Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

November 24, 2024

Hello All – For about a year, it has been apparent that only the United States, and the willingness of the USA to cut off weapons shipments and withhold support at the United Nations, could (maybe) stop Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. Last week the US Senate, including a majority of Democratic Senators, rejected the efforts of Sen. Bernie Sanders and 18 other Senators to pass “Resolutions of Disapproval” regarding portions of President Biden’s proposed $20 billion military supplies to Israel. The White House issued strong warnings to the Senators to not support the Resolutions, and they fell in line.  It is unlikely that further congressional opposition to Biden’s support for Netanyahu’s wars will be forthcoming.

This may be the moral nadir of the Biden administration and its historical legacy. Unlike the Vietnam War, or (for example) the war in Sudan, images and sounds of Israel’s war on Gaza are readily available to the US and Israeli people, but even dissent leaves the war-makers unshaken. The escalation of the “cleansing” of Palestinians in northern Gaza and the “Gazafication” of the West Bank talks place as the International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister, Gallant. Both Israel and the United States stand virtually alone in the world, international pariahs.

Also last week, President Biden authorized the use of US-supplied weapons systems in Ukraine that can reach deeper into Russia.  News reports state that Biden did this “in response” to North Korean troops entering the war to assist Russia, which indicated its response to this US escalation by launching a new missile into Ukraine and revising its “nuclear doctrine” so as to make using nuclear weapons more likely.

Clearly, this is insane.  Yet the war-makers in the USA and Israel, in Russia and Ukraine, face little effective opposition to their wars; and the “group think” among the world’s leaders pose no alternative to our race towards cataclysm.  What the late C. Wright Mills called “crackpot realism” is in the driver’s seat.  Only We the People can stop them.

THEMES FOR THIS WEEK
ICC issues arrest warrants for Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant
By Sondos Asem and Dania Akkad, Middle East Eye [November 21, 2024]
---- The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, six months after chief prosecutor Karim Khan requested them. It is the first instance in the court's 22-year history it has issued arrest warrants for western-allied senior officials. … The chamber said the arrest warrants are classified as "secret" but that it has decided to release them because "conduct similar to that addressed in the warrant of arrest appears to be ongoing", referring to Israel's ongoing onslaught on Gaza and the continued detention of Israeli captives by Hamas.  "Moreover, the chamber considers it to be in the interest of victims and their families that they are made aware of the warrants’ existence," it said.  [Read More]

Senate Rejects Sanders' Bid to Halt Arms to Israel Over Gaza Atrocities
By Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams [November 20, 2024]
---- The U.S. Senate on Wednesday refused to pass joint resolutions of disapproval proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders that would prevent the sale of certain offensive American weaponry to Israel, which has killed nearly 44,000 Palestinians in Gaza since last fall. S.J. Res. 111, S.J. Res. 113, and S.J. Res. 115 would have respectively blocked the sale of 120mm tank rounds, 120mm high-explosive mortar rounds, Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), the guidance kits attached to "dumb bombs." [Read More]

The entire history of Zionism’s injustices, in one Bedouin village
By Orly Noy, +972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [November 20, 2024]
---- Last week, the State of Israel hung the scalp of another Palestinian community on its belt after completing the demolition of Umm Al-Hiran. On the morning of Nov. 14, hundreds of police stormed the Bedouin village — which is located in the Negev/Naqab desert, in southern Israel — accompanied by Special Forces officers and helicopters. The residents, Israeli citizens who had long feared that this day would come, had already self-demolished most of the structures in the village to avoid having to pay large fines. All that was left for police to destroy was the mosque. Just like that, two and a half decades of legal struggle to save the village came to an end, and the residents were rendered homeless. If you want to understand the entire history of Zionism’s injustices against Palestinians — with all the discrimination, racism, dispossession, and violence, grounded in a vision of Jewish supremacy and a concomitant obsession with demographic engineering — you need look no further than Umm Al-Hiran. [Read More]

NEWS NOTES
In his effort to persuade the US Senate to defeat President Biden’s plan to send $20 billion in additional military hardware to Israel, Sen. Bernie Sanders gave one of the greatest speeches of his long career.  Check it out here.

