The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - November/December 2024 - Vol. XLIII No. 7
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On Middle East Affairs
THE U.S. ROLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION OF
Fighting For Justice Here at Home—Four Views —Jack McGrath, Rosemarie M. Esber, Susan Kerin, Blinken Encampment Plantiffs
Time to Throw Israel Out of U.N.—Ian Williams
Documentary Meticulously Outlines Israeli War Crimes Dale Sprusansky
Learned from an Ongoing Genocide —Ida Audeh
Visitors to Israel Pavilion Greeted With Sounds of Bombings and Drones—Candice Bodnaruk
PALESTINE ON THE COVER: A man clears out rubble after an Israeli airstrike that targeted the Basta neighborhood in central Beirut, on Oct. 11, 2024. Lebanese officials say that 23 Israeli strikes on hospitals or medical transport vehicles killed 72 medical personnel and closed six hospitals and reduced operations in another five as of Sept. 17. PHOTO BY NAEL CHAHINE/MIDDLE
Frames of Conflict: Understanding Palestine Through Cinema and Screen—Diana Safieh
Ankara Braces for Wider Conflict—Jonathan Gorvett
Qaddafi: Dead for Over a Decade but Still a Hero
Other Voices
Palestine Defines Us, Tom Suárez, mondoweiss.net
Israel After Oct. 7: Between Decolonization and Disintegration, Ilan Pappé, www.aljazeera.com
BBC Interview With Hamas Deputy Chief Is a Case Study in State Propaganda, Jonathan Cook, www.jonathan-cook.net
Why I Am Rooting for Bisan Owda to Win a News Emmy, Tafi Mhaka, www.aljazeera.com
The Other Side of the Border, Qassam Muaddi, mondoweiss.net
Israel’s Great Chance: Another War, Gideon Levy, Haaretz OV-44
Kill More A-rabs, Eric S. Margolis, www.ericmargolis.com OV-44
Israel’s Attack on Lebanon Using Exploding Electronics Is Part of A Long History and Strategy of Targeting Civilians, Jonathan Ofir, mondoweiss.net OV-45
DEPARTMENTS
(A
Compiled by Janet McMahon
Priming Hezbollah Pagers to Explode Is a Genius Move. But It’s Also an Israeli Failure, Yossi Melman, Haaretz OV-46
The United States Is Already at War, Belén Fernández, www.aljazeera.com OV-47
Blinken Lied to Congress About Israeli War Crimes Because He Knows He’ll Get Away With It, Caitlin Johnstone, www.caitlinjohnstone.com.au OV-48
CAIR Calls for Ousting of “Notoriously Orientalist” Biden Middle East Adviser, Sharon Zhang, www.truthout.org
Cheney’s Policies as VP Caused Immense Human Suffering on A Global Scale, Ziyad Motala, www.aljazeera.com
Debate in Nuclear-armed Former Colony Fails to Reassure Global Community, Patrick Gathara, www.aljazeera.com
OV-49
OV-50
OV-52
American Educational Trust Publishers’ Page
One Year Later
Israel is still carrying out a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. The accounts from Gaza in this issue (pp. 8-17) are heart-wrenching, as they chronicle endless death, destruction, dislocation and despair. More than a year into this uncontained violence, there appears to be no end in sight. Will the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar bring a close to this bloodbath? The violence is sadly likely to continue or even escalate, much as it did after Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon. The reality is that Israel is intent on using the events of Oct. 7, 2023, as a pretext to seize more land and alter the landscape of the Middle East—Israeli hostages and especially Arab civilians be damned.
A Regional War
Palestinians inspect the area where an Israeli airstrike targeted a cafe, killing 18, in the Tulkarm Refugee Camp in the West Bank, on Oct. 4, 2024. It was the first airstrike by an Israeli jet in the West Bank since the second intifada.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s professed strategy is to “escalate to de-escalate.” As we go to press, an Israeli attack on Iran is reportedly imminent, and U.S. troops have been deployed to Israel (without Congress’ authorization) to help the country resist any counter attack by Tehran. Meanwhile, some of the worst violence of the genocide—mass killings and starvation—is taking place in north Gaza. Israel is ramping up its air and ground assaults in the West Bank (see p. 18) as it prepares to make the territory another Gaza. Israeli assaults on Lebanon continue unabated, with only Hezbollah and Irish U.N. peacekeepers offering Israel any pushback (see p. 60). Israel’s attacks on Syria have also escalated, but the Assad regime has remained on the sidelines, seemingly preoccupied with increasing air assaults on its own citizens in partnership with Russia. Further south, the U.S. has again carried out a large bombing campaign in Yemen in another attempt to dissuade the Houthis from defending Gaza. It’s safe to say the muchfeared regional war is here.
