert on arms sales. What would it be used for?
JOSH PAUL: Yeah, and let me just say, I think there is, you know, almost or near-unanimous congressional support for this further military assistance to Israel. And I think what’s fascinating about that is also there’s a massive disconnect between where Congress is on these issues and where, I think, if you look at the polling, the American public are. And I think the current crisis is really crystallizing that difference. I don’t think it will make any difference in terms of the passage of this package, but it may do down the line.
With regards to this package specifically, it includes $3.5 billion in foreign military financing. Israel can draw on that to purchase essentially what it wants. And what’s unusual about this, as well, in addition to the removal of the notification, is that Israel would be entitled, under the proposal sent to Congress, to spend all of this money within its own defense industry. Israel is, of course, a top 10 exporter of arms around the world, often competing with the United States. And the idea that we will be providing funding to subsidize that competition is really unimaginable.
But on top of that, the package also provides further funding from the Defense Department side for air and missile defense for Israel, for Iron Dome. And let me be clear: My concern here is on lethal assistance to Israel. When it comes to protecting civilians from rocket attacks, I believe that they should be. I don’t believe anyone should have to live in fear of their homes — in their homes from rockets raining down on them, although I believe that’s the case whether they are in Israel under the Iron Dome or whether they are in Gaza, for example. And, of course, we never ask that question.
The funding, finally, would also include research and development funding for equipment, such as there is an experimental laser project called Iron Beam, which the U.S. and Israel are working together on, an air and missile defense system. If this is an emergency request, why are we looking at research and development for projects that have not even materialized yet? That doesn’t sound like an emergency to me. So, as with the arms transfers I saw when I was departing from the department, I think there is just a rush to push everything they can while they feel there is a window of political opportunity here where there will be no significant opposition.
AMY GOODMAN: What kind of response was there to your resignation?
JOSH PAUL: So, to my resignation, I would say there has been an overwhelming response that I have heard from folks or from colleagues inside not only in the State Department, but across the U.S. government, actually, on the Hill, in the Defense Department, in the uniformed military services, including in combatant commands around the world. People have reached out to me to say, you know, “We fully agree with you.” You know, obviously, everyone has their own personal circumstances. You know, I think if we had universal healthcare, it would make it a bit easier for people to stand up on principle. I myself am, you know, trying to figure out what I do next on healthcare. But the point is that so many people have reached out to say, “We hear you. We agree with you.”
And I think, you know, one of the things I found is that a lot of people can be in individual offices and say, “There is no — I can’t speak up, because I will lose my job. I will put my career in jeopardy. And there’s no one else here I can talk to.” And yet I’m hearing from someone else just a few desks over who is saying the same thing. So I think there really is a communications crisis, a transparency crisis within the U.S. government, and a policy crisis, because when you can’t talk about foreign policy, when you can’t debate, when you can’t criticize, you don’t end up with good policy.
AMY GOODMAN: Josh Paul, why was this the last straw for you? I mean, for example, if you were in charge of weapons sales, presumably you were dealing with Saudi Arabia, notoriously authoritarian. U.S. agencies concluded, even in just one case, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for this. You oversaw arms sales to them, presumably. Why Israel?
JOSH PAUL: So, let me just be clear: I was one of multiple people involved in the arms sales process. Arms sales themselves are a presidential authority that is delegated to the secretary of state, and then, through the secretary of state, to the undersecretary, who is actually responsible for approving them, for the most part. But you’re right. And as I said in my resignation letter, in my time in the department, I dealt with many morally challenging, controversial arms sales.
I think what made the difference for me here is that for all of those previous instances, even under the Trump administration, mind you, there was always room for discussion and debate and the ability to mitigate some of the worst possible outcomes, to delay sales until crises had passed, so that they weren’t contributing immediately into a humanitarian crisis, to work with Congress and be confident that once the policy debate had ended in the State Department, there would be a congressional piece to it, too. And Congress generally has stood up in the past repeatedly on matters of human rights and arms sales. What was different here was that there was none of that. There was no debate. There was no space for debate. And there was also no congressional appetite or willingness to have debate.
AMY GOODMAN: There’s going to be a major march in Washington tomorrow. Three hundred fifty people were arrested in Philly. We’re going to play some clips of a major protest in Boston that happened last night. How much does grassroots protest like this, the thousands of people who are protesting around the country, the shutdown of Grand Central by Jewish groups just last Friday night, have on the State Department, on the White House?
JOSH PAUL: So, I don’t think it has much impact on the State Department. And that’s OK, because I think policy processes are meant to happen within a policy framework, [inaudible] and the problem is they’re not happening.
I think it does have an impact on the White House. I think we’ve seen a significant change in tone in the last few weeks, not because there is a sudden deep care, frankly, for Palestinian civilian casualties on their own merits, but because there is a sense that there is a political crisis here developing for the Biden administration, that many people are saying, you know, “We’re just going to sit out the next election. We have lost faith in this White House, in this administration.” So, I think that does have an impact.
And let me also say I have found it incredibly moving, as well, to watch these protests. You know, I was up on the Hill for meetings this week and last week and came across, in one office, a sit-in that was happening, where there was a group of Jewish students singing peace songs and holding up signs that said “Save Gaza.” I found that incredibly moving. And I think it also tells Congress and it tells this administration that they are not in line with much of American public opinion. I think it’s a much-needed message.
AMY GOODMAN: Josh Paul, veteran State Department official who worked on arms deals and resigned last month in protest of a push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst the attack on Gaza, thanks so much for joining us.
JOSH PAUL: Thank you very much for having me.
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Boston Interfaith Rally Urges Senators Warren & Markey to Support Gaza Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
November 03, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/3/ ... transcript
At least 23 people were arrested in Boston on Thursday as faith leaders and clergy led a peace rally to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. The interfaith protest targeted Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey to pressure them to stand up for Palestinian lives. We share footage and voices from the rally.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. We end today’s show with voices from the streets of Boston, where hundreds of faith leaders and clergy rallied Thursday to demand Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey support a ceasefire.
PROTESTER 1: Our elected officials must act. They need to hear from us. We are going to meet with them today. We’re going to send a delegation of faith leaders to bring our letters, our prayers. We are grounded in faith, in many faiths, in many spiritual traditions. We have so many people in our bones. We have the moral courage that our elected officials do not have. And we will keep acting until they have it.
And now we’ll hear from Shir Lovett-Graff, a Jewish community and spiritual leader.
SHIR LOVETT-GRAFF: My grief, our grief, is used by the Israeli military, funded by the United States, to enact violence on thousands of Palestinians every day. How can we navigate this grief when it is used to fuel rhetoric that is Islamophobic, racist and antisemitic?
PROTESTER 2: We’re going to begin walking. We’ll follow the banner that says “ceasefire.” And we’ll be praying with our feet.
PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
NAKIYA HUSSAIN: My name is Nakiya Hussain [phon.]. We’re watching a genocide unfold. I think that the fact our tax dollars are going to pay for this is horrifying. I want change. I want us to see humanity and care about all lives.
PROTESTERS: Hey, Warren, what do you say? We demand a ceasefire today! Hey, Warren, what do you say? We demand a ceasefire today!
ELSA: My name is Elsa. I’m the daughter of Holocaust refugees. And I’m here because it’s outrageous to me the Israeli government is committing genocide in the name of people like my parents. And I work with Jewish Voice for Peace. We demand a ceasefire now, before even more innocent lives get lost.
JILL: I’m Jill. I’m active in Jewish Voice for Peace. I am here to demand Senator Warren declare a ceasefire and to stand up for justice. She usually does stand up for justice in different kinds of ways. For some reason, she just can’t seem to stand up for Palestinian lives. They are bombing everything — churches, hospitals, roads. There’s no place to go. So we are demanding Warren to do the right thing.
PROTESTERS: When do we want it? Now! What do we want? Ceasefire! When do we want it? Now! If we don’t get it? Shut it down!
RAMI: My name is Rami. I am here today marching because I think we need to have a ceasefire. I think it’s really important that the world see that Jewish community believes in a ceasefire and thinks that what Israel is doing right now is wrong, and that the Jewish community is not a monolith, and there isn’t one uniform perspective standing with Israel on this one.
PROTESTERS: Hey, Markey, what do you say? We demand a ceasefire today! Hey, Markey, what do you say? We demand a ceasefire today!
LEORA: My name is Leora. I am a rabbi in Jamaica Plain. Anyone who’s here today might be risking things to be here, relationships or employment. And I’m so proud to be here, across many kinds of difference and united in our call for a ceasefire now. We mourn for all of the dead, and we fight for all of the living.
MOHANAD MOSSALAM: Even refugee camps and hospitals are not safe.
My name is Mohanad Mossalam. I am a khatib here in Massachusetts, in Malden. If ceasefire is not now, when will it be? Are they waiting for the entire population of Gaza to be completely wiped out? Are they waiting for 10 more thousand, 20 more thousand people dying before they call for ceasefire? Enough is enough.
PROTESTERS: I do not come here alone. I carry my people in my bones.
PROTESTER 3: So, we’re here at the office of Senator Warren. We’re a group of faith leaders across the spectrum of the world’s religions, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza right now. Children are dying. That blood is on our hands if we stand silent. And we can be silent no longer.
PROTESTER 4: We’re so glad you’re here, and we’re so grateful for those inside.
LEORA: Inside, a number of people are occupying the lobby of the federal building. They will be there until the senators call for a ceasefire or until they are escorted out.
PROTESTER 5: I’m now very glad to introduce Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who introduced the ceasefire resolution to Boston City Council.
TANIA FERNANDES ANDERSON: Peace and love to everyone. As-salamu alaykum. Shalom. And peace in every language. Paz sea contigo. I am here to simply repeat and echo your heartfelt sentiments and your fight and your tears and all of your sacrifice and your bravery for being here, and for every day that you’ve sacrificed, for every night that you’ve looked through social media, the tears that you’ve shed, the prayers that you’ve put out into the universe.
PROTESTER 6: They’re arresting people now.
PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
REV. REDEEM ROBINSON: Reverend Redeem Robinson. What’s happening right now is a grave injustice. We have faith leaders here who come to pray and demand that Senator Warren calls for a ceasefire, and people are being arrested? This isn’t right. This isn’t right at all. We are calling on Senator Warren to call for a ceasefire. She has a moral duty as a Christian woman to call for a ceasefire. She got faith leaders here at her office being arrested. This is a shame.
PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
HILARY RANTISI: We have been grieving, grieving the killing of our people, the grieving — grieving our fragmentation, the separation of our people into different enclaves, into different areas — West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem.
My name is Hilary Rantisi. So, when you ask a Palestinian where they’re from, they will tell you where they’re from, from before 1948. My family is from — both from Lydda and from Gaza. I was born in Jerusalem, and I grew up in Ramallah. So, as a Palestinian, I have a West Bank ID that only allows me to travel to Ramallah, to be in the West Bank. I can’t go to Jerusalem, where I was born. I can’t go to Gaza, where my grandmother is from. And I can’t go to Lydda, where my father was born and his father was born. But, for me, I am from all these places, and you can’t separate Gaza from me, you can’t separate Jerusalem from me, you can’t separate Lydda from me. So I’m here as a Palestinian recognizing the pain and all the history that all of my family and my ancestors have borne for all these years.
PROTESTERS: Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live. Let Gaza live.
AMY GOODMAN: Voices from protest in Boston last night calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. At least 23 people were arrested. This comes as 13 Democratic senators call for short-term cessation of hostilities in Gaza.
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