A myth being pushed by the Republicans and believed by too many others is that Trump won, or Harris lost, “in a landslide.”  Not so.  Check out “The ‘Landslide’ That Wasn’t,” from the New York Times [Link]

This newsletter generally stays away from internal Israeli politics, but the current meltdown around Netanyahu and his multiple scandals has become a factor in our efforts to end the war on Gaza.  Check out this article from Haaretz, Israel’s leading liberal newspaper: “Netanyahu's Nine-minute Video Shows He Is Terrified and Will Stop at Nothing.”  For example, “Netanyahu resembles a persecuted madman wielding a flamethrower, indiscriminately scorching anyone who stands in his way. The threat he poses to Israel's democracy and state institutions is a danger long understood.” And so on. [Read More]

CFOW NUTS & BOLTS
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester.  Weather permitting we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.)  A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil is held in Yonkers on the first Monday of the month from 5:30 to 6:00 pm at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. Our newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page.  Another Facebook page focuses on the climate crisis. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. If you would like to support our work by making a CONTRIBUTION, please make out your check to “Frank Brodhead,” write “CFOW” on the memo line, and send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!

REWARDS!
This week Michael Kazin’s review of a new biography - “Randy Newman’s Genius for Political Irony” – sent me looking for some songs Newman recorded a half century ago.  He was controversial back then.  Among his classics are "Sail Away" (slavery); "Kingfish" (Huey Long); "Red Necks"; and from “Toy Story 4” "You Got a Friend in Me."  Enjoy!

Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW

CFOW WEEKLY READER

FEATURED ESSAYS
'I Would Like for Israelis to Understand That Zionism Is Racism' [The film “Lyd”]
By Nirit Anderman, Haaretz [Isrzel] [November 23, 2024]
---- "Lyd" is a hybrid work, intertwining documentary and fantasy. It tells the story of the city of Lod, in central Israel, by means of a combination of archival footage and interviews both historical and new, along with animation that creates an alternative sort of reality. The documentary part focuses on bustling pre-1948 Lod, and about the mortal blow it suffered in the Nakba – that is, during the 1947-49 Israeli War of Independence when more than 700,000 Arabs in the country fled or were expelled from their homes. … By focusing on this one city, the film in effect tells the very real story of the Nakba of the entire Palestinian people. But Younis and Friedland also wrap the calamities that befell Lod in a cloak of fantasy. The city is anthropomorphized, transformed into a full-fledged character and allowed to use its own, first-person voice to paint an ultimately optimistic picture. That is, while playing a "What if?" game, the film's creators have taken the liberty of imagining how the city of over 85,000 residents today would look today if the Nakba hadn't happened. With the aid of animation, they recreate a flourishing and thriving place that the Jewish people did not destroy in order to establish its state. [Read More]

The not-so-secret history of Netanyahu’s support for Hamas
By Ghousoon Bisharat, +972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [November 11, 2024]
---- When Israeli historian and human rights activist Adam Raz set out to write “The Road to October 7: Benjamin Netanyahu, the Production of the Endless Conflict and Israel’s Moral Degradation,” he knew he was tackling a blind spot in Israeli public discourse. The vast majority of Israelis, Raz believes, fail to grasp the full extent of Netanyahu’s involvement in bolstering Hamas before the current war, and in perpetuating an unending state of conflict. Raz’s book, released in May of this year, sheds light on a controversial policy whereby Netanyahu’s governments for years routinely approved and encouraged the transfer of Qatari funds into Gaza to prop up Hamas. While noting that the Israeli media has devoted more attention to this policy in the aftermath of October 7, Raz told +972 that this is “just a sliver of the bigger picture,” which is rooted in Netanyahu’s broader opposition to a just resolution to the conflict. “People need to understand the full scope of Netanyahu’s strategy,” he said. According to Raz, who also works as a researcher at the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research, Netanyahu’s priority is not maintaining Israel’s security but rather preventing any real chance of resolving the conflict through the division of land, ending the occupation, or a two-state solution. [Read More]

Cities Made Differently: Try Imagining Another Urban Existence
By David Graeber and Nika Dubrovsky, Counterpunch [November 22, 2024]
[FB – David Graeber died in 2020.  This excerpt is adapted from Nika Dubrovsky and David Graeber’s Cities Made Differently (MIT Press, 2024)]
---- In thousands of ways, we are taught to accept the world we live in as the only possible one, but thousands of other ways of organizing homes, cities, schools, societies, economies, and cosmologies have existed and could exist. We started a project called Made Differently: designed to play with the possibility and to overcome the suspicion—instilled in us every day—that life is limited, miserable, and boring. Our first focus is Cities Made Differently, exploring different ways of living together. Read and imagine four different kinds of cities taken from our book which are listed below, and continue your exploration, downloadable at a4kids.org, for drawing and dreaming. [Read More]

THE WAR ON THE WEST BANK
In West Bank Raids, Palestinians See Echoes of Israel’s Gaza War [pictures]
By Raja Abdulrahim and Azmat Khan, New York Times [November 24, 2024]
---- The 10-day Israeli raid in Mr. Damaj’s densely packed hometown, Jenin, was part of a broader military offensive into Palestinian areas that began in late August and signaled an intensification of Israeli offensives in the West Bank. Before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli airstrikes on the West Bank were relatively rare, experts said, with only a few confirmed cases. But during the raids in Jenin and other Palestinian areas beginning in August, the Israeli military reported carrying out about 50 airstrikes on the West Bank. … “It’s a Gazafication of the northern part of the West Bank,” said Nadav Weiman, the director of Breaking the Silence, an advocacy group made up of former Israeli soldiers who say they are collecting testimonies from soldiers who took part in the raids in Jenin and another city, Tulkarm. [Read More]

THE WAR IN UKRAINE
Biden’s Mindless Escalation Is a Final Betrayal of Ukraine
By Jeet Heer, The Nation [November 22, 2024]
---- In the twilight of his failed presidency, Joe Biden is making clear that his core identity is as a foreign policy hawk. Although Biden logged some impressive domestic achievements under the aegis of Build Back Better, he followed the tragic pathway of an earlier Democratic president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, in being willing to sacrifice popular domestic programs on behalf of interminable wars. Biden didn’t just support Ukraine and Israel with vast funds and weapons supplies; his administration repeatedly resisted calls for negotiations and ceasefires. … Biden’s escalation in Ukraine comes at a strange time. The war is going badly for Ukraine, with war weariness among the population evidenced both in public opinion polls and intensifying resistance to conscription. … Further, many American foreign policy analysts who had previously advocated robustly arming Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression are now acknowledging that the time to negotiate has come. [Read More]

Nobody wants to hear this [War-weariness in Ukraine]
By James Meek, London Review of Books [November 21, 2024]
---- One possible route for peace in Ukraine is the country’s complete capitulation and subjugation. That possibility is a long way off, but it is the current direction of travel. For peace with at least a measure of justice for Ukrainians, however, there are three necessary preconditions. One is that Russia must accept less than it has declared it wants: less territory, and less – i.e. no – control over a free Ukraine. There is no sign of this happening. The second is that whatever supposedly temporary but actually permanent ceasefire line is agreed on, the West must commit to defending it properly, with more expensive and more systematic support for the Ukrainian military than now – perhaps even its own air power. There is no sign of this happening either. The third is that Ukraine’s people must accept they will lose some territory for a long time, perhaps forever. Judging from my time in Ukraine just before Trump’s victory, there is every sign that this is happening. [Read More]

ALSO OF INTEREST - (Video) “What does the use of more powerful weapons mean for Ukraine?” From Aljazeera [“Inside Story”] [November 23, 2024] [Link]; and “Biden Agrees to Supply Ukraine With Anti-Personnel Mines,” by Andrew E. Kramer and Helene Cooper, New York Times [November 20, 2024] [Link].

THE CLIMATE CRISIS
As we wait for national legislation, let’s launch a Green New Deal from below
By Jeremy Brecher, The Guardian [UK] [November 21, 2014]
---- As Trump and Trumpism devastate the American political landscape, how can people counter this destructive juggernaut? For the past five years, I have been studying how people are actually implementing the elements of the Green New Deal through what has become a Green New Deal from Below. This framework, which ordinary people are already putting into practice, is an approach to organizing that can form a significant means for resisting and even overcoming the Trump agenda. The Green New Deal is a visionary program designed to protect the Earth’s climate while creating good jobs, reducing injustice and eliminating poverty. The Green New Deal erupted into public attention as a proposal for national legislation, and the struggle to embody it in national legislation is ongoing. But there has also emerged a little-noticed wave of initiatives from community groups, unions, city and state governments, Indigenous American tribes and other non-federal actors designed to contribute to the core principle of the Green New Deal: to use the necessity for climate protection as a basis for creating good jobs and social justice. [Read More]

Climate Talks End With a Bitter Fight and a Deal on Money
By Max Bearak, New York Times [November 23, 2024]
[FB - Last week the news program Democracy Now! broadcast daily from the climate summit in Azerbaijan.  Their programs, featuring interviews with climate activists from across the world, can be viewed on www.democracynow.org.  Here is a summary of what did and did not happen, from today’s New York Times.]
---- Negotiators at this year’s United Nations climate summit struck an agreement early on Sunday in Baku, Azerbaijan, to triple the flow of money to help developing countries adopt cleaner energy and cope with the effects of climate change. Under the deal, wealthy nations pledged to reach $300 billion per year in support by 2035, up from a current target of $100 billion. Independent experts, however, have placed the needs of developing countries much higher, at $1.3 trillion per year. That is the amount they say must be invested in the energy transitions of lower-income countries, in addition to what those countries already spend, to keep the planet’s average temperature rise under 1.5 degrees Celsius. Beyond that threshold, scientists say, global warming will become more dangerous and harder to reverse. [Read More]

CIVIL LIBERTIES
What Could Stop Him?
By David Cole, New York Review of Books [November 18, 2024]
---- Almost like the cycles of grief, Donald Trump’s reelection has provoked shock, outrage, despondency, exhaustion, and despair. And for good reason. Trump’s first term was a four-year disaster, culminating in his effort to foment a riot to overturn the results of a free and fair election. This time around, there are fears that he will, among other things, prosecute his enemies, conduct mass deportations, further restrict access to abortion, censor school curricula, remove civil service protections, impose high tariffs, and strip birthright citizenship from children of immigrants. He threatened as much repeatedly during the campaign, and his first term in office suggests that he does not make idle threats. … But unlike in the stages of grief, acceptance cannot be the end goal here. Nor need it be. If citizens opt for resistance over resignation, we can check Trump’s abuses. The framers of our Constitution, justly suspicious of overweening federal power, inserted multiple guardrails against Trump-like presidents. Just as no one should underestimate the threats Trump poses, so we ought not discount the headwinds he is likely to face if people oppose his initiatives. Our worst enemy is not Trump himself, but fatalism about our ability to stop him. [Read More]

The Antisemitism Scare: Guide for the Perplexed
By Alan Wald, Solidarity [November 2024]
---- Faculty in the 1950s, unlike today, were not under fire for militant activism, statements in or out of the classroom, or civil disobedience. The focus was entirely on past political beliefs, i.e., association with the Communist Party (CP-USA). And the demand of the inquisitors was for professors — few of whom still had organizational connections — to repudiate this past by exposing others through the method of “naming names.” What amounted to political show trials were orchestrated through public hearings of Congressional investigating committees in different states. Professors who didn’t co-operate, by invoking either the First or Fifth Amendments, were mostly punished by their universities through dismissal. Although there was incessant propaganda claiming that such faculty were disloyal, there was never any evidence of professors’ engagement in conspiratorial activities, sabotage, or civil unrest. At present, faculty of conscience are actively trying to end what much of the world considers to be a genocide of Palestinians by one state (Israel) and enabled by another (ours), which counts among the most monstrous acts of our time.(3) This also means trying to stop Israel from barreling down an ethical abyss ruinous to its own population. [Read More]

ALSO OF INTEREST – “Democrats Must Do Everything They Can to Block the Dangerous Nonprofit Bill,” by Darryl Li, The Nation [November 22, 2024] [See the Program];. “Absolutely Insane”: Pentagon Officials on Trump’s Military Deportation Plan,” by Nick Turse, The Intercept  [November 19 2024] [Link]; and “Bosses Are Retaliating Against Workers for Showing Solidarity With Palestinians,” by Sarah Lazare, The Nation [November 22, 2024] [Link].

OUR HISTORY
When Does Power Concede? Thwarting MAGA Will Take More Than Protest and Symbolic Resistance.
By Van Gosse, The Nation [November 19, 2024]
---- In my view, we should take up one of the most effective forms of resistance to unjust authority in US history—fighting at the level of individual states and municipalities, where governors and legislatures, mayors and city councils act to protect their own citizens. Yes, I am talking about “states’ rights.” … There is a powerful history of state and local resistance to injustice that we can draw on. in the half-century preceding Lincoln’s election, governors, legislatures, towns, and cities in much of the North resisted the legal claims of the slaveholding states, defending the rights of their citizens against “the Slave Power”—meaning the South’s domination of national politics. As this defiance spread in the 1850s, it effectively nullified the federal government’s ability to enforce the claims of slave-owners. [Read More]

(Video) American Coup: Wilmington 1898
From PBS [November 12, 2024]
---- American Coup: Wilmington 1898 tells the little-known story of a deadly race massacre and carefully orchestrated insurrection in North Carolina’s largest city in 1898 — the only coup d’état in the history of the US. Stoking fears of “Negro Rule,” self-described white supremacists used intimidation and violence to destroy Black political and economic power and overthrow Wilmington’s democratically-elected, multi-racial government. Black residents were murdered and thousands were banished. The story of what happened in Wilmington was suppressed for decades until descendants and scholars began to investigate. Today, many of those descendants — Black and white — seek the truth about this intentionally buried history. [See the Program]