Partner in Genocide
There’s no separating the U.S. from this wave of bloodshed. “Bibi Biden and Bibi
Blinken” seem to be more interested in spreading hasbara and weapons than peace. A recent Al Jazeera documentary clearly shows how Western support for Israel is facilitating war crimes in Gaza, crimes that Israeli soldiers boast about (see p. 66). Unwavering U.S. military and diplomatic support for Israel has fueled a Frankenstein that has commandeered the American national interest. The U.S. has spent at least $22.76 billion arming Israel over the past year (see p. 26) and has jeopardized its own national security interests. Supporting Israel’s war crimes does no one any favors, regardless of where they live. Violence does indeed beget violence. The cycle must end.
Two Pro-Genocide Candidates
The 2024 election is upon us, and this issue features an updated chart of how much money each member of Congress has received from the pro-Israel lobby (see p. 28). Of course, no one knows how much pro-Israel dark money was spent to fund the ads that are saturating U.S. media. But the charts give us a hint at who is getting what. There is one thing we do know: Americans who care about justice and peace are at a loss as to how to vote this election (see p. 81). Former President Donald Trump was a stong supporter of Israel and actively targeted Arab and Muslim Americans. Vice President Kamala Harris has refused to oppose President Joe Biden’s policies that have fueled this geno-
cide. Regardless of who wins, there is a long road ahead of us.
Let Journalists into Gaza Young journalists, students and influencers are doing a vital and dangerous service reporting from Gaza. As of Oct. 17, 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists has documented the killing of at least 128 journalists and media workers in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and Lebanon since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since they began gathering data in 1992. In July, 73 journalism organizations signed an open letter published in The New York Times calling on Israel to grant media access to Gaza so that they can report on the realities on the ground. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) is circulating a letter demanding Israel allow journalists to enter the Gaza Strip. Call your representative today to encourage them to sign.
“Other Voices”—It’s
Fundamental
Since the war on Gaza began, we’ve included our “Other Voices” supplement in every issue of the Washington Report Starting now, we will not charge readers an extra $15 per year for this valuable service. We are confident that our angelic readers will rise to the occasion (see p. 94) and help cover the costs of this special gift.
Reason for Hope
Since Oct. 7, our staff has tangibly seen the overflowing support for Palestine. Our bookstore has sold countless books to people wanting to learn about Palestine for the first time. Solidarity items are flying off our shelves. Our bookstore has become a hub for solidarity, welcoming countless visitors in person and shipping items across the country and world. People are flocking to us, wanting to learn and show support. Thank you for helping us renovate and expand the store. Together we can strengthen our community and build a better world and...
Make a Difference Today!
Executive Editor: DELINDA C. HANLEY
Managing Editor: DALE SPRUSANSKY
Senior Editor: IDA AUDEH
Other Voices Editor: JANET McMAHON
Middle East Books and More Asst. Dir.: JACK MCGRATH
Finance & Admin. Dir.: CHARLES R. CARTER
Art Director: RALPH UWE SCHERER
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Board of Directors: HENRIETTA FANNER JANET McMAHON JANE KILLGORE
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The official death toll in Gaza has surpassed 42,400, but the true scale of the tragedy remains unknown. However, healthcare workers who witnessed the devastation in Gaza’s hospitals are sharing their experiences. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon, wrote a powerful op-ed in The New York Times recounting harrowing stories from dozens of medical professionals and revealing CT scans of children shot in the head or chest by Israeli forces. While the Times chose not to publish the most graphic images, Sidhwa believes that if Americans saw the reality of such injuries, they might reconsider their country’s actions.
Among the voices published is Palestinian nurse Rajaa Musleh, who served at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. She recalls the trauma of seeing a dog eating a dead body near the hospital’s emergency department—an image she says will haunt her forever. Musleh’s message to the world is simple: “We are human beings, not numbers. We have the right to receive healthcare inside Gaza.”
Dr. Sidhwa’s op-ed details his time working in Gaza’s European Hospital in Khan Younis. He describes seeing children shot almost daily, often fatally. Other medical professionals confirmed similar patterns, indicating a disturbing trend. Despite accusations that the published images were altered, the Times has stood by their authenticity, citing photographic evidence.
