Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, October 17, 2023

Jewish Doctor Speaks Out on Israel and Palestine

Dr. Gabor Maté, Hungarian-Canadian physician and author describes his own life experience and expresses his view on the situation in Israel and Palestine.

“I’m personally a Holocaust survivor as an infant, I barely survived. My grandparents were killed in Auschwitz and most of my extended family were killed. I became a Zionist; this dream of the Jewish people resurrected in their historical homeland and the barbed wire of Auschwitz being replaced by the boundaries of a Jewish state with a powerful army…and then I found out that it wasn’t exactly like that, that in order to make this Jewish dream a reality we had to visit a nightmare on the local population.

“There’s no way you could have ever created a Jewish state without oppressing and expelling the local population. Jewish Israeli historians have shown without a doubt that the expulsion of Palestinians was persistent, pervasive, cruel, murderous and with deliberate intent—that’s what’s called the ‘Nakba’ in Arabic; the ‘disaster’ or the ‘catastrophe.’ There’s a law that you cannot deny the Holocaust, but in Israel you’re not allowed to mention the Nakba, even though it’s at the very basis of the foundation of Israel.

“I visited the Occupied Territories (West Bank) during the first intifada. I cried every day for two weeks at what I saw; the brutality of the occupation, the petty harassment, the murderousness of it, the cutting down of Palestinian olive groves, the denial of water rights, the humiliations...and this went on, and now it’s much worse than it was then.

“It’s the longest ethnic cleansing operation in the 20th and 21st century. I could land in Tel Aviv tomorrow and demand citizenship but my Palestinian friend in Vancouver, who was born in Jerusalem, can’t even visit!

“So, then you have these miserable people packed into this, horrible…people call it an ‘outdoor prison,’ which is what it is. You don’t have to support Hamas policies to stand up for Palestinian rights, that’s a complete falsity. You think the worst thing you can say about Hamas, multiply it by a thousand times, and it still will not meet the Israeli repression and killing and dispossession of Palestinians.

“And ‘anybody who criticizes Israel is an anti-Semite’ is simply an egregious attempt to intimidate good non-Jews who are willing to stand up for what is true.”

—Independent Catholic News, October 16, 2023

https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/48251

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TERRORISM IN THE EYES OF THE IMPERIAL BEHOLDER - a poem

 

the French word

for rabies

is

la rage -

rage or outrage

 

and 

the French have a saying -

a man who wants to get rid of his dog

accuses it of spreading rabies

 

the people of Gaza

treated as inhuman animals

worse than dogs

are charged

with terrorism

 

come to think of it

what an honor !

 

world war two's resistance

against nazi extermination

was designated

as terrorism

by the Axis allies

 

what an honor !

 

Mandela

was monitored

as a terrorist

by the CIA

 

What an honor !

 

Tortuguita

peacefully meditating

near Israeli-funded cop city

was executed

in cold blood

on suspicion

of domestic terrorism 

 

What an honor !

 

in the spirit of Mandela

in the spirit of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising

in the spirit of Tortuguita

in the spirit of Attica

may the anti colonial outrage

of the People of Palestine

contaminate us all -

the only epidemic

worth dying for

 

 (c) Julia Wright. October 17 2023. All Rights Reserved To The family of Wadea Al- Fayoume.

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Zaid Abdulnasser, the coordinator of Samidoun Network’s chapter in Germany, and member of the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, is currently being threatened by the German state that his residency as a Palestinian refugee born in Syria will be revoked due to his political engagement in Samidoun and Masar Badil.

 

In the face of this attack, more than 130 international organisations, unions, and political parties, have expressed their absolute refusal of Germany’s ever increasing repressive measures against Palestinian refugees and their fundamental right to struggle for their liberation and return.

 

We call for organisations to join us by signing the statement under the following link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSffcsikMQR1lwvPqukzYCQpCzSZwLy28RXY8tYdGNxzlgugOA/viewform

 

To financially support the legal defence of Zaid and other Palestinians in Germany bearing the brunt of the state’s repressive measures against Palestine, you can make a donation to the following account:

 

Name: Rote Hilfe e.V.

IBAN: DE55 4306 0967 4007 2383 17

BIC: GENODEM1GLS

Note: Palaestina gegen Repression

 

We, in Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, declare that all attacks against us by the zionist occupation, its organisations abroad, and by Western imperialist countries and right-wing, racist media, have not and will not change our absolute commitment to defending and supporting the Palestinian prisoners movement, and to struggle for the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

Sign the statement!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSffcsikMQR1lwvPqukzYCQpCzSZwLy28RXY8tYdGNxzlgugOA/viewform

Download the poster, take a selfie or group photo, and send it to us at: 

samidoun@samidoun.net

@samidounnetwork (Instagram) 

@SamidounPP (Twitter/X)!

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The ongoing Zionist theft of Palestinian land from 1946 to now.

77 years of brutal oppression must end!

End all U.S. aid to Israel now!

For a democratic, secular Palestine!

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Leonard Peltier’s Letter Delivered to Supporters on September 12, 2023, in Front of the Whitehouse

 

Dear friends, relatives, supporters, loved ones:

 

Seventy-nine years old. Mother Earth has taken us on another journey around Grandfather Sun.  Babies have taken their first breath. People have lived, loved, and died. Seeds have been planted and sent their roots deep below red earth and their breath to the Stars and our Ancestors.

 

I am still here.

 

Time has twisted one more year out of me. A year that has been a moment.  A year that has been a lifetime. For almost five decades I’ve existed in a cage of concrete and steel.  With the “good time” calculations of the system, I’ve actually served over 60 years.

 

Year after year, I have encouraged you to live as spirit warriors. Even while in here, I can envision what is real and far beyond these walls.  I’ve seen a reawakening of an ancient Native pride that does my heart good.

 

I may leave this place in a box. That is a cold truth. But I have put my heart and soul into making our world a better place and there is a lot of work left to do – I would like to get out and do it with you.

 

I know that the spirit warriors coming up behind me have the heart and soul to fight racism and oppression, and to fight the greed that is poisoning our lands, waters, and people. 

 

We are still here.

 

Remember who you are, even if they come for your land, your water, your family. We are children of Mother Earth and we owe her and her other children our care.

 

I long to turn my face to the sky. In this cage, I am denied that simple pleasure. I am in prison, but in my mind, I remain as I was born: a free Native spirit.

 

That is what allows me to laugh, keeps me laughing. These walls cannot contain my laughter – or my hope.

 

I know there are those who stand with me, who work around the clock for my freedom. I have been blessed to have such friends.

 

We are still here and you give me hope. 

 

I hope to breathe free air before I die. Hope is a hard thing to hold, but no one is strong enough to take it from me. 

 

I love you. I hope for you. I pray for you. 

 

And prayer is more than a cry to the Creator that runs through your head.  Prayer is an action.

 

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

DOKSHA, 

LEONARD PELTIER

Write to:

Leonard Peltier 89637-132

USP Coleman 1

P.O. Box 1033

Coleman, FL 33521

Note: Letters, address and return address must be in writing—no stickers—and on plain white paper.

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Drop the Charges on the Tampa 5!

Sign the Petition:

https://peoplespetitions.org/tampa5

 

The Tampa 5—Gia Davila, Lauren Pineiro, Laura Rodriguez, Jeanie K, and Chrisley Carpio—are the five Students for a Democratic Society protesters at the University of South Florida who were attacked by campus police and are now facing five to ten years in prison for protesting Governor Ron DeSantis' attacks on diversity programs and all of higher education.

 

On July 12, 2023, the Tampa 5 had their second court appearance. 

 

The Tampa 5 are still in the middle of the process of discovery, which means that they are obtaining evidence from the prosecution that is meant to convict them. They have said publicly that all the security camera footage they have seen so far absolves them, and they are eager to not only receive more of this evidence but also to share it with the world. The Tampa 5 and their supporters demand full transparency and USF's full cooperation with discovery, to which all of the defendants are entitled.

 

In spite of this, the charges have not yet been dropped. The case of the five SDS protesters is hurtling towards a trial. So, they need all of their supporters and all parties interested in the right to protest DeSantis to stay out in the streets!

 

We need to demand that the DeSantis-appointed, unelected State Attorney Susan Lopez and Assistant Prosecutor Justin Diaz drop the charges.

 

We need to win this case once and for all and protect the right of the student movement—and all social movements in the United States—to exercise their First Amendment right to free speech and to protest.

 

Defend the Tampa 5!

 

State Attorney Susy Lopez, Prosecutor Justin Diaz, Drop the Charges!

 

Save Diversity in Higher Education!

 

Protesting DeSantis is Not a Crime!

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Free Julian Assange

Immediate Repeated Action Needed to Free Assange

 

Please call your Congressional Representatives, the White House, and the DOJ. Calls are tallied—they do count.  We are to believe we are represented in this country.  This is a political case, so our efforts can change things politically as well.  Please take this action as often as you can:

 

Find your representatives:

https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

 

Leave each of your representatives a message individually to: 

·      Drop the charges against Julian Assange

·      Speak out publicly against the indictment and

·      Sign on to Rashida Tlaib's letter to the DOJ to drop the charges: 

           202-224-3121—Capitol Main Switchboard 

 

Leave a message on the White House comment line to 

Demand Julian Assange be pardoned: 

             202-456-1111

             Tuesday–Thursday, 11:00 A.M.–3:00 P.M. EST

 

Call the DOJ and demand they drop the charges against Julian Assange:

             202-353-1555—DOJ Comment Line

             202-514-2000 Main Switchboard 

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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!

FREE HIM NOW!

Write to Mumia at:

Smart Communications/PADOC

Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335

SCI Mahanoy

P.O. Box 33028

St. Petersburg, FL 33733

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Updates From Kevin Cooper 

March 23, 2023 

Dear Friends and Comrades, 

This is Kevin Cooper writing and sending this update to you in 'Peace & Solidarity'. First and foremost I am well and healthy, and over the ill effect(s) that I went through after that biased report from MoFo, and their pro prosecution and law enforcement experts. I am back working with my legal team from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.

'We' have made great progress in refuting all that those experts from MoFo came up with by twisting the truth to fit their narrative, or omitting things, ignoring, things, and using all the other tactics that they did to reach their conclusions. Orrick has hired four(4) real experts who have no questionable backgrounds. One is a DNA attorney, like Barry Scheck of the innocence project in New York is for example. A DNA expert, a expect to refute what they say Jousha Ryen said when he was a child, and his memory. A expect on the credibility of MoFo's experts, and the attorney's at Orrick are dealing with the legal issues.

This all is taking a little longer than we first expected it to take, and that in part is because 'we' have to make sure everything is correct in what we have in our reply. We cannot put ourselves in a situation where we can be refuted... Second, some of our experts had other things planned, like court cases and such before they got the phone call from Rene, the now lead attorney of the Orrick team. With that being said, I can say that our experts, and legal team have shown, and will show to the power(s) that be that MoFo's DNA expert could not have come to the conclusion(s) that he came to, without having used 'junk science'! They, and by they I mean my entire legal team, including our experts, have done what we have done ever since Orrick took my case on in 2004, shown that all that is being said by MoFo's experts is not true, and we are once again having to show what the truth really is.

Will this work with the Governor? Who knows... 'but' we are going to try! One of our comrades, Rebecca D.   said to me, 'You and Mumia'...meaning that my case and the case of Mumia Abu Jamal are cases in which no matter what evidence comes out supporting our innocence, or prosecution misconduct, we cannot get a break. That the forces in the so called justice system won't let us go. 'Yes' she is correct about that sad to say...

Our reply will be out hopefully in the not too distant future, and that's because the people in Sacramento have been put on notice that it is coming, and why. Every one of you will receive our draft copy of the reply according to Rene because he wants feedback on it. Carole and others will send it out once they receive it. 'We' were on the verge of getting me out, and those people knew it, so they sabotaged what the Governor ordered them to do, look at all the evidence as well as the DNA evidence. They did not do that, they made this a DNA case, by doing what they did, and twisted the facts on the other issues that they dealt with.   'more later'...

In Struggle & Solidarity,

An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:

Mr. Kevin Cooper

C-65304. 4-EB-82

San Quentin State Prison

San Quentin, CA 94974

 

 

Call California Governor Newsom:

1-(916) 445-2841

Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish, 

press 6 to speak with a representative and

wait for someone to answer 

(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)

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The writers' organization PEN America is circulating this petition on behalf of Jason Renard Walker, a Texas prisoner whose life is being threatened because of his exposés of the Texas prison system. 

See his book, Reports from within the Belly of the Beast; available on Amazon at:

https://www.amazon.com/Reports-Within-Belly-Beast-Department-ebook/dp/B084656JDZ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/protect-whistleblowers-in-carceral-settings

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Sign the petition:

https://dontextraditeassange.com/petition/

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Tell Congress to Help #FreeDanielHale

 

I’m pleased to announce that last week our client, Daniel Hale, was awarded the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence. The “Corner-Brightener Candlestick” was presented to Daniel’s friend Noor Mir. You can watch the online ceremony here. As it happens, this week is also the 20th anniversary of the first drone assassination in Yemen. From the beginning, the drone assassination program has been deeply shrouded in secrecy, allowing U.S. officials to hide significant violations of international law, and the American Constitution. In addition to the lives directly impacted by these strikes, the program has significantly eroded respect for international law and thereby puts civilians around the world in danger. Daniel Hale’s revelations threw a beam of light into a very dark corner, allowing journalists to definitively show that the government's official narrative was a lie. It is thanks to the great personal sacrifice of drone whistleblowers like Hale that public understanding has finally begun to catch up to reality. As the Sam Adams Associates note:  “Mr. Hale was well aware of the cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment to which other courageous officials have been subjected — and that he would likely suffer the same. And yet — in the manner of his famous ancestor Nathan Hale — he put his country first, knowing what awaited him at the hands of those who serve what has become a repressive Perpetual War State wreaking havoc upon much of the world.” We hope you’ll join the growing call to pardon or commute Hale’s sentence. U.S. citizens can contact your representatives here.

Happy new year, and thank you for your support! Jesselyn Radack Director Whistleblower & Source Protection Program (WHISPeR) ExposeFacts Twitter: @JesselynRadack

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Laws are created to be followed

by the poor.

Laws are made by the rich

to bring some order to exploitation.

The poor are the only law abiders in history.

When the poor make laws

the rich will be no more.

 

—Roque Dalton Presente!

(May 14, 1935 – Assassinated May 10, 1975)[1]

---

[1] Roque Dalton was a Salvadoran poet, essayist, journalist, political activist, and intellectual. He is considered one of Latin America's most compelling poets.

Poems: 

http://cordite.org.au/translations/el-salvador-tragic/

About: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roque_Dalton

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A Plea for the Compassionate Release of 

Leonard Peltier

Self Portrait by Leonard Peltier

Video at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWdJdODKO6M&feature=youtu.be

Sign our petition urging President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier.

 

https://www.freeleonardpeltier.com/petition

 

Email: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info

Address: 116 W. Osborne Ave. Tampa, Florida 33603

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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression

https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/

 

Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests. 

 

The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page. 

 

Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.

 

Emergency Hotlines

If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities. 

 

State and Local Hotlines

If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for: 

 

Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312

San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org

Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963

National Hotline

If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:

 

National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811

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Articles

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1) The Savagery of the War Against the Palestinian People

By Vijay Prashad, Oct. 13, 2023

https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/10/13/the-savagery-of-the-war-against-the-palestinian-people/

Photograph Source: Trocaire from Ireland – CC BY 2.0

Who knows how many Palestinian civilians will be killed by the time this report is published? Among the bodies that cannot be taken to a hospital or a morgue, because there will be no petrol or electricity, will be large numbers of children. They will have hidden in their homes, listening to the sound of the Israeli F-16 bombers coming closer and closer, the explosions advancing toward them like a swarm of red ants on the chase. They will have covered their ears with their hands, crouched with their parents in their darkened living rooms, waiting, waiting for the inevitable bomb to strike their home. By the time the rescue workers get to them under the mountains of rubble, their bodies would have become unrecognizable, their families weeping as familiar clothing or household goods are excavated. Such is the torment of the Palestinians who live in Gaza.

 

A friend of mine in Gaza who has a 17-year-old child told me on the first night of this recent spell of Israeli bombing that his child has lived through at least ten major Israeli assaults on the Palestinians in Gaza. As we spoke, we made a list of some of the wars we could remember (because these are Israel’s wars, we are using the Israeli army names for their attacks on Gaza):

 

+ Operation Summer Rains (June 2006)

 

+ Operation Autumn Clouds (October-November 2006)

 

+ Operation Hot Winter (February-March 2008)

 

+ Operation Cast Lead (December 2008-January 2009)

 

+ Operation Running Echo (March 2012)

 

+ Operation Pillar of Cloud (November 2012)

 

+ Operation Protective Edge (July-August 2014)

 

+ Operation Black Belt (November 2019)

 

+ Operation Breaking Dawn (August 2022)

 

+ Operation Shield and Arrow (May 2023)

 

Each of these attacks pulverizes the minimal infrastructure that remains intact in Gaza and hits the Palestinian civilians very hard. Civilian deaths and casualties are recorded by the Health Ministry in Gaza but disregarded by the Israelis and their Western enablers. As the current bombing intensified, journalist Muhammad Smiry said, “We might not survive this time.” Smiry’s worry is not isolated. Each time Israel sends in its fighter jets and missiles, the death and destruction are of an unimaginable proportion. This time, with a full-scale invasion, the destruction will be at a scale not previously witnessed.

 

The Ruin of Gaza

 

Gaza is a ruin populated by nearly two million people. After Israel’s horrific 2014 bombardment of Gaza, the United Nations reported that “people are literally sleeping amongst the rubble; children have died of hypothermia.” A variation of this sentence has been written after each of these bombings and will be written when this one finally comes to an end.

 

In 2004, Israel’s National Security Director Giora Eiland said that Gaza is a “huge concentration camp.” This “huge concentration camp” was erected in 1948 when the newly created Israeli state’s ethnic cleansing policy removed Palestinians into refugee camps, including in Gaza. Two years later, Israeli intelligence reported that the refugees in Gaza had been “condemned to utter extinction.” That judgment has not altered in the intervening 73 years. Despite the formal withdrawal of Israeli settlers and troops in 2005, Israel remains the occupying power over the region by sealing off the land and sea borders of the Gaza Strip. Israel decides what enters Gaza and uses that power to throttle the people periodically.

 

Politicide

 

When the Palestinians in Gaza tried to elect their own leadership in January 2006, Hamas—formed in the first Intifada (Uprising) of 1987 in Gaza—won the election. The victory of Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) was condemned by the Israelis and the West, who decided to use armed force to overthrow the election results. Operation Summer Rains and Operation Autumn Clouds introduced the Palestinians to a new dynamic: punctual bombardment as collective punishment for electing Hamas in the legislative elections. Gaza was never allowed a political process, in fact, never allowed to shape any kind of political authority to speak for the people. Israel has tried with force to eradicate Gaza’s political life and to force the people into a situation where the armed conflict becomes permanent. When the Palestinians conducted a non-violent Great March of Return in 2019, the Israeli army responded with brute force that killed two hundred people. When a non-violent protest is met with force, it becomes difficult to convince people to remain on that path and not take up arms.

 

As this conflict takes on the air of permanency, the frustration of Palestinian politics moves away from the impossibility of negotiations to the necessity of armed violence. No other avenue is left open. Palestine’s political leadership has been either tethered by the European Union and the United States and so been removed from popular aspirations or—if it continues to mirror those aspirations—it has been sent to one of Israel’s many, harsh prisons (four of 10 Palestinian men are in or have been in prison, while the leaders of most of the left parties spend long periods there under “administrative detention” orders). Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling has argued that the Israeli policy toward the Palestinians has resulted in “politicide,” the deliberate destruction of Palestinian political processes. The only road left open is armed struggle.

 

Indeed, by international law, armed struggle against an occupying power is not illegal. There are many international conventions and United Nations resolutions that affirm the right of self-determination: these include, Additional Protocol 1 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 (1974), and UN General Assembly Resolution 37/43 (1982). The 1982 resolution “reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.” You could not have a stronger statement that provides legal sanction for armed struggle against an illegal occupation.

 

Why does Hamas attack Israel? Because a political grammar has been imposed on the relationship between the Palestinians and the Israelis by the nature of the Israeli occupation. Indeed, any time there is a modest development for talks—often brokered by Qatar—between Hamas and the Israeli government, those talks are silenced by the sound of Israeli fighter jets.

 

War Crimes

 

Each time these Israeli fighter jets hammer Gaza, leaders of Western countries line up metronomically to announce that they “stand with Israel” and that “Israel has a right to defend itself.” This last statement—about Israel having the right to defend itself—is legally erroneous. In 1967, Israeli forces crossed the 1948 Israeli “green lines” and seized East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 sought the “withdrawal of [Israeli] armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” The use of the term “occupied” is not innocent. Article 42 of the Hague Regulations (1907) states that a “territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.” The Fourth Geneva Convention obliges the occupying power to be responsible for the welfare of those who have been occupied, most of the obligations violated by the Israeli government.

 

In fact, as far as Gaza has been concerned since 2005, Israeli high officials have not used the language of self-defense. They have spoken in the language of collective punishment. In the lead-up to the ongoing bombing, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We have decided to halt electricity, fuel, and goods transfer to Gaza.” His Defense Minister Yoav Gallant followed up, saying, “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.” Then, Israel’s Energy Minister Israel Katz said, “I instructed that the water supply from Israel to Gaza be cut off immediately.” Having followed up on these threats, they have sealed Gaza—including by bombing the Rafah crossing to Egypt—and closed down the lives of two million people. In the language of the Geneva Conventions, this is “collective punishment,” which constitutes a war crime. The International Criminal Court opened an investigation into Israeli war crimes in 2021 but was not able to move forward even to collect information.

 

The children huddle in their rooms waiting for the bombs sit in the dark because there is no electricity and wait—with parched throats and hungry bellies—for the end. After the 2014 Israeli bombardment, Umm Amjad Shalah spoke of her 10-year-old son Salman. The boy would not let his mother go, being in terror of the noise of the explosions and the death around him. “Sometimes he screams so loudly,” she says. “It almost sounds like he’s laughing loudly.”

 

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

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2) UAW strike day 30: On a windy, rainy picket line, Ford workers vow to persist

By Hayley Harding, The Detroit News, Oct. 14, 2023

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2023/10/14/uaw-strike-day-30-on-a-wet-windy-picket-line-workers-vow-to-persist/71186082007/

UAW Local 900 members Justin Diegel, 22, and Gina Bennett, 44, get what warmth they can from a burn barrel while picketing Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023, outside Ford's Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne.

Wayne — Temperatures are beginning to drop after nearly a month of picketing, but those on strike with the United Auto Workers said their spirits were still high as they braved the autumn chill, wind and rain Saturday outside Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Assembly Plant.

 

Workers made clear: They've lost a lot. They've received multiple strike paychecks of $500, which is much less than they would have made on the assembly lines. Smoke from burn barrels seemed to follow wherever people stood with a stiff breeze blowing everywhere, and a month of picketing can take a toll.

 

But so much more is at stake, the workers said as their walkout marked its 30th day. Every striker who spoke to The Detroit News has more than two decades working for Ford, and each one said they were going to stick it out to end the tier system and get back some of what they gave up to help save the company during the worst of the Great Recession 15 years ago.

 

"We helped them recover," said Ann Goodman of Adrian, who has worked for Ford for 24 years. "We'd like to start to recover too, now."

 

Goodman, 58, said she hopes the strike doesn't go on much longer. Her mood changes from day to day, she said, in part because it can be difficult to have her future feel like it's at least partially out of her hands while the company and the bargaining committee go back and forth.

 

But she wants the younger people at Ford to have the same opportunities she did, she said. Like everyone standing in the rain Saturday, she considered herself a "diehard."

 

"We have to get back what we lost," she said.

 

The Michigan Assembly Plant was one of the first three Detroit Three automaker plants to go on strike. Now, dozens across the country are on strike or idled due to strikes elsewhere. The most recent addition is Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant, where workers started striking earlier this week after the UAW said Ford "refused to make further movement in bargaining."

 

The company, in response, pointed to its most recent offer, which includes a three-year progression to the top of the wage scale, the end of wage tiers that have workers at components plants on different wage scales than assembly plant workers, restoration of the cost-of-living adjustment formula that was suspended in 2009, and conversion within 90 days of temporary workers to permanent status, among other contract improvements. The union says Ford is offering a 23% wage hike; the automaker says its offer is over 20% with a double-digit raise upon ratification.

 

“There’s no doubt our UAW workforce put us on their shoulders during the pandemic, and these same workers and their families were hit hard by inflation. We want to make sure our workers come out of these negotiations with two things — a record contract and a strong future,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a statement. “We’ve put an offer on the table that will be costly for the company, especially given our large American footprint and UAW workforce, but one that we believe still allows Ford to invest in the future.”  

 

Those on strike are holding out. Brian Dicola of Southgate, who has worked for Ford for 29 years, said he still agreed with UAW President Shawn Fain and planned to stick it out for as long as necessary.

 

As the strike grinds on, he said he's only growing closer to not only his own coworkers at Michigan Assembly but also with volunteers from other plants who have come out to demonstrate support. Dicola has met people from different plants as well as people showing up even when they don't need to be on the line just to show solidarity. Blustery weather was likely keeping away some supporters, who Fain had asked to make a show at picket lines this weekend, Dicola said, but he was quickly considering those on the line with him his second family.

 

As he's on the line, he thinks about his real family too — bills don't stop just because work did, he said. His son plays a lot of sports, with costs that can add up fast, and there's also other expenses, everything from groceries to suits for homecoming.

 

He has a second job painting, and he has spread some of the work from that to other picketers to help everyone get bills paid. The younger workers on lower wage tiers especially had a hard time putting money away in anticipation of a strike, he said. Hearing his friends talk about their financial struggles has been one of the hardest parts, Dicola said, but it keeps him motivated.

 

"I'll be out here five years if I need to be," he said, adding that in his opinion, Ford has the money to meet the UAW's demands. "They just don't want to."

 

There's an expectation that after a month of striking, the initial feelings of excitement might wane. And Sean Farnan, a 30-year employee of Ford, pointed out that the weather was a little nicer when the strikes began last month. But he said he, like Dicola, plans to be out there for as long as it takes.

 

"We'll be out here deep-frying turkeys if we need to be," Farnan said. "We'll be singing Christmas carols if we have to be out here then."

 

Farnan, 54, said it was time that companies make things right with their employees, through raises and other benefits. The tiered system that hurts younger workers has been a problem for a long time, he said, as it pits worker against worker.

 

He's eager to let the negotiators do their jobs in the "tug of war" between the union and the company. That's the only way things can improve, he said.

 

"Look at it this way," he said, pointing to a car carrier driving in front of picketers down Michigan Avenue. "Those trucks are still rolling. Ford is still making money. They can improve the economic issues, the other things, to make sure we are too."

 

Staff Writer Jordyn Grzelewski contributed.

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3) As people crowd into homes in southern Gaza, Israeli strikes take a greater toll, a doctor says.

By Nicholas Casey and Abu Bakr Bashir, Oct. 17, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/17/world/israel-hamas-war-biden-gaza

A man injured in an Israeli airstrike on Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip is wheeled into Nasser Hospital on Monday. Credit...Yousef Masoud for The New York Times

A doctor in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday described dwindling resources and a mounting death toll as airstrikes surged in southern Gaza, where Israel had told Palestinians to seek safety ahead of a possible ground invasion.

 

Hundreds of thousands of people have heeded Israel’s call to flee to the south, but Israel on Tuesday announced it had carried out new strikes in southern cities, including Khan Younis and Rafah. It said its strikes were targeting Hamas, the group controls Gaza and launched the surprise Oct. 7 attack in Israel that left 1,400 people dead.

 

“Today is worse than all the previous bad days,” Dr. Mohamed Zaqout, the general manager of Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis, said Tuesday. “With many displaced from the north, more people share the same homes and thus there are more casualties in each strike.”

 

Gazan government officials said that strikes on Tuesday killed at least 80 Palestinians in the southern part of the strip and wounded dozens more. Some Palestinians who fled the north said they are now considering going back to their homes as strikes intensify in the south, which they thought would be safer.

 

Dr. Zaqout said his hospital had received 42 bodies from Tuesday’s strikes, 26 of which remained unidentified in the morgue hours later. The dead included 10 women and 15 children, he said. Many of the victims had come from a residential building that was hit in an early morning airstrike.

 

Nasser Hospital was also having trouble attending to the wounded, he said. The intensive care unit is full, with no beds available for patients who have undergone amputations or need surgery for brain injuries and severe burns suffered in the latest attacks. Chest tubes — meant to be disposed of after one use — are running out, so doctors are sterilizing them and using them again and again, he added.

 

“This is too much pressure on the resources,” he said.

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4) W.H.O. Chief: Doctors and Patients Face Impossible Choices in Gaza

By Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Oct. 16, 2023

Dr. Tedros is the director general of the World Health Organization.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/opinion/gaza-invasion-hospital-tedros-who.html

Outside the emergency ward of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Sunday. Credit...Dawood Nemer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Today, Al Shifa Hospital, the largest health care facility in the Gaza Strip, is emblematic of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Already underresourced and overcrowded, it is now home to thousands of people who have sought refuge from Israeli airstrikes that rained down on their neighborhoods after the horrific and unjustified attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7.

 

Al Shifa Hospital has always been under tremendous strain. When I visited in 2018, I met with patients and health workers and toured a dialysis unit and a neonatal intensive care ward, full of newborns in incubators. Their tentative grasp on life was sustained by diesel generators that powered the hospital when the electricity went off, as it did for several hours every day. Staff members, patients and their families faced difficult choices to make daily.

 

These choices are now seemingly impossible in the fallout from Oct. 7 — not just at Al Shifa Hospital but at northern Gaza’s other hospitals and clinics as well.

 

With no electricity and fuel running out in Gaza, within days hospital generators will fall silent, and the incubators, dialysis machines and other lifesaving medical equipment will shut down. Many of the most critically ill patients, including babies, whose lives have only just begun, will probably die. Attempting to move them is equally hazardous. Water scarcity is a grave concern for struggling patients, especially newborns.

 

Israel’s order to empty 23 hospitals treating over 2,000 patients in Gaza presents health workers with a horrifying choice: Force those in their care to make a journey that for many will be their last or stay and treat their patients under the impending threat of bombardment.

 

Health workers should never have to make choices like that, nor should they ever be targeted. Under international humanitarian law, all armed actors are obliged to proactively protect health facilities from intentional or collateral attack. But in this conflict, health facilities and health care have been struck repeatedly.

 

I deplore the attacks on health facilities in both Gaza and Israel, which have led to the deaths and injuries of health workers on both sides. The deaths of colleagues from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza brought even closer to home the dangers faced by humanitarian workers, including those providing health relief.

 

There’s still time and opportunity to prevent the worst-case scenario. The World Health Organization calls for the immediate and safe release of hostages seized from Israel and taken into Gaza by Hamas. According to the Israeli military, some 199 hostages seized from Israel that day — children, adults and older people — remain hostage in Gaza, many in need of medical treatment. And we hope for attacks on Israeli hospitals to cease as well; Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, which has treated both Israelis and Palestinians for years, has been hit by Hamas rocket attacks, damaging one of the few medical reference centers available to the people of Gaza.

 

We continue to appeal to all parties to abide by their obligations under international law to protect civilians and health facilities. We appeal to Israel to restore supplies of electricity and water and to support the establishment of a humanitarian corridor into Gaza.

 

In Cairo last week, I met with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, who generously agreed to facilitate the delivery of medical supplies to Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with the help of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.

 

On Saturday, the W.H.O. delivered a planeload of supplies to Egypt from our logistics hub in Dubai, and we are working to move these supplies into Gaza as rapidly as possible.

 

We appeal for sustained, unhindered and protected humanitarian access. This will help civilians to move to safety in Gaza, health facilities to be restocked with medicines and other supplies, fuel to reach hospitals to keep generators and the lifesaving equipment they support running, and clean water and food to arrive to sustain the weak and weary.

 

To be clear, as a United Nations agency, the W.H.O. is politically impartial and is committed to supporting the health and well-being of all Israelis and Palestinians. To that end, the agency established an official presence in Israel in 2019, adding to our existing office in the occupied territory. On my visits in 2018 and last year, I met with the ministers of health of both Israel and the occupied territory to discuss how the W.H.O. can better support both governments to promote, provide and protect the health care of their people. This included a visit to the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, where I was encouraged by Israeli health specialists developing digital health initiatives in partnership with Palestinian communities.

 

Since Oct. 7, however, so many horrifying choices have been made — abhorrent attacks on civilians in Israel by Hamas and other armed groups, the seizing of hostages, the attacks on populated areas of Gaza.

 

What is needed now is another kind of decision making, one that ensures hospitals are kept operational, supplies are safeguarded and health workers and civilians in Israel and Gaza are protected and sustained.

 

Nelson Mandela once said, “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” At this fearful time, I appeal to all who have the power to make decisions that affect the health and well-being of so many people to choose, as Mr. Mandela implored, the way of hope.

 

There is still time.

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5) The First Week

Dispatch from the Palestinian Youth Movement

—The New Inquiry, October 14, 2023

https://thenewinquiry.com/the-first-week/

Taken at a pro-Palestine protest on October 13, 2023.

Gaza is the story of the Palestinian people. It is a story of displacement and refugeehood, of imprisonment at the hands of a foreign occupier. But, most importantly, it is a story of sumud (steadfastness) and resistance: resistance that is driven by a love for one’s people, a love for one’s homeland, and a love for life and freedom. Now and onwards, you must not allow your friends and comrades to turn their backs on the Palestinian liberation struggle. You must not allow them to falter in the face of the events of this week, or to devolve into insipid both-sideism or pragmatic armchair generalissimo, or to publish cowardly denunciations that do nothing more than provide a left cover for an impending genocide on the people of Gaza. Most importantly, you must not allow them to lose sight of why the oppressed people resist; that it is not only understandable, not only an occupied people’s right, but also just and true. We hope this bulletin will help guide what principled solidarity can look like right now within the imperial core, and arm those in solidarity with us with tools to resist the military-industrial complex that is hellbent on our people’s extermination.

Your priority must be communicating a set of realities clearly and unequivocally. Two-point-four million Palestinians are currently being held hostage by Zionists, who are martyring thousands with genocidal impunity. All the crossings are closed. The Zionists are indiscriminately using bombs and internationally-prohibited weapons on a densely populated concentration camp full of entrapped civilians. There is no water or electricity. Mass arrests of Palestinians across all of historic Palestine add to the hundreds of administrative detainees imprisoned without charge, who are now suffering additional retribution by the colonial regime. Gazan hospitals—which are already graveyards—are themselves being targeted, and at least thirteen have already been hit. Seven confirmed members of the press have been martyred, and news stations are regularly being cut due to the lack of electricity. Ambulances and the Red Crescent are also being deliberately targeted. Universities and mosques have been destroyed. Entire families are being wiped out—at least forty-five entire families that we have seen reported. And this is just a small sampling of what is happening in Gaza right now, owing to a reporting blackout, which is being aided and abetted by the genocidal Western media machine.

All this being said, we do not want to use abstractions to discuss Gaza: every story is one of violence and resistance and beautiful, ordinary life. But to do them proper justice, you’d have to give us a lifetime. What we can say with certainty is that the Palestinian people are unbowed. No amount of collective punishment by the Zionist entity will bend or break the will of our people to live in dignity. We know why Gaza is being targeted: because it is the heart of our resistance. And that resistance is both a strategic and moral necessity to the ordering violence’s of the Zionist system from river to sea, which seeks the extermination of the Palestinian people. We therefore maintain what the rest of our Palestinian sisters and brothers maintain: we will continue to fight, and we will win. 

The foremost demand to anyone inside the West, inside the imperial core, is to oppose the genocidal drumbeat waged by Zionist and Western leaders alike. The Palestinian people of Gaza have asked for the bombing campaign to stop, the blockade to end once and for all, and for humanitarian aid to enter. But also, and more broadly, what we are asking those who wish to be in solidarity within the West is threefold. First, struggle through organizations and your workplaces and your communities and in the streets to demand an end to both the current genocidal campaign and for an end to the entire system of settler colonialism that has strangled Palestine for the last century. Second, go on the offensive: demand sanctions against Zionism; no more weapons, no more money, no more cultural or institutional cover. We want the total anti-normalization of a Zionism that has once again shown its face to the world. Finally, understand Palestinian resistance as fundamentally just and as a means of survival for our people; it will not stop in the weeks and months to come, and you must be prepared not to waver again.

The Western governmental response has been military and economic carte blanche and material support. These nations have withdrawn much of their foreign aid to the Palestinian people at a moment of utter crisis; leaked documents suggest that the U.S. State Department has instructed its bureaucrats to avoid issuing calls for de-escalation or ceasefire. Secretary Blinken visiting the Philadelphia-born prime minister of the Zionist entity while he is initiating genocide of Palestinians is an affirmation of total U.S. government support and a guarantee of intelligence and military resources to be placed at the Zionists’ disposal. EU leaders, too, have embraced the death merchants of the “Second Nakba” in a lurid display of global settler phantasmagoria. Students and activists are being rounded up from the streets and campuses for their brave defenses of the Palestinian resistance. Germany is leading mass arrest campaigns and seeking to ban the Palestinian prisoners’ movement from their country; England and France are seeking to ban symbols and expressions of Palestinian solidarity. Your voices and your bodies are needed now.

The media gives cover to all this: they render us savage and killable. The world is watching your programs and statements and essays, and will remember your complicity, just as it did with Iraq. We demand local and national news outlets commit to honest reporting on Gaza that does not include racism and effacement designed to manufacture consent for genocide, but also, we do not hold our breaths.

Palestinians and Arabs have long understood that Zionism and Western imperialism to be intimately intertwined. At their base, the two ideologies fundamentally seek the same things: the extraction of Arab land and labor, the elimination of a Palestinian population, and the blanket of an imperial military and economic system that subjugates the world’s oppressed. The violent colonial response we are witnessing is therefore neither surprising nor random. Rather, it is the “rational,” ordered response of a system governed by counterrevolutionary and anti-Communist logic.

The bitter irony is also not lost on us, that some have chosen to speak now after decades of silence. Where were they when Gaza was put under air, land, and water siege sixteen years ago, entrapping a population of two million people, half of them children? Where were they when the Zionists implemented calorie controls to spread malnutrition and disability? Where were they when Zionist leaders told the world decades ago that their intention with Gaza was to extract maximum pain on a civilian population, to once again ethnically cleanse a people who were stripped of their lands and homes seventy-five years ago, and who now comprise the heart of Palestinian resistance? This week, these peoples’ mask has come off—such are the realities of revolution. For those who are willing and ready, we have a keffiyeh to offer in its place.

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6) A Letter from Michael Moore Regarding the Killings of Palestinians and Israelis

By Michael Moore, Oct. 17, 2023

https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/a-letter-from-michael-moore-regarding?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=320974&post_id=138030521&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=pzmjd&utm_medium=email

Actor/playwright Wally Shawn at the White House with a massive turnout of Jewish peace groups @IfNotNowOrg and @JvpAction demanding President Biden fight for a cease fire and end the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians.

To My Friends and Loved Ones,

 

No one ever wants to wake up on a Saturday morning to a thousand dead Jews in the street. Anywhere. 

 

SHAME!

 

I still have not been able to process this and I still can’t believe this is the world I live in. I was born 8+ years after the Holocaust. And now I sit and wait for the mass slaughter of Palestinians, a Semitic tribe, cousins to Jews. 

 

Not one Palestinian helped build Auschwitz.

 

Not one Palestinian led a Spanish Inquisition. 

 

Not one Palestinian in New York City turned away a boatload of Jewish refugees trying to dock here to escape the Nazis — and not one Palestinian escorted those Jews back to their death in Germany. 

 

And yet they, the Palestinians, will now be exterminated like something less than insects by the descendants of the very people who have suffered one extermination attempt after another for 5,784 years! Cousins! Cease! The Madness! Your only true enemy for the past 2,000 years has been and still is the White “Christians”! Ask the Native Americans.  Ask any Black American.  Ask the Mexicans.  Ask the Indigenous Peoples of the British Empire, the Vietnamese under the boot of the French, and on and on. And now this week, the people of Gaza must be wiped out or forcibly moved into the Sinai Desert? Those left behind have already had their food and their drinking water cut off (humans can only live 4 days without water). 

 

WHY?! Palestinians didn’t take your land, your water, your fruit groves. They share the same prophets with you. They eat hummus and you eat hummus.  No Palestinian ever murdered you while you were registering voters in the South. No Palestinians ever paraded with tiki torches through Charlottesville chanting “THE JEWS SHALL NOT REPLACE US!”  That was US! Why not punish us? No. Instead you’ve given us great masterpieces of music, art, comedy, literature, philosophy, film, medicine, science and a moral compass which you gave us to live by, to help create a world of love and peace with each other. Now you throw your compass away? You were supposed to be our guiding light, even in the midst of unspeakable horrors. You’ve let a fascist gang take over, a group of killers who seek genocide — and our only hope of stopping them is that there are too many smart citizens of Israel who’ve already figured it out. They are asking the right questions. Why did Netanyahu pull the army back from the Gaza border? For 6-18 hours no help arrived. People were left to be slaughtered. And now comes news from the Israeli press that Netanyahu’s administration has for years been holding secret meetings with Hamas because they wanted to use them and turn them against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Divide and conquer, one of the oldest fascist tricks in the book. 

 

But the Israeli peace movement is vibrant and loud and there is nothing like them in the U.S. When we, the few of us, tried to stop the invasion of Iraq, we were denounced and opposed by 29 Democrats in the U.S. Senate, the New York Times, and other “liberals” who called us “unpatriotic” for not “supporting the troops.”

 

But too many Israelis now know the truth about October 7th, and they will not go away. As the bank for this now in-progress-slaughter — a bank called the United States of America — the citizens of my country must support the voices against genocide in Israel. You do not defeat evil by becoming evil. Those with the most courage and humanity rise up and say, “NO! Never! Not I!! I will not do to others what has been done to me.”

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