Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, October 21, 2023

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Join the national march in solidarity with Palestine!

 

Now is the time to stand with the besieged people of Palestine! Gaza is being bombed by the hour. Its people are denied food, water, and electricity by Israel. Tens of thousands more people are likely to die. We must ACT! People are in the streets every day in their local cities and towns. Now we must UNITE! Join the tens-of-thousands people, from every corner of the United States, who are converging for a truly massive National March on Washington D.C. on Saturday, November 4.

 

Today, the Israeli military deliberately bombed a hospital where thousands of people had taken refuge. The death toll is staggering, and the Biden administration has announced that it is preparing 2,000 troops to support Israel after having already deployed an aircraft carrier battle group and war planes.

 

Israel, with the full backing of the U.S. government, is carrying out an unprecedented massacre in Gaza. Thousands of Palestinians are being killed with bombs, bullets and missiles paid for by U.S. tax dollars. This is the latest bloody chapter in the colonial project of Israel, founded with the objective of dispossessing Palestinians from their land.

 

Join us in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, November 4 at 1pm to demand: End the Siege of Gaza! End all U.S. aid to Israel! Free Palestine!

 

Initial co-sponsoring organizations:

 

Palestinian Youth Movement

ANSWER Coalition

American Muslim Association

The People’s Forum

National Students for Justice in Palestine

Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition

Party for Socialism and Liberation

U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN)

U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR)

Maryland2Palestine

 

Endorse the march here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdIoioEdHTwb1d8Qx9ZbH2a-gsh3aDa3hWSiSMPsAR0scgIfw/viewform?pli=1

 

Buses and transportation centers are being organized in cities and towns across the country. Check back here for updated information about transportation options.

 

Please make an urgently needed donation to support solidarity work with Palestine in this pivotal moment:

https://www.answercoalition.org/donate?utm_campaign=palestine_11_4_national_demo_a&utm_medium=email&utm_source=answercoalition

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Join us for an exciting Cuba solidarity event coming up on Sunday, November 12th, 4 pm at La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley. Liz Oliva Fernández, a Cuban journalist and filmmaker with the Belly of the Beast media organization, is coming to the Bay Area as part of a national tour. She will be showing two new short documentary films exposing what's behind Biden's Cuba policy. This is an important chance for the Bay Area community to learn about current U.S. policy and show support for Cuba. 

Cuba has been outspoken about its solidarity with Palestine/Gaza during the current crisis.

Liz Oliva Fernández

Liz Oliva Fernández is a 29-year old journalist and on-camera television presenter from Havana, Cuba.  She is the award-winning presenter of the acclaimed documentary series The War on Cuba,  produced by Belly of the Beast and executive-produced by Oliver Stone and Danny Glover.  In addition to her journalism and filmmaking, Fernández is a dedicated anti-racist and feminist activist who co-founded Chicas Poderosas Cuba (Powerful Cuban Girls), an initiative that promotes change by inspiring female leadership and gender equality in Cuban society. 

Liz writes: “As a Cuban Black woman, I feel that the reality in which I grew up and still live is reflected in the stories we have told at Belly of the Beast. We challenge clichés – positive and negative – about Cuba and its people. And we are taking on issues that have been ignored or misrepresented by major media outlets both in Cuba and outside.”

Sponsored by Bay Area Cuba Solidarity Network

Venceremos Brigade, Bay Area and 

Richmond, CA - Regla, Cuba Friendship Committee

More info: bayareacubasolidarity@gmail.com

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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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Ruchell Cinque Magee Joins the Ancestors 

                                                         1939-2023

 

Ruchell Cinque Magee joined the ancestors October 17, 2023, after recently being released after 67 years of being caged!

 

Ruchell Magee was 84 years old and spent most of his life behind bars. Throughout his sixty-seven years of unjust captivity, Ruchell was one of the first and most consistent prisoners linking mass incarceration and the U.S. prison system to slavery. Ruchell Magee took the name Cinque from the enslaved African Sengbe Pieh who led an 1839 rebellion to commandeer the slave ship La Amistad, arguing that Africans have the right to resist “unlawful” slavery. Ruchell maintained that Black people in the US have the right to resist this new form of slavery which is part of the colonial control of Black people in this country:

 

“Slavery 400 years ago, slavery today. It’s the same but with a new name.”

 

“My fight is to expose the entire system, judicial and prison system, a system of slavery…This will cause benefit not just to myself but to all those who at this time are being criminally oppressed or enslaved by this system.”

 

“You have to deal on your own tactics. You have a right to take up arms to oppose any usurped government, particularly the type of corruption that we have today.” – Ruchell Magee

 

Ruchell’s life commitment, political stance and writings point to the need for a prison abolitionist movement to seriously address the historical legacy of slavery, and slave rebellions in order to truly be in solidarity with the millions of people incarcerated in the US. 

 

May Ruchell Cinque Magee rest in power!

 

Ruchell Cinque Magee joined the ancestors last night after recently being released after 67 years of being caged!

 

Ruchell Magee was 84 years old and spent most of his life behind bars. Throughout his sixty-seven years of unjust captivity, Ruchell was one of the first and most consistent prisoners linking mass incarceration and the U.S. prison system to slavery. Ruchell Magee took the name Cinque from the enslaved African Sengbe Pieh who led an 1839 rebellion to commandeer the slave ship La Amistad, arguing that Africans have the right to resist “unlawful” slavery. Ruchell maintained that Black people in the US have the right to resist this new form of slavery which is part of the colonial control of Black people in this country:

 

“Slavery 400 years ago, slavery today. It’s the same but with a new name.”

 

“My fight is to expose the entire system, judicial and prison system, a system of slavery…This will cause benefit not just to myself but to all those who at this time are being criminally oppressed or enslaved by this system.”

 

“You have to deal on your own tactics. You have a right to take up arms to oppose any usurped government, particularly the type of corruption that we have today.” – Ruchell Magee

 

Ruchell’s life commitment, political stance and writings point to the need for a prison abolitionist movement to seriously address the historical legacy of slavery, and slave rebellions in order to truly be in solidarity with the millions of people incarcerated in the US. 

 

May Ruchell Cinque Magee rest in power!

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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) 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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2) Bloody Blankets and ‘Lots of Bodies’ at a Devastated Gaza Hospital

“We’ve never lived through a war this intense,” said one Palestinian journalist who captured the aftermath of the blast.

By Raja Abdulrahim and Yousur Al-Hlou, Oct. 18, 2023

Reporting from Jerusalem and Cairo

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-deaths-aftermath.html

The aftermath of an explosion at the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday. Hundreds were killed, Palestinian health authorities said. Credit...Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock

Charred cars lining a parking lot. A courtyard littered with bloodied blankets and backpacks. Tattered clothing where dozens of bodies had lain.

 

The devastating impact of an explosion at the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday became clearer on Wednesday through videos that witnesses posted to social media. The Health Ministry in Gaza said hundreds of people were killed. Emergency workers were collecting bodies and remains in an effort to identify the dead.

 

“There are still lots of bodies they haven’t yet collected,” said Amir Ahmed, a paramedic with the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza City. “There are too many bodies.” He said all the victims would be buried in a mass grave at a funeral later on Wednesday.

 

“There is a big possibility that they will just put a number” on the body bags without any names, Mr. Ahmed added, “because many are in pieces.”

 

Palestinian officials blamed the carnage on an Israeli airstrike, an assertion that was disputed by the Israel Defense Forces, which said it was caused by an errant rocket fired by an armed Palestinian faction in Gaza. Neither side’s account could be independently verified immediately, and the cause of the blast and the precise death toll remained unclear.

 

Many of those killed at the hospital, which is run by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, were women and children, said Dr. Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza. He said doctors in another hospital in Gaza City were now performing surgery on patients on the floor or in corridors, often without anesthetic.

 

“The sudden increase of hundreds of victims with complex injuries far exceeded the capabilities of medical crews and ambulances,” he said in a statement.

 

Many of the wounded could die because of a severe shortage of medical supplies, water and electricity. Israel has imposed a complete siege of Gaza since last week, cutting off food, water, electricity and fuel.

 

Since Israel’s intense bombardment of Gaza began on Oct. 7, in response to a surprise attack by Hamas that killed at least 1,400 in Israel, residents have found that nowhere is safe.

 

About half of Gaza’s population of more than two million Palestinians have fled their homes since the Israeli bombardment began, according to the United Nations. Many have sought shelter in the corridors and courtyards of hospitals, believing that they would be less vulnerable there.

 

Those wounded in Tuesday’s explosion were taken to other hospitals in the city, which were already overwhelmed after 11 days of Israeli airstrikes on the besieged coastal strip.

 

The Palestinian journalist Motasem Mortaja captured a chaotic scene at one of those sites, Al Shifa Hospital, posting videos to social media of screaming children in bloodied clothing, women wailing in pain and men kneeling in prayer.

 

Hospital staff were treating the wounded wherever they could, rushing to bandage men lying on a floor red with their blood.

 

In one video, a young child lifts his shirt to reveal a wound to his chest. His hands, hair and clothes are dusty from the blast.

 

“I hope that this war ends soon,” Mr. Mortaja said in a voice memo sent Tuesday night to The Times. “We’ve never lived through a war this intense.”

 

Under a tent outside Al Shifa Hospital, where many of the dead and wounded were taken, workers lifted the dead from the blankets they were wrapped in and placed them in white body bags. In videos posted to Instagram and verified by The Times, other bodies lay exposed, and people walked past them in search of loved ones.

 

One man, standing over the bodies of two young boys, wailed in grief.

 

“I don’t have any more children. These were my only children,” he said.

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3) How Harvard Students Became the Center of a Free Speech Fight

A truck with a billboard displayed their names and photos, and critics put out do-not-hire lists. The students say it’s a campaign to shut them up.

By Anemona Hartocollis, Oct. 18, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/us/harvard-students-israel-hamas-doxxing.html

Student leaders in the pro-Palestinian movement at Harvard described themselves as activists for marginalized people. Credit...Sophie Park for The New York Times

On a campus already bitterly divided, the statement poured acid all over Harvard Yard.

 

A coalition of more than 30 student groups posted an open letter on the night of the Hamas attack, saying that Israel was “entirely responsible” for the violence that ended up killing more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.

 

The letter, posted on social media before the extent of the killings was known, did not include the names of individual students.

 

But within days, students affiliated with those groups were being doxxed, their personal information posted online. Siblings back home were threatened. Wall Street executives demanded a list of student names to ban their hiring. And a truck with a digital billboard — paid for by a conservative group — circled Harvard Square, flashing student photos and names, under the headline, “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.”

 

Campuses have long wrestled with free speech. What is acceptable to say and what crosses into hate speech? But the war between Israel and Hamas has heightened emotions, threatening to tear apart already fragile campus cultures.

 

Complicating it all: outside groups, influential alumni and big-money donors, who are putting maximum pressure on students and administrators.

 

At the University of Pennsylvania, donors are pushing for the resignation of the president and the board chairman, after a Palestinian writers’ conference on campus invited speakers accused of antisemitism.

 

At Harvard, a billionaire couple quit an executive board. Another donor pulled money for fellowships. And Lawrence Summers, a former Harvard president and Treasury secretary, criticized the leadership for a “delayed” response to the Hamas attack and the student letter.

 

This is not the first time that Harvard students have taken up an unpopular view. But those involved with the letter had not anticipated that their statement would go viral and unleash such repercussions.

 

The students had to contend with “people’s lives being ruined, people’s careers being ruined, people’s fellowships being ruined,” said one student whose organization signed the letter, in an interview.

 

Many critics have little forbearance for these complaints, saying that the letter itself showed a lack of empathy. But other students and free-speech activists say that the outside pressure has created its own kind of heckler’s veto, dictating what can be said on campus and how institutions must respond.

 

“You kind of feel like you’re responsible” for the harassment, said one of the Harvard students, whose family’s personal information was released. “That’s how silencing works, right?”

 

The Letter and Its Aftermath

 

Last week, in a bland conference room on the campus, four student leaders in the pro-Palestinian movement — three women and a man, all undergraduates — sat nervously around a table. A kaffiyeh, a checkered scarf that has become a symbol of Palestinian solidarity, was tossed on a chair.

 

They were not Palestinian, they said, but activists for marginalized people.

 

The groups that signed the letter often worked together in a kind of informal support network, the students said. When one championed an issue, the others might sign on in a show of collegiality.

 

They had agreed to be interviewed but insisted on anonymity, saying that they feared for their safety. They asked that even the smallest details of their personal lives — freshman? senior? — not be published.

 

They have been avoiding publicity since posting their letter on Facebook and Instagram on the night of Oct. 7, hours after the attack.

 

As the world increasingly focused on Hamas’s trail of terror in Israel, their letter opened with the line: “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”

 

After the letter went viral, and anger against it erupted, some of the groups distanced themselves from the message.

 

Attention has now shifted to Israel’s ongoing retaliation and the toll on civilians in Gaza, and these students are sticking with their stance, though they said it has been wearing.

 

One of the women found out from a friend about the billboard truck. It was parked just outside the university gates, plastered with a giant image of her smiling face. Customers sitting at a pastry shop, students looking out of their dormitory windows and commuters rushing to and from the train station could see her, along with a carousel of other students, being branded as antisemitic.

 

“I threw up in Harvard Yard,” she said.

 

The truck is operated by Accuracy in Media, a conservative group that has also deployed such trucks at other campuses, like Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley.

 

“It’s ironic that students on the campus where Facebook was invented are shocked that their names are publicly available,” Adam Guillette, president of Accuracy in Media, said. “We’re merely amplifying their message.”

 

The group is not done. It has purchased domain names for Harvard students associated with the letter and is setting up individual websites for them. Each site will call for the university to punish the students.

 

Students’ names were also exposed last week through a website featuring a “College Terror List, a Helpful Guide for Employers” compiled by Maxwell Meyer, a 2022 Stanford graduate.

 

Mr. Meyer, 23, said in an interview that his information had come from public sources and tips sent to an email address. He said he had no affiliation with Accuracy in Media.

 

His website was removed by Google and Notion, the note-taking app where it was displayed, Mr. Meyer said. (The students said alumni had helped remove it.) But other sites have picked up the list and passed it around.

 

Mr. Meyer said that as a former editor of the conservative Stanford Review, he was a defender of free speech. “At one point, I defended critics of Israel against what I called right-wing cancel culture,” he said.

 

But “if you’re a member of an organization that advocates terrorism in your name, you aren’t just a sitting duck, you’re a person with agency,” he said. “You can say, ‘I disavow this.’ These are Harvard students we’re talking about. They need to be held to a higher standard.”

 

Bill Ackman, the hedge fund billionaire and Harvard alumnus, wrote on social media that the names of students should be circulated, to avoid “inadvertently” hiring them. His more than 800,000 followers boosted Mr. Meyer’s website, and led dozens of chief executives to ask for the list, Mr. Meyer said.

 

In another social media post, Mr. Ackman said he was “100% in support of free speech.” But, he added, “one should be prepared to stand up and be personally accountable for his or her views.”

 

The doxxing, however, has extended to family members.

 

“Every single member of my family has been contacted, including my younger siblings,” said the student whose smiling face was on the truck.

 

With Free Speech, What’s the Line?

 

Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional scholar and the dean of U.C. Berkeley’s law school, said he objected to the doxxing and believed that displaying a truck billboard of student photos was “despicable.”

 

But he did not believe the actions had prevented either side from expressing their views. Mr. Ackman and Mr. Meyer may have heightened the tension, he said, but “you can’t express your views and then say, ‘Those who criticize me are chilling my speech.’”

 

Universities have to strike a balance, he said. “The institution — the law school or university — has to help all students get jobs regardless of their views.” Employers have a right not to hire people whose views they disagree with.

 

To other free-speech advocates, however, doxxing and shaming have become a standard part of the cancel culture arsenal, and run the risk of suppressing opinion.

 

Nadine Strossen, a former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the students’ statement “deplorable” but said that was beside the point.

 

Collecting names sounded like a throwback to McCarthy-era blacklists, she said. The latest lists could muzzle not only these students, but also those who might share “more thoughtful and less categorical pronouncements.”

 

And threatening people’s career prospects seemed like an overreaction, she said, especially when they were young and just starting out.

 

“The concept of proportionality, elusive as it is, is very woven into the fabric of not only American law, but international human rights law,” said Ms. Strossen, now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

 

Students behind the letter said that Harvard had not done enough to push back against their adversaries.

 

University officials have sent out general messages saying Harvard does not “condone or ignore” threats and intimidation. And officials said they have taken steps to ensure safety and calm anxieties over the last 10 days or so.

 

The university has urged students to report threats to the Harvard police. It has expanded shuttle service and closed the gates of Harvard Yard at night to people without university identification.

 

There is little the university can do, however, about the truck, which has been careful to stay on public streets. And the lists of names were compiled from publicly available sources.

 

Harvard has also begun dealing with the fractured mood on campus. On Tuesday, the Dean of Students Office announced open office hours for students who wanted to talk about “recent events.” Another office announced a session on “Navigating Interpersonal Conflict and Leadership.”

 

Students associated with the Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee have distributed a guide for doxxed students, which they compiled after a meeting with “upper-level administrators,” according to student emails.

 

The guide said that Harvard’s career center would reach out to employers to vouch for students. And it provided contact information for a lawyer willing to help undocumented students. It also recommended avoiding the news media: “Demand anonymity — use language about ‘extreme threat to security.’”

 

At Hillel House, a Different Threat

 

At the Harvard Hillel building, Jewish students passed through locked doors guarded by a patrol car. Over the past week, they had spent more time than usual there, looking for solace and understanding. Some students knew people who had been killed in the attack.

 

To them, the anti-Israel statement sounded divorced from reality.

 

“I feel insane walking around this campus,” said Elianne Sacher, a student from Israel. Since when, she asked, are murder and kidnapping excused?

 

After the Hamas attack, more pro-Palestinian students have attended class wearing the kaffiyeh, said Spencer Glassman, another student taking refuge in Hillel.

 

He felt uncomfortable with the display. “When terrorists wear the symbol, they appropriate the meaning,” he said. “It’s not this neutral liberation symbol to me.”

 

The students said that in the past week, antisemitic comments had been uttered in dining halls and posted on social media. The app Sidechat allows students to post anonymous messages, after logging in with their Harvard email addresses.

 

Harvard Hillel’s president, Jacob Miller, pushed a sheaf of examples across a table during an interview.

 

“LET EM COOK,” next to a Palestinian flag emoji, read one.

 

“I proudly accept the label of terrorist,” read another.

 

A third replied to emojis of the Israeli flag with an emoji of a baby’s head separated from its torso.

 

Screenshots of the posts have been shared with Harvard officials, the students at Hillel said.

 

Much as he condemned the truck and the doxxing, Mr. Miller said, the screeds on social media directed at Jewish students also had a chilling effect on speech.

 

“I do think it cuts both ways,” he said. “A number of my friends tell me they feel intimidated and uncomfortable speaking on campus due to the hostile environment.”

 

“It’s tragic that students on both sides feel afraid to voice their opinions,” Mr. Miller said. “Especially at a college that prides itself on the pursuit of truth.”

 

Stephanie Saul and Vimal Patel contributed reporting. Susan Beachy contributed research.

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4) I Live in My Car

Dozens of parking lots have opened across the country for working people who can afford a car but not rent.

By Rukmini CallimachiPhotographs by Ruth Fremson, Published Oct. 17, 2023, Updated Oct. 18, 2023

Rukmini Callimachi spent three days shadowing a woman living out of her car in Kirkland, Wash. She interviewed more than two dozen people, including car dwellers and those trying to help them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/realestate/car-homeless-rent-debt-mortgage.html

Chrystal Audet and her daughter, Cierra, pictured here with her dog Coda, are among a growing cohort of working Americans living out of their cars.

Rukmini Callimachi spent three days shadowing a woman living out of her car in Kirkland, Wash. She interviewed more than two dozen people, including car dwellers and those trying to help them.

 

Chrystal Audet tried to get comfortable in what she called her “bedroom” — the back seat of her eight-year-old Ford Fusion. To stretch her legs, she had to leave a passenger door ajar, but September nights are raw in the Pacific Northwest, with sheets of rain that cut to the bone.

 

From her own “bedroom” in the front seat, her 26-year-old daughter Cierra Audet asked her to close it.

 

“We have to get out of this,” Ms. Audet said to herself as she pulled a comforter against the cold and struggled to fall asleep in a parking lot in Kirkland, Wash.

 

Ms. Audet, 49, earns over $72,000 a year as a social worker for the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services. But a combination of bad luck, bad debt and a bad credit score priced her out of her apartment in Bellevue, another suburb of Seattle, one of the most expensive housing markets in the country. With an eviction looming, she put her furniture in storage this spring and began parking the sedan in a U-shaped parking lot outside a church in Kirkland.

 

The car, her biggest investment, became her home — the roof turned into a dining table, the trunk a closet. And a weathered stretch of blacktop provided by a Methodist church became her yard, her neighborhood and her safe place.

 

Around the country, real estate is being set aside for people like Ms. Audet in the form of parking lots. Dozens of such lots have opened in the last five years, with new ones being announced every few months, including as far east as Pennsylvania and North Carolina. They are sprinkled across the Midwest in Green Bay, Wis., and Duluth, Minn. And they dot the spine of the Pacific Northwest, providing a safe harbor for a growing cohort of working Americans who are wedged in the unforgiving middle. They earn too little to afford rent but too much to receive government assistance and have turned their cars into a form of affordable housing.

 

The idea of providing a parking lot for homeless parkers is nearly two decades old, with the first known lot opening in the shadow of Santa Barbara’s mansions in 2004. But the idea didn’t take off nationally for some time.

 

The Lake Washington United Methodist Church began experimenting with offering a beachhead for the “mobile homeless” in 2011 in response to Seattle’s “scofflaw ordinance,” which called for the impounding of cars that had accrued multiple parking tickets, a law that was disastrous for people forced to live in their cars. “Our simple idea was, ‘Hey, if they’re in our parking lot, they won’t get parking tickets. And they won’t get booted and towed,’” said Karina O’Malley, who helped create the program.

 

Now it is one of 12 in Washington State.

 

“Tens of thousands of people are living in their vehicles,” said Graham J. Pruss, an applied anthropologist studying the trend, who heads the National Vehicle Residency Collective. “It’s huge.”

 

‘One Bill Too Many’

 

In 2001, Ms. Audet posted a bad check. It went to court and ended up on her record, one of several setbacks that have damaged her credit.

 

Her free fall into unsustainable debt began last December when her car made a horrible, sputtering sound, and died. With poor credit, the only loan she could find came at a punishing cost: For the 2015 Ford Fusion with over 100,000 miles, she is being charged interest of 27.99 percent, equaling a payment of $398 per month, one-tenth of her take-home pay.

 

Medical bills in the thousands arrived for her Crohn’s disease. She missed two rent payments. And then the landlord raised her rent $248 a month.

 

“It was a case of one bill too many,” Ms. Audet said.

 

Down the spiral that led her to homelessness were a series of forks — choices between bad and very bad that she made, many in moments of desperation. She spent a week at a hotel. Expedia offered to break up her payments, which she is now paying off at the rate of $138 a month. To avoid her unpaid rent going to collections, she signed an installment plan, agreeing to pay $495 per month.

 

By midsummer, Ms. Audet’s take-home pay of nearly $4,300 a month was hollowed out by bills totaling nearly $2,600, leaving her with too little to pay for an apartment in a market where the median rent is $2,200.

 

She finally found the parking lot after seeing a news story about parking programs for homeless people. A tiny house is typically 300 square feet. For months, Ms. Audet, her daughter and their cream-colored mutt Coda lived out of a space that was no more than 30 square feet.

 

The fact that she was able to hang on to her car allowed her to maintain a semblance of normalcy. Almost no one knew her secret. Each morning, Ms. Audet used a portable toilet to get ready for work, then commuted to the downtown Seattle office of the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, where she spent her day sitting behind a plexiglass partition across from some of the city’s most destitute residents.

 

“There’s no judgment here,” she told the desperate people seeking government assistance, including a man clutching a medical certificate proving that he is blind. She helped him qualify for disability benefits. “It could be me on the other side of this glass,” she told them.

 

She, in fact, was on the other side of the glass — her bank account overdrawn by more than $900, a black hole of loans and bills that ate up her paycheck the moment it landed. Because she spent her days assisting others, she knew that she earned too much to be helped herself: The cutoff for receiving housing assistance in King County is 80 percent of the median income, or $70,650, said Benjamin Maritz, a member of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority Implementation Board.

 

In many cities, the “mobile homeless” are now the majority of the homeless population — people living out of vehicles make up about 53 percent in King County, Washington, where Ms. Audet lives. About 45 percent in San Mateo, a county perched on California’s rugged northern cliffs, are in the same predicament. In Los Angeles, the number approaches 60 percent.

 

Many of them have jobs: In Denver, 135 out of the 217 people who slept in one of the lots provided by the Colorado Safe Parking Initiative earlier this year earned an average of $1,581 a month. One-bedrooms there average $1,655.

 

After losing his job in January as a purchasing agent for a gardening company in Denver, Josh, 37, who asked that he be identified by his first name only because he had not told his family about his predicament, moved into his Toyota RAV 4. Finding somewhere safe to park was a daily struggle: “I was bouncing around between gyms, hotel parking lots, light industrial areas and the side streets off of hotels or apartments,” he said. Soon after, he learned he had colon cancer.

 

One night, when he was sleeping outside a Planet Fitness, he woke up to a man trying to break in. He left after Josh pushed the emergency button on his key fob. On another night when it was snowing, he parked in the lot of a Super 8 motel and found tracks leading to his car and the snow sheared from one of the car’s handles the next morning.

 

He called the Colorado Safe Parking Initiative, one of the newest in the country which operates thirteen lots in Denver, and begged the operator for a spot.

 

Josh now lives in one of the lots and commutes to his chemotherapy appointments.

 

There are so many people in need of a place to park that most are turned away. “We can only serve 10 to 20 percent of the people who call us,” said the executive director, Terrell Curtis.

 

In other parking lots across the country, car dwellers shared the hardships that landed them there: A man who scraped by delivering pizzas in Santa Barbara ended up in his Nissan Frontier when the pizza parlor cut his hours. A 35-year-old who installed home security systems ended up in his Chevy Suburban when he lost control of the drill, snapping his radial tendon. And one woman said she had to choose between helping her mother or herself.

 

“The rent just kept going up and up and up,” said Brooke Rosales, 41, describing how she and her mother shared an apartment in Lakewood, Colo., scraping by through a delicate lean-to of wages and disability benefits. Ms. Rosales suffers from grand mal seizures while her mother has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

 

It came crashing down when the mother’s condition progressed and she was no longer able to work. Sandy Rosales, 64, now struggles to breathe. Unable to make rent, the mother moved in with her son.

 

There was no room for Brooke Rosales, who ended up in her Jeep Liberty at a lot for homeless parkers in Denver.

 

Shame

 

To try to stay ahead of the tsunami of bills, Ms. Audet worked two jobs. On a recent evening, after clocking out at the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, Ms. Audet took Bus No. 554 back to Kirkland, where her daughter, a college student, waited for her. They spent the next three hours delivering food through DoorDash, breaking for dinner and picking up the next day. The pair earned $86.05 that evening, then spent $20 on gas and $20.37 at a waffle place for a takeout dinner.

 

They ate in the empty parking lot of a middle school, the Styrofoam container laid out on the roof of the Ford.

 

“It’s the irony of working and making a nice income and still not being able to afford housing,” Ms. Audet said. “I make $32 and some change per hour, but even still, I find myself struggling.”

 

To bathe, Ms. Audet and her daughter headed to a state park the next morning. It’s inside a 489-acre forest of Douglas firs crisscrossed by trails. They found that the parking lot was roped off — an equestrian competition was underway. So they parked on the highway, across from the park entrance, next to a “Tow Away Area” sign. She and her daughter took turns walking across the highway with their toiletries; one person needed to stay with the car to make sure it wasn’t towed.

 

Ms. Audet padded across the two-lane road in the pajamas she had slept in the night before. She had bought a bucket at the drugstore in order to carry her lotions, but on this particular morning she decided to leave it in the trunk, carrying her creams, her razor and her rosewater body wash in her arms, covered by a towel.

 

“I didn’t want to draw attention to myself,” she whispered, as she passed teenage girls leading shiny horses with braided manes.

 

On the door of the public shower, someone had taped a real estate listing to the wall, advertising a $4.25 million home. It was walking distance away and featured a three-stall barn, custom millwork and heated floors. Six miles from the public restroom where Ms. Audet showers is the exclusive community where Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos live.

 

Calculated Omission

 

There are so many ways in which a person’s life becomes smaller when they are forced to fit a home into a car. To avoid using the portable toilet at night, Ms. Audet tried to limit how much water she drank, leading to dehydration. The fact that she couldn’t properly stretch out caused her ankles to swell to the point that she couldn’t fit into her tennis shoes. Mother and daughter draped sheets over the car’s windows to try to have a measure of privacy at night. When it rained, the sheets got wet and with nowhere to dry them out, they became moldy.

 

In between working two jobs and navigating the church parking lot and the public shower, Ms. Audet found time to search for apartments. She was presented with the impossible math of her life: Her pay stubs presented one picture — that of a woman earning a respectable income — but as soon as the apartment managers pulled her credit report, their expressions changed, she said. With a score of 562, considered “Very Poor” by credit reporting agencies, she was asked to find a co-signer, or else provide multiple months of deposits. She didn’t have so much as the first month’s rent.

 

Her luck changed in late August at an event inside the church, when housing activists noticed that she was being trailed by a Times reporter. Several offered their business cards. One coached her on how to approach potential landlords — what to share and what to omit.

 

Soon after, she toured a $2,360-a-month one-bedroom in Redmond, Wash. At 673 square feet, it was a palace: Bright, white countertops and shiny floors stretched over floor space 20 times the size of her car.

 

A calculated omission — one that she wasn’t proud of but felt necessary as winter approached — allowed her to clear the first hurdle. On the form requesting two years of rental history, she left off her most recent apartment. Because she had entered into a payment agreement, the unpaid rent did not appear on her credit report.

 

She was nearly in tears when she heard that she had been approved, but almost lost the apartment when she couldn’t provide the security deposit. The church where she had been parking stepped in, ending her homelessness for a little more than $2,000.

 

Ms. Audet and her daughter moved in on Sept. 23. For now she is relishing the simplest of human pleasures — the ability to drink as much water as she wants, to take a shower in a space that is fully hers and to stretch out when she sleeps. Her tennis shoes fit again. Yet the math of her life remains precarious. Her sizable debt continues to carve out her salary, leaving too little for rent.

 

“I’m always, like, on the edge,” said Ms. Audet. “At least I have a car to sit in — and a safe parking lot to be in.”

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5) The Jewish Justice Movement Is Being Reborn

At the Jewish Voice for Peace rally, thousands of protesters made clear that they will no longer allow the suffering of the Jewish people to be weaponized against others.

By Dave Zirin 

—The Nation, October 19, 2023

https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/jewish-voice-peace-protest-dc/

Jewish Voice for Peace demonstrators demand a cease-fire in the Israel and Gaza conflict on October 18, 2023, in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C. (Matt McClain / Getty)

On October 18, several hundred US Jews—along with a few allies—were arrested for sitting in the rotunda of the Capitol building. We  chanted, we sang, we dropped banners, and we spoke with a clear message: Stop the war on Gaza; cease the bombing; and end Israel’s war on the Palestinian people, which must no longer be waged in the name of Jews. When we occupied the space, we shed their jackets to reveal identical black T-shirts that read “Not In Our Name” on the front and “Jews Say Cease Fire Now” on the back.

 

Aided by a melodious shofar, two dozen rabbis spoke about the moral urgency of the moment while thousands of fellow Jews chanted “Cease Fire Now” outside the building. Together it created a cacophony of righteous trouble in the best tradition of our people. It recalled our ancestors who stood with the oppressed, who helped build the labor movement, and who devoted their lives to anti-racist struggle. For decades, that history often seemed distant. On Wednesday, it felt reborn.

 

Jewish Voice for Peace organized the rally on just a few days notice, and protesters came ready to be heard. The arresting officers kept asking people if they were going to give up their right to remain silent, and it was as if everyone shouted back, “Hell yeah!”

 

In many places, Jewish silence on the oppression of Palestinians has reigned for too long. But at this moment of crisis, protesters said what perhaps had gone unspoken at family gatherings or in places of worship: that we have had enough, that we will no longer allow the suffering of our people—the pogroms, the Holocaust, or the Hamas killings—to be weaponized against others. Our history gives us an extra responsibility to speak out for those facing the specter of genocide.

 

For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Joe Biden “never again” is a slogan, a bumper sticker, a rallying cry for more carnage. But for those inside and outside the Capitol, “never again” means exactly what it’s supposed to: “Never again” will we allow masses of people to be massacred. If the rest of the world turns a blind eye, the Jewish people will raise up and bear witness. David Friedman, the ambassador to Israel under Donald Trump, took to Twitter to say, “Any American Jew attending this rally is not a Jew—yes I said it!” Suffice it to say, Friedman, who spent years as a hack for the openly anti-Semitic Trump, is not in charge of who gets to be Jewish. 

 

Almost certainly to Friedman’s chagrin, protesters made plain that there is nothing anti-Semitic about criticizing the Israeli state and there is nothing bigoted about standing up to US aid and support for Israel’s war on the Palestinian people. The gaslighting and gatekeeping of powerful officials like Friedman have made people of all backgrounds afraid to speak out, lest they be called anti-Semites. Jewish Voice for Peace is saying that people need to stand up against the slaughter, nevertheless, that this fear and silence has deadly consequences. 

 

This week in DC has felt historic: An emergent Jewish resistance has been a part of daily protests across the city. A thousand people on Monday blocked the entrances and exits to the White House. Nightly demonstrations have been taking place in front of the corridors of power. As I write this, Jewish people are being arrested at the Israeli embassy. But while Wednesday October 18 will be remembered, it was also too small. The hundreds of Jews in the rotunda should have been thousands. The thousands outside the Capitol building should have been tens of thousands. This moment demands a Jewish revolt against the false messiahs of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, of the evangelical mega churches, and of too many politicians on both sides of the aisle. This isn’t about choosing “teams,” as Biden said. It’s about stopping a slaughter. 

 

Jewish folks are not the center of this struggle. We’re part of a global resistance movement. But as Jews, we have a moral and political obligation to try to end the violence being inflicted in our name. It is time, at long last, give up our right to remain silent.

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6) Videos Show Georgia Deputy Fatally Shooting Man Who Had Been Wrongfully Imprisoned

A confrontation between the officer and Leonard Cure during a traffic stop rapidly turned violent and then deadly, footage released by the Camden County Sheriff’s Office shows.

By Michael Levenson, Oct. 18, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/us/leonard-cure-shooting-georgia-body-cam.html

Leonard Cure, who was wrongfully convicted of armed robbery and spent 16 years in prison, on the day of his release on April 14, 2020. Credit...Innocence Project of Florida, via Associated Press

Dash-camera and body-camera videos released on Wednesday show how a traffic stop in Georgia turned violent and then deadly in less than three minutes when a sheriff’s deputy shot a Black man who had been wrongfully imprisoned for more than 16 years.

 

The man, Leonard Cure, 53, was stopped on Monday morning on Interstate 95 in Camden County, Ga., not far from the Florida state line. The Camden County Sheriff’s Office said he had been driving more than 100 miles per hour in a 70 m.p.h. zone.

 

Footage released on Wednesday by the sheriff’s office shows a deputy, whose name has not been released, stopping Mr. Cure’s pickup truck on the side of the highway. The deputy orders Mr. Cure to step out of the truck and put his hands on the back of the vehicle.

 

Mr. Cure gets out, saying he had done nothing wrong, and pulls his arm away as the deputy tries to take hold of it. The deputy tells Mr. Cure to step back or be Tased. He then pulls out his Taser, points it at Mr. Cure and, once again, orders him to step to the rear of the truck.

 

Mr. Cure walks to the back of the truck and puts his hands on the vehicle. The deputy tells Mr. Cure to put his hands behind his back. Mr. Cure keeps them on the truck and questions why he is being stopped.

 

“Do I have a warrant?” Mr. Cure asks. The deputy tells him again to put his hands behind his back or be Tased.

 

“You are under arrest for speeding and reckless driving,” the deputy says, adding that Mr. Cure had passed him “doing 100 miles an hour.”

 

“OK, so that’s a speeding ticket, right?” Mr. Cure says, to which the deputy responds that “tickets in the state of Georgia are criminal offenses.”

 

As the two continue to argue, Mr. Cure ignores the deputy’s commands to put his hands behind his back. The deputy tells Mr. Cure, “Yes, you are going to jail,” and Mr. Cure points at the sky.

 

The deputy then Tases Mr. Cure, who freezes and then walks toward the deputy, flailing his arms. The two get into a violent struggle, with their arms wrapped around each other.

 

Mr. Cure grabs the deputy’s face, pushing his head and body back and cursing at him, as the deputy strikes Mr. Cure with his baton. The deputy then shoots Mr. Cure, and yells at him to stay down.

 

Other deputies and medical workers arrive and attend to Mr. Cure, who is lying on the ground. He later died.

 

Mr. Cure’s family watched the footage at a Georgia Bureau of Investigation office with their lawyer, Benjamin Crump, just before it was released on Wednesday. They said it showed that the deputy was aggressive and failed to de-escalate the encounter.

 

“My brother did turn and get a bit physical but, for the most part, he was completely compliant,” Michael Cure, one of Mr. Cure’s brothers, told reporters. “I believe there were possibly some issues going on, some mental issues with my brother. I know him quite well. The officer just triggered him, undoubtedly triggered him. It was excitement met with excitement.”

 

Wallace Cure, another of Mr. Cure’s brothers, said there was “absolutely no reason why my brother was murdered for a traffic stop.”

 

“There was an altercation,” he said, but added that he had seen other confrontational encounters with law enforcement “and the person did not end up dead.”

 

Mr. Crump said that the deputy might have triggered Mr. Cure’s post-traumatic stress when he told him he was going to jail.

 

“When you’ve been wrongfully convicted, and then they’re talking about taking you back to the cage?” Mr. Crump said. “It’s psychological at that point.”

 

The Camden County Sheriff’s Office said the videos “show that law enforcement is transparent regarding the actions that occurred Monday morning, including the dash camera video of the truck speeding in excess of 100 m.p.h., and being operated in a reckless manner.”

 

“Also the body camera video that the deputy was wearing reveals the confrontation and use of force,” the office said.

 

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the shooting, said it had no update on the case.

 

Mr. Cure was convicted in 2003 of the armed robbery of a Walgreens in Broward County, Fla. He was sentenced to life in prison, based on prior convictions. In 2020, he was exonerated and released based on a finding of “actual innocence,” according to the Innocence Project of Florida.

 

An A.T.M. receipt “proved that Lenny was miles away from the crime scene at the time of the robbery,” the Innocence Project said in a statement after his death. A re-investigation also concluded that a photo array shown to one of the victims contained several photos of Mr. Cure and was therefore unreliable and suggestive, the statement said.

 

Based on those findings, Florida recognized that Mr. Cure “was actually innocent,” the statement said. He was the first person exonerated by the Broward State Attorney’s Office Conviction Review Unit.

 

In June, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida approved legislation that gave Mr. Cure $817,000 and educational benefits for his wrongful conviction and incarceration.

 

He had recently used the money to buy a home in Palmetto, Ga., and was driving there from his mother’s house in Florida when he was shot, according to Seth Miller, the executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida.

 

“It’s incredibly tragic,” Mr. Miller said. “People will debate whether it was justified or not. But that’s not what I’m concerned about. The whole incident didn’t need to happen like that. Had it been approached in a less hostile way from law enforcement, Leonard would have made it home.”

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7) Appeals for Solidarity from Palestinian Trade Unions and Unionists

Posted on October 20, 2023

Sent via email:

 sandy.eaton.icloud.com@mail.mailchimpapp.com

In this Labor Fightback Network (LFN) DOSSIER:

 

• Urgent Appeal from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)

 

• San Francisco Rally Speech by Monadel Herzallah (October 14) – 

 

• Palestinian Trade Unions Call for an End to Arming Israel

 

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Urgent Appeal from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)

 

Brothers and Sisters of trade and workers’ unions in the United States of Americas,

 

From the midst of the rubble and at the center of the ethnic cleansing war committed by the apartheid regime of Israel against our people in the Gaza Strip, we send you this urgent appeal to bring you closer to the image of the massacres and the full-fledged war crimes against more than 2 million citizens in Gaza, including over 70% who are unemployed and live below the poverty line, enduring extremely difficult conditions. 

 

Israeli aggression has exacerbated the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza, and even demolished homes on their heads, depriving them for the tenth day in a row of electricity, water, fuel, medicine, and necessary medical supplies. As of the current date, the number of martyrs killed by Israel has exceeded 2,800, including unarmed, unemployed, working-class, and refugee civilians. Additionally, over 10,000 are injured, and approximately 1,000 citizens are trapped under the rubble. The number of killed children exceeds 500, along with 400 women. 

 

The apartheid regime of Israel is not satisfied with these heinous atrocities; it is also targeting journalists, medical teams, ambulances, and firefighters, leading to the complete destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure. And Israel has escalated its crimes by targeting institutions and trade union offices, reducing them to ruins.

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters, with deep sincerity and appreciation for the leadership role of unions and your constant support of our rights, we will never forget the previous vicious attacks in 2014 and 2021, when you made your voices loud and clear and when your heroic port workers blocked the boat (the Israeli-owned ZIM cargo ships). Now the aggressive, vicious attacks are continuing on a much larger scale, so we urge you to stand with us, again, and rise to the level of the war being waged against us all! 

 

We ask your support for the following:

 

First, to exert pressure on the U.S. administration, and the international community as a whole, to immediately halt the apartheid regime of Israel’s aggression against defenseless civilians in Gaza and condemn the collective punishment that has been imposed on us for more than 15 years.

 

Second, to end the siege that has been imposed on Gaza and pressure Israel to recognize our legitimate rights preserved by international law. Israel is the main cause of instability in the region.

 

Third, to contribute to providing urgent medical and humanitarian aid to support our people in these tragic times as quickly as possible. We trust in your ability to take urgent action to apply pressure and offer assistance, believing in the justice of our cause and our legitimate rights.

 

In struggle for a better world – a world of peace and justice. As there can be no peace without justice. 

 

Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions

 

Signatory:

 

Basher Al-Sisi,

 

Member of the General Secretariat of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions

 

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Monadel Herzallah Speaks Out (October 14)

 

(Brother Herzallah delivered this speech to the October 14 rally in San Francisco in solidarity with the people of Palestine. He is a leader of the US Palestinian Community Network and of the Arab-American Trade Union Council)

 

For the last week, there have been countless condemnations of violence, sympathy for lost lives, and outrage about acts of terror against civilians. But that is exactly what Palestinians have been doing, begging for the world’s attention, for the last 75 years. 

 

Let us make one thing very clear: This rally, and every rally before this, is happening because the Palestinian people demand an end to ALL violence and an end to these systemic problems that kill countless civilians every single year. 

 

Our oppressor (the Apartheid regime of Israel), the media, and the European and US governments would have you believe that we want this to happen, but the only thing we want is an end to the occupation, an end to the ethnic cleansing, an end on the siege against Gaza, and honest reporting that tells the truth and stops the spread of propaganda and lies. 

 

The year is 2023, but if you look at the headlines, it feels like it’s 2001. All over again, newspapers, websites, and even heads of state publish uncorroborated lies, angering millions of people against us, and then walk them back as an apology but only after the damage has been done. This dehumanization and racist rhetoric is the only way the institutions in charge can get away with mass genocide because they make you believe that we aren’t humans.

 

They do this because the only way you can accept the deaths of two million people under occupation is to paint each and every single one of them as the villain, and the worst part about all of this is that it is working. 

 

My niece Riham lives with her children (Yaser 12, Darenn 10 and Basel 8) in Rimal which is supposed to be a safe area in the city of Gaza, having survived the vicious attack on Gaza in 2008,2012,2014 and 2021. She just now sent me the following message that I promised her I would read to you.

 

#رسالة

نحن بغزة…

ربما ساعات قليلة وننقطع عن العالم بسبب انقطاع تام للكهرباء وستفقد البطاريات شحنها،فينقطع الإنترنت وشركة الكهرباء ومولدات الشوارع لا يوجدلديها مخزون من السولار، سنموت في صمت بعيدا عن عيون العالم والأصدقاء ،سامحونا على كل حال

 

“Perhaps in a few hours, we will be cut off from the world due to a complete power outage, and the batteries will lose their charge. The Internet will be cut off, and the electricity company and street generators will not have a stock of diesel. We will die in silence, away from the eyes of the world and our friends. Forgive us in any case.”

 

We ask you all to continue raise your voice against this on going  injustice. we ask you to make Riham’s voice heard. 

 

اتظن انك قد احرقني ورقصت كالشيطان فوق رفاتي …عبثاً تحاول لا فناء لثائر انا كالقيامة ذات يوم آت انا كالقيامة ذات يوم آت

 

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Palestinian Trade Unions Call for an End to Arming Israel

 

On Monday October 16, 2023, Palestinian trade unions released an urgent call for international trade unions to take action to halt the arms trade to Israel. The call comes amid a ruthless bombing campaign of Gaza, following Hamas’ October 7 offensive into Israel, and as Israel prepares for a ground invasion into the territory.

 

In the week following October 7, the full force of the Israeli military-industrial apparatus was put on display. Over just six days, Israel dropped more than 6,000 bombs onto Gaza. Human Rights Watch verified videos documenting Israel’s use of the lethal chemical white phosphorous in Gaza and Southern Lebanon.

 

Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced the ministry was purchasing 10,000 rifles, body armor and helmets to distribute to settler militias for use in the West Bank.

 

As Israeli politicians called for retaliation, using genocidal language that likened Gazans to “human animals,” leaders in Britain and the United States in the week following October 7, dispensed with even the fig leaf of “restraint” that usually accompanies Israeli bombing campaigns of Gaza.[1] 

 

The United States, in addition to dispatching two aircraft carriers laden with F-18 fighter jets to the region has instructed US defense companies to expedite munitions to Israel, causing an immediate $30 billion surge in US defense stocks.

 

During the May 2021 Unity Intifada, a collective of Palestinian trade unions called for international solidarity from international unions, urging them to divest their pensions from companies implicated in the occupation and release statements of solidarity. The latest call—which is reprinted in full below—focuses on the weapons industry and infrastructure of the blockade and occupation.

 

An Urgent Call from Palestinian Trade Unions—End all Complicity, Stop Arming Israel

 

Israel has demanded that 1.1 million Palestinians evacuate the northern half of Gaza, whilst subjecting them to constant bombardment. This ruthless move is part of Israel’s plan, backed by unwavering support and active participation from the US and majority of European states, to carry out unprecedented and heinous massacres against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza and to ethnically cleanse it altogether.

 

Since Saturday Israel has indiscriminately and intensively bombarded Gaza, and cut off fuel, electricity, water, food, and medical supplies. Israel has killed more than 2,600 Palestinians—including 724 children—leveling whole neighbourhoods, wiping out entire families and injuring more than 10,000 people. Some international law experts have begun warning of Israel’s genocidal acts.

 

Elsewhere, Israel’s far-right government has distributed more than 10,000 rifles to extremist settlers in ‘48 Palestine and the occupied West Bank to facilitate their escalating attacks and pogroms against Palestinians. Israel’s actions, massacres, and rhetoric point to its intention to implement its long promised second Nakba, expelling as many Palestinians as possible and creating a ‘New Middle East’ in which Palestinians live in perpetual subjugation.

 

The response by Western states has been one of complete and total support for the State of Israel, without even a cursory nod towards international law. This has amplified Israel impunity, giving it carte blanche to carry out its genocidal war without limit. Beyond diplomatic support, Western states are supplying Israel with armament, sanctioning the operation of Israeli weapons companies within their borders.

 

As Israel escalates its military campaign, Palestinian trade unions call on our counterparts internationally and all people of conscience to end all forms of complicity with Israel’s crimes—most urgently halting the arms trade with Israel, as well as all funding and military research. The time for action is now—Palestinian lives hang in the balance.

 

This urgent, genocidal situation can only be prevented by a mass increase of global solidarity with the people of Palestine and that can restrain the Israeli war machine. We need you to take immediate action—wherever you are in the world—to prevent the arming of the Israeli state and the companies involved in the infrastructure of the blockade. We take inspiration from previous mobilisations by trade unions in Italy, South Africa and the United States, and similar international mobilisations against the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s, the fascist dictatorship in Chile in the 1970s and elsewhere where global solidarity limited the extent of colonial brutality.

 

We are calling on trade unions in relevant industries:

 

·      To refuse to build weapons destined for Israel.

·      To refuse to transport weapons to Israel.

·      To pass motions in their trade union to this effect.

·    To take action against complicit companies involved in implementing Israel’s brutal and illegal siege, especially if they have contracts with your institution.

·      Pressure governments to stop all military trade with Israel, and in the case of the US, funding to it.

We make this call as we see attempts to ban and silence all forms of solidarity with the Palestinian people. We ask you to speak out and take action in the face of injustice as trade unions have done historically. We make this call in the belief that the struggle for Palestinian justice and liberation is not only a regionally and globally determined struggle. It is a lever for the liberation of all dispossessed and exploited people of the world.

 

Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, Gaza.

General Union of Public Service and Trade Workers

General Union of Municipal Workers

General Union of Kindergarten Workers

General Union of Petrochemicals Workers

General Union of Agricultural Workers

Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees Generation

Union of Media and Print Workers

Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)

General Union of Palestinian Teachers

General Union of Palestinian Women

General Union of Palestinian Engineers

Palestinian Accountants’ Association

Professional Associations Federation including:

Palestinian Dental Association—Jerusalem center

Palestinian Pharmacists Association—Jerusalem Center

Medical Association—Jerusalem Center

Engineers Association—Jerusalem Center

Agricultural Engineers Association—Jerusalem Center

Veterinarians Syndicate—Jerusalem Branch.

Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate

Palestinian Bar Association

Palestinian Nursing and Midwifery Association

Union of Kindergartens Workers

Palestinian Postal Services Workers Union

Federation of Unions of Palestinian Universities Professors & Employees

The General Federation of Independent Trade Unions, Palestine

The Palestine New Federation of Trade Unions

Palestinian General Union of Writers

Palestinian Contractors Union

Federation of Health Professionals Syndicates

Palestinian Union of Psychologists and Social Workers

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8) The Majority of Americans Agree: Ceasefire in Gaza

By Michael Moore

Via email, Oct. 21, 2023

An injured child is brought to the Nassr hospital after the Israeli airstrikes in Khan Yunis, Gaza on October 19, 2023.

I have joined with fellow filmmakers, actors, writers and artists — America Ferrera, Andrew Garfield, Cate Blanchett, Channing Tatum, Ilana Glazer, Indya Moore, Jessica Chastain, Joaquin Phoenix, Jon Stewart, Mahershala Ali, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Stipe, Quinta Brunson, Riz Ahmed, Wanda Sykes and others — in signing the letter below to President Biden asking him to call for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Gaza and Israel before another life is lost. Hamas and Israel must immediately stop the killing. Hamas must safely return all hostages. Israel must allow all humanitarian aide to enter Gaza. And everybody needs to calm the eff down, de-escalate and find a way to end this madness. 

 

The vast majority of the American public agrees with this. Two separate polls in the past few days, one from CBS News, the other from Data for Progress, show that up to two-thirds of likely voters agree that the U.S. should be calling for a ceasefire, and the majority oppose increased military aide to Israel and favor immediate humanitarian aide to the Palestinians.

Dear President Biden,

 

We come together as artists and advocates, but most importantly as human beings witnessing the devastating loss of lives and unfolding horrors in Israel and Palestine.

 

We ask that, as President of the United States, you call for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Gaza and Israel before another life is lost. More than 5,000 people have been killed in the last week and a half – a number any person of conscience knows is catastrophic. We believe all life is sacred, no matter faith or ethnicity and we condemn the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians.

 

We urge your administration, and all world leaders, to honor all of the lives in the Holy Land and call for and facilitate a ceasefire without delay – an end to the bombing of Gaza, and the safe release of hostages. Half of Gaza’s two million residents are children, and more than two thirds are refugees and their descendants being forced to flee their homes. Humanitarian aid must be allowed to reach them.

 

We believe that the United States can play a vital diplomatic role in ending the suffering and we are adding our voices to those from the US Congress, UNICEF, Doctors without Borders, The International Committee of The Red Cross, and so many others. Saving lives is a moral imperative. To echo UNICEF, “Compassion — and international law — must prevail.”

 

As of this writing more than 6,000 bombs have been dropped on Gaza in the last 12 days - resulting in one child being killed every 15 minutes.

 

"Children and families in Gaza have practically run out of food, water, electricity, medicine and safe access to hospitals, following days of air strikes and cuts to all supply routes. Gaza’s sole power plant ran out of fuel Wednesday afternoon, shutting down electricity, water and wastewater treatment. Most residents can no longer get drinking water from service providers or household water through pipelines.... The humanitarian situation has reached lethal lows, and yet all reports point to further attacks. Compassion — and international law — must prevail.” – UNICEF spokesperson James Elder

 

Beyond our pain and mourning for all of the people there and their loved ones around the world we are motivated by an unbending will to stand for our common humanity. We stand for freedom, justice, dignity and peace for all people – and a deep desire to stop more bloodshed.

 

We refuse to tell future generations the story of our silence, that we stood by and did nothing. As Emergency Relief Chief Martin Griffiths told UN News, “History is watching.”

 

Signed:

Alia Shawkat; Alyssa Milano; Amanda Seales; Amber Tamblyn; America Ferrera; Andrew Garfield; Ani DiFranco; Anoushka Shankar; Aria Mia Loberti; Ayo Edebiri; Bassam Tariq; Bassem Youssef; Bonnie Wright; Caroline Polachek; Cate Blanchett; Channing Tatum; Cherien Dabis; Darius Marder; David Cross; Dev Hynes; Diplo; Dominique Fishback; Dominique Thorne; Dua Lipa; Elvira Lind; Elyanna; Farah Bsaiso; Fatima Farheen Mirza; Hasan Minhaj; Hend Sabry; Ilana Glazer; Indya Moore ; James Schamus; Jeremy Strong; Jessica Chastain; Jessie Buckley; Joaquin Phoenix; Jon Stewart; Kehlani; Kristen Stewart; Macklemore; Mahershala Ali; Margaret Cho; Mark Ruffalo; May Calamawy; Michael Malarkey; Michael Moore; Michael Stipe; Michelle Wolf; Miguel; Mo Amer; Natalie Merchant; Oscar Isaac; Quinta Brunson; Rachel Sennott; Ramy Youssef; Ravena Aurora; Riz Ahmed; Rooney Mara; Rosario Dawson; Rowan Blanchard; Ryan Coogler; Sandra Oh; Sebastian Silva; Shailene Woodley; Shaka King; Simi Haze; Stephanie Suganami; Susan Sarandon; Taylour Paige; Tommy Genesis; Vic Mensa ; Victoria Monét; Wallace Shawn; Wanda Sykes; Yara Shahidi. 

https://www.artists4ceasefire.org/

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9) Elderly and Imprisoned: ‘I Don’t Count It as Living, Only Existing.’

Photographs by Joseph Rodriguez, Text by Carmilla Floyd, Oct. 21, 2023

Ms. Floyd writes about children’s rights and restorative justice. Mr. Rodríguez is a photojournalist who has reported extensively on incarceration, gangs, the police and re-entry.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/21/opinion/aging-prison.html

Adrienne Davidson, top, and her cellmate, Eliana Sotomayor, 78.

On a clear day in March 2023, the snowy peaks surrounding the California Institution for Men in Chino were visible. Cleveland Lindley stood on a green patch in the prison yard, taking in the view.

 

He was wearing dark wraparound glasses and using crutches for support because he had overexerted himself during a recent visit from family. At age 53, he is considered elderly in the prison system. That’s because incarceration accelerates aging.

 

“My body don’t work the way it used to, my mind don’t work like it used to be, and it’s intimidating,” Mr. Lindley told us. “People are always looking for that edge, that leg up.”

 

Mr. Lindley has spent much of the past 28 years in and out of solitary confinement. Four years ago, he requested a transfer to this yard, which houses former gang members and other vulnerable residents. Joseph Rodríguez, a photojournalist, and I had come to Chino to meet residents like him, living out their twilight years behind bars.

 

“In those other yards there was only violence, manipulation, politics. I could never sit alone. Now, I can enjoy the sun coming out, the mountains, the clouds. I’m learning about compassion — something I never learned in my 53 years on this earth. I never thought about nobody. It was always about me. Walking over people to get what I want, whether it’s a high or a dollar.” — Cleveland Lindley

 

On the loop circling the yard, Frankie Morales, 71, was walking laps at a steady pace. He has been incarcerated for most of his life, first in juvenile halls, then in state and federal prisons. He gets special meals on a tray because of a stomach condition, and when his back acts up he uses a cane to walk. He told us that back in the day, he was sometimes cuffed to a four-metal-post bed in a freezing-cold cell. “That was how we were supposed to get better and instead we got crazy,” he said.

 

Older adults struggle to move around in a space designed for younger people. Adrienne Davidson, 61, is a resident at the California Institution for Women in Chino. She ceded the lower bunk to her roommate, Eliana Sotomayor, who is 78 years old and has suffered three strokes in the past year.

 

To get into her bunk, Ms. Davidson puts one foot on a metal stool and the other on a metal desk. She then holds onto the edge of the bunk bed and heaves herself up. She could request a younger cellmate, but that comes with its own risk. “There is not a lot of respect from the younger people,” she said. “There’s also a strong anti-snitch culture here, so you can’t complain.”

 

The challenges they face are becoming increasingly common. Between 1993 and 2013, the number of people 55 or older in state prisons increased by 400 percent. The American Civil Liberties Union estimates that by 2030, people over 55 will constitute a third of the country’s prison population.

 

Research shows that most people age out of criminal conduct. Moreover, the Department of Justice asserts that the risk of elderly people reoffending after release is minimal. Yet decades of tough-on-crime sentencing and increasingly rigid release policies have left many to grow old in a system that was not designed to accommodate them. The cost is high, for both the residents and the public at large.

 

Older residents who are released should be provided with support. And they should be given the opportunity to use their experiences to drive change in their communities. Advocacy groups have already demonstrated the power of restorative justice programs led by the formerly incarcerated, both inside and outside prisons, allowing for healing and growth for all parties affected by violence — victims, offenders and families.

 

Reforms have ignited hope among residents who expected to die in prison. In California, the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016 provides a process for nonviolent offenders to be considered for parole if their release poses no unreasonable risk to the community. Also in California, the Elderly Parole Program lays out a path for some residents who are over 50 and who have served at least 20 years. The state has also established compassionate release programs for terminally ill or medically incapacitated residents.

 

Efforts to reduce the aging prison population are driven not solely by compassion but also by the tremendous cost of incarcerating older people. Residents do not qualify for Medicaid, leaving the state responsible for all care expenses. Older residents are more likely to suffer from chronic illnesses like diabetes, dementia and cancer, and struggle with depression and anxiety.

 

Yet the rules and policies around parole decisions are often obstacles to releasing elderly residents, especially if they committed violent offenses in their youth. These secretive and subjective policies should be changed to focus on risk assessment and rehabilitation rather than the initial crime. Punitive sentences like life without parole should be abolished altogether.

 

For elderly people transitioning out of prison, finding a place to live is often the most immediate challenge. Doris Roldan was released in 2020 at age 80, after spending 40 years behind bars. She lives in a senior housing facility in Los Angeles and is a member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, which supports and advocates systemic prison reform, and speaks on forums for restorative justice. “I think you can judge a country by their prisons, and we are in big trouble,” she said. “I don’t count it as living, only existing.”

 

Rehabilitative programs were rare when Mr. Morales and Mr. Lindley entered the system. Javier Stauring, the executive director of Healing Dialogue and Action, a California group that advocates restorative justice, explained that in the past few years, California, among other states, has made strides toward a more financially responsible and compassionate criminal justice system. “Men like Frankie and Cleveland have an opportunity to grow, face the consequences of their actions and ultimately forgive themselves,” he said. Yet much work remains.

 

Mr. Lindley will be eligible for a parole hearing in 2030. Until then, he is taking college classes and has joined self-help groups. He learned about compassion and the consequences of his actions later in the game. He now teaches residents how to be self-aware and to have more compassion. It’s time for policymakers, politicians and other stakeholders to follow his lead.

 

Mr. Morales was denied parole in July and will have to wait 18 months to apply. He spends most of his time painting in a small makeshift studio that corrections officers have helped set up adjacent to his cell.

 

He still rolls up his mattress and places it at the foot of his bed for protection, a habit from the old days. Back then people would make spears and use them to try stab others through the bars. “You never came out of your cell without boots, to protect yourself,” he said. “Nowadays, I can go out in shower sandals. Beautiful!”

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10) Israel-Hamas War First Aid Trucks Move Through Crossing to Gaza

The United Nations said the 20-truck convoy carried “life-saving supplies,” which the World Health Organization warned would “barely begin to address the escalating health needs” in Gaza.

Updated Oct. 21, 2023, 1:03 p.m. ET11 minutes ago

Current time in: Jerusalem Oct. 21, 8:14 p.m.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/21/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news

A group of trucks carried much-needed humanitarian supplies into the territory from Egypt on Saturday. Credit...Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times

A convoy of 20 trucks carrying aid moved through the Rafah border crossing into Gaza from Egypt on Saturday, according to the United Nations, after days of diplomatic wrangling to get food, water and medicine into the blockaded enclave where supplies were running out and hospitals were nearing collapse.

 

Aid officials welcomed the breakthrough but warned that the trucks, which the United Nations said carried “lifesaving supplies,” carried barely enough to start addressing the spiraling humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

 

Oct. 21, 2023, 1:02 p.m. ET13 minutes ago

 

The supplies that aid trucks carried into Gaza through the Rafah crossing included cases of water, feminine hygiene products and blankets.

 

The Palestine Red Crescent Society on Saturday said it was receiving the 20 truckloads of food, water and medical supplies that came through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and that it intended to distribute the aid to places that are in the direst need.

 

The aid would be taken to warehouses being maintained by UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinians, and then delivered to sites that need it, according to Nebal Farsakh, a Palestine Red Crescent spokeswoman. The timing of such deliveries was not clear.

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