The testimonies of those who have seen the suffering firsthand in Gaza underscore the dire need for global accountability and compassion. The stories of those on the frontlines provide a chilling reminder of the human cost of this ongoing genocide.
Jagjit Singh, Los Altos, CA
THE ISRAEL “DEFENSE” FORCES
Re: Gideon Levy’s reprinted article in the “Other Voices” section of the Aug./Sept. 2024 Washington Report. Levy refers to “the Israel Defense Forces.” As you may
know, Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion repeatedly insisted that Israel must always portray its use of force as simply defending itself. Thus the Haganah was renamed “Israel Defense Forces,” a term regularly used in the media, which subtly colors the events in favor of Israel no matter what it does.
This has been enormously successful, with U.S. and other politicians constantly parroting “Israel has a right to defend itself!” whenever the Palestinians resist with armed force. May I suggest that you consider referring to “the Israeli army,” “Israel’s military, air force,” or “the Israel Occupation Forces,” or similar terms that better reflect reality.
Gregory DeSylva, Rhinebeck, NY
WHY DOES ISRAEL INSIST ON ARMED CONFLICT?
The claim that the brutality of Israel’s ongoing Gaza campaign is completely justified by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel is outrageous. Only someone unaware of Israel’s history could honestly believe that the Hamas attack was entirely unprovoked. I wonder how Israelis or any other group would behave had they been trapped in a blockaded territory since 2006.
One thing is certain, though. None of Israel’s past assaults on Gaza have succeeded in pacifying the strip’s population. The high-tech violence of the “most moral army in the world” has also severely damaged Israel’s global reputation and guaranteed a new generation of enemies. There must be a reason for the current military campaign.
Perhaps it is to justify the increasing militarization of Israel’s economy and society. Or maybe Israel’s cynical leadership has prioritized the use of force over rulesbased negotiations because they can’t otherwise legally keep the Palestinian and Syrian territories seized in 1948 and 1967. A constant state of war and violence helps Israel legitimize its never-ending effort to ethnically cleanse Palestine and expand its territory.
Morgan Duchesney, Ottawa, ON ■
Five Views
Daily Life and Shattered Dreams in Gaza—Young Writers Share Their Stories
Struggling Through Winter in Southern Gaza
By Huda Skaik
AS WINTER APPROACHES, the prospect of enduring another season in makeshift tents in southern Gaza looms ominously for displaced Gazans. The combination of harsh weather, inadequate shelter, and the lingering effects of this genocide creates a dire sit-
Huda Skaik is an English literature student at the Islamic University of Gaza. She dreams of a future as a professor, poet and writer. She believes in the power of storytelling and pens words that resonate with the spirit of Palestinians. She is training with We Are Not Num‐bers (WANN), a project to amplify the voices of young Palestinian writers.
uation that threatens our very survival.
Last winter, I was still in the north of Gaza and was displaced at least nine times from October to December.
In December, my family and I decided to return to our home. It was dangerous to return because our area was invaded twice, but we did.
I spent last winter in my grandfather’s house and then in my family’s home. Finally we had our beds and some warmth, some comfort for our trembling hearts. I spent most of last winter in our home, which tolerated the winds and heavy rain. I listened to the news on the radio before going to sleep, and I heard that the displaced in the south were drowning in water-filled tents and suffering from the bitter cold; they had no blankets. I wondered how they felt, being far away from their homes, and how I would deal with such conditions.
A woman tends to a child outside her tent in Gaza City, Gaza on Oct. 13, 2024, as Palestinians struggle to survive nonstop Israeli attacks on their homes and infrastructure.
And then I became one of those displaced, and I felt how humiliating and harsh it was. In February, my family and I were forcibly displaced from northern Gaza to southern Gaza by the Israeli occupation. Since my family’s journey of displacement began, we have been exhausted.
We now live in Nuseirat. Being displaced and living in a tent away from home presents profound challenges. The most immediate struggle is the loss of stability and security that a permanent home provides.
THE HARSH REALITY OF TENT LIVING
Living in tents is a harsh and unfortunately common reality for many Gazans. These flimsy structures offer little protection from the elements. When it rains, water seeps in the tents, creating a damp and uncomfortable environment.
It is still autumn, but two weeks ago we struggled as the tent drowned in water. I wasn’t able to charge my phone due to the absence of sun. We are in a rural and agricultural area, and when we want to get some warmth, we use pieces of wood to light a fire to warm our trembling bodies and sit around it in the morning and evening before our brains get frozen.
THE STRUGGLE TO MEET BASIC NEEDS
We face an ongoing battle for basic needs that most people take for granted. Access to clean water, sanitation facilities, electricity and medicines is severely limited. Most medicines are unavailable. Last month, my dad went to all the pharmacies in Nuseirat to find a medication I take, but he came back empty-handed.
The struggle to charge our devices on overcast days has become a source of frustration; in a world reliant on connectivity, the lack of functioning phones further isolates us and cuts us off from crucial support networks. I did not have access to the internet from February to May, and it was a very depressing time for me.
Without sunlight, it is hard to dry our laundry, and we cannot bathe in warm water.
THE HIGH COST OF LIVING
The economic pressure on us is compounded by the high cost of essential items, such as clothing and heating supplies. Many families, already grappling with poverty and having lost their livelihoods and depleted their savings, find it increasingly difficult to afford winter clothes that provide adequate warmth. It costs from 100 to 200 shekles ($35- $70) to buy winter clothes that don’t really offer warmth. The combination of limited resources and skyrocketing prices forces many to make heartwrenching choices—prioritizing food or warmth while sacrificing other basic needs. Feelings of despair and hopelessness can become overwhelming, particularly for families with young children.
If we are forced to spend another winter in tents in southern Gaza, it would indeed be a disaster. The struggles of displacement—drowning in floodwaters, grappling with the high cost of basic necessities and enduring isolation—demand that a ceasefire be implemented immediately. As winter approaches, we yearn to return home, where sturdy walls offer warmth and safety
and photos we like can adorn them. We are now painfully aware of how quickly safety and comfort can be taken from us, leaving us with a gnawing ache for our homes.■
Life in a Displacement Camp
By Hadeel Awad
ON OUR SECOND DAY in the new displacement camp, I went for a short walk and saw many children. I saw them playing and running among the tents—happy children who did not think about anything. Even their fear of bombings did not overshadow their love of playing, nor the sound of their laughter, or their love for life. But this is not the life they are supposed to live. Every now and then, when you look at them, you see that they have become children who lack so much. They should be going to their schools to receive education so that each of them can become whatever they dream; now, they have been torn apart by war at the beginning of their lives, the age of young flowers. This is their second year with no school.
I am Hadeel, a Palestinian living in the Gaza Strip. I have been displaced more times than I can count, every time in a new camp and a new tent, surrounded by people I do not know. It is a very primitive life. There is no water or electricity, no basic necessities of life.
Hadeel Awad is a Palestinian nurse who graduated from Al‐Azhar University. After being besieged for 40 days inside al‐Shifa Hospital while the Israeli army surrounded it, she moved to a tent camp in Rafah where she established a small medical clinic. She is training with We Are Not Numbers (WANN), a project to amplify the voices of young Palestinian writers.
Tents in the rain.
PHOTO BY HADEEL AWAD
This is not the life children are supposed to live. People are walking, their faces pale and tired, their bodies exhausted.
On our first night in this new camp, we spent all day under the sun waiting for our tent to be ready. When evening came, we went to the tent to rest. It had no roof. I sat looking at the sky, full of grief and praying to God, “Oh God, end this war.” We are full of sadness and fatigue, and we die a thousand times a day.
I do not know how I was able to sleep that night; perhaps the intensity of fatigue and crying brought me to sleep.
The next morning, the sun’s rays woke us. As time went on, it started to get hotter, with no good shelter from the sun. I couldn’t stop crying. What can we do? The sun is so hot; the feeling of oppression grew and my crying increased day after day.
The sounds of planes and violent bombing surround us from every direction. There are no safe places, as the occupier claims. Every place is threatened by bombing, and everyone, including women, children and other young people, are besieged, constantly threatened with death. At any moment, any one of our stories may end. And even then, we might not have the dignity of a grave.
As I walked around the streets, I saw tens of thousands of people, their faces pale and tired, their bodies exhausted, sleeping on the edges of the roads, without covers, tents or anything. This is a war of extermination and starvation, and a war whose goal is clear, which is the killing and displacement of the Palestinian people, and the whole world knows this.
After several days, a new family came to the camp. They, too, had been displaced several times. They were displaced to escape
death, but this war insists on making them taste bitterness and pain repeatedly. They received the news that their house had been bombed, one son martyred and others injured. The mother almost lost her mind. She cannot process this news that her heart and her mind reject.
Here in my city, in the morning, you wave your hand to your displaced neighbor in the tent opposite you, and then between the blink of an eye and the next, you find yourself waving to him, bidding him farewell as a martyr; he had been displaced to “escape” death, but it caught up with him. There was an innocent girl whose smile did not leave her face, a generous girl. Twice she escaped death. Her father left her alone for not more than a second, during which he was killed. Her mother cries all the time, unable to make sense of the loss.
I believe in fate and tribulations, and that everything from God is good for us. But what happened to this girl and her mother was too cruel to come to terms with.
Everyone who lives in the Gaza Strip, this city whose wars never end, lives this way now. The destruction never ends in our city, a city that was beautiful, that took pride in its colors; now it has become ashes from which all the hues of happiness and joy have been stolen, and nothing remains but shades of sadness and pain.
We are familiar with the same scene and it is familiar with us. Death passes between us. We see it and it does not see us. In life, we are besieged by death. ■
PHOTO BY HADEEL AWAD
Voices of Displacement: How Life Changed for Gazans Amid Ongoing Genocide
By Dima Ashour
OVER THE PAST YEAR, Israel has ordered Palestinians to evacuate their homes from northern Gaza to the south and center, claiming these areas are safe. As a result, many Gazans have been displaced for over a year now. And now Israel is ordering people in the south to evacuate, while directing those in the north to move south, leaving both uncertain where they should go to find peace.
Before Oct. 7, Gazans were immersed in daily struggles, and life wasn't easy. But what has happened since has created an ongoing crisis.
A FARM ABANDONED
Because of the war, Abu Mohammed, a 51-year-old farmer from the Tal al-Hawa area of Gaza, fled and abandoned the farm that had provided him so much.
“I would wake up in the morning to drink mint tea and then go to plant the land. I used to plant a lot of crops like grapes, figs and olives,” Abu Mohammed recalled. “I feel alienated when I see these crops in the market, and not the ones I planted.”
“I didn't want to leave my home, but the situation became very dangerous because of the missiles. I moved to al-Quds Hospital for more than two months; I thought it was safe,” he added.
Abu Mohammed and his family were forced to evacuate to Deir al-Balah in November when Israeli soldiers broke into the hospital. Now, he is far from his land, unable to cultivate it, enjoy its harvests, or earn a living to support his family.
“I now live in a tent,” he said. “I had a home that, though small, gave shelter to me and my family. This tent doesn’t protect us from the cold of December or the heat of July.”
He constantly thinks about his land, his trees and his home. After a year of genocide, is there any hope of seeing them again?
EDUCATION DEFERRED
Rola Maher, a medical student at Al-Azhar University of Gaza, was just starting her second year when war broke out.
“With my family, I evacuated from Gaza to Deir al-Balah on Oct. 13; I thought I would be back in just a few days and continue my normal life. I didn’t take any of my medical books or even my laptop,” Rola said. “I lost one year of school and I am losing the second now. To make matters worse, I have no good internet connection to complete an online course,” Rola added.
Rola is now hoping to complete her studies abroad, but she doesn’t know which university will accept her. Or she can wait until
Dima Ashour majored in English. She says that studying English made her “mad about writing. Every day, I have something that I want to write about. I’m in love with the sky.” She is training with We Are Not Numbers (WANN), a project to amplify the voices of young Palestinian writers.
her university is rebuilt in Gaza. Israeli war planes bombed and almost completely destroyed her campus in October and November 2023.
A MOTHER’S UNFULFILLED DREAMS
Farah AlYazji could not imagine having to raise a baby daughter during a genocide. “I dreamed for her a life of safety and warmth,” AlYazji said.
Displaced from her home to Al-Shifa Hospital, in November Israeli incursions forced her and her family to evacuate to Al-Zawayda in the south. “I learned I was pregnant just a few days before Oct. 7. I thought this genocide would be over and I would make a beautiful bed for my daughter to sleep on and bring her new clothes to wear. Nothing I dreamed of came true,” AlYazji observed.
After Israel destroyed Gaza’s hospitals, AlYazji had to give birth to her daughter in a medical tent known as an American field hospital. “It was difficult to provide milk and diapers for my baby in light of the closure of the Gaza borders. I go out every day to look for healthy food for her, and now she is completing her first year during a genocide,” she lamented.
What Farah AlYazji fears most is that her daughter will grow up in an endless genocide.
Farah AlYazji gave birth in a medical tent known as an “American field hospital.”
PHOTO BY DIMA ASHOUR
HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION ON HOLD
Lana Maher, a high school student in the Al-Zaytoun area of Gaza, recalled how the past year has disrupted her education. “I was preparing to start an important grade in my life, which is the tawjihi I bought some nice notebooks and pens to motivate me to study,” she said. “I never imagined that a year would be wasted like this, without anyone on this world caring to stop this genocide.”
The tawjihi exam is a huge hurdle for high school seniors. The grades scored in this all-important exam determine which universities will accept them and the fields of study available to them.
“A week into the genocide, I was displaced to Deir al-Balah in the south without books, papers, or my beautiful notebooks and pens,” she added. “My biggest concern is no longer studying and focusing on my lessons. My problems now revolve around helping my family by bringing water or food amid the scarcity of resources in the place I’ve been displaced to. This will now become a year of displacement. A year lost from my life, and no one can bring it back now.”
Gazans still dream of returning to Gaza, even if it is destroyed. But now we wonder if this is a new Nakba, with no hope of return. ■
A Box of Memories
By Esraa Abo Qamar
I TRIED REPEATEDLY to forget, but it is difficult to attain oblivion with all these small locked boxes inside me. These boxes that contain our memories, sweet and bitter, old and new, buried deep inside us, holding every single detail tightly sealed, but whose keys cannot be grasped. Instead, those keys hover around us, every-
where, and then suddenly one will click the lock that opens one of our hidden boxes.
It might be a song we hear by chance that opens the memory box, not taking us to the past, but bringing the past with all its vivid details to where we are. Or it might be a perfume we encounter, reminding us of people we miss and the times we were together. Their scent invades us, their voices besiege us, traversing the long roads from cities of the past into the uncertain province of now, and soon we find them standing right in front of us. Smells have the evocative power to make us experience old moments anew, re-immersing us in the details of a once-daily life, bringing treasured memories of our beloved Gaza alive.
Today I awakened early, unusual for me, but the buzzing sounds of the Israeli drones ruined my sleep. So in an attempt to shake off the headache they caused, I got up and made a cup of coffee. The enticing aroma of fresh-ground coffee, merging with the morning breeze, took me back 10 months to early college mornings I used to love.
Despite my dislike for getting up early, those mornings were different. The lock turns, the memory box springs open…
I rise two hours before my first lecture, confused about which outfit to choose for the day, trying to decide which hijab would match my colorful dress and whether the golden necklace looks better than the silver one. I am so absorbed in these decisions that time slips away from me, and I barely leave in time for class.
I rush onto the bus, breathing heavily as I look for an empty seat so I can finally sit down and catch my breath. I put on my headphones and play one of Fairouz’s songs that perfectly suits this peaceful morning. I rest my head against the bus window, lost in thought, gazing out at Gaza’s deep blue sea that accompanies me throughout the long drive to the university.
After several hours of lectures, I eagerly rush to meet my friend Malak. We’ve been friends since middle school, but now we attend different universities, so we dedicate every weekend to meeting up and spending time together. And now it’s a Thursday afternoon—the beginning of the weekend! We stroll through the bustling, vibrant streets of Gaza City, laughing as we exchange stories and recount the highlights of our day.
Then we head to Mazaj for some refreshing cold drinks before we start our shopping spree for new clothes. As this is our first year in college, we need to update our wardrobes.
Gaza contains several impressive shopping centers, with Capital Mall being a particularly charming destination that we consider essential to our outings. We spend several hours there, wandering around, taking photos and videos so we can remember hilarious moments.
We try on anything weird we come across, like funny hats and glasses, and laugh a lot at how ridiculous we look. Then we realize
Esraa Abo Qamar is a first‐year student at the Islamic University of Gaza, where she’s majoring in English literature. She was supposed to take her first step in a long educational journey full of passion in 2024. She loves reading, and recently has found herself writing to help contend with negative feelings in the wake of the attacks on Gaza. She is training with We Are Not Numbers (WANN), a project to amplify the voices of young Palestinian writers.
Trinkets—memories from a time when Esraa could enjoy her college days and friendship with Malak.
PHOTO BY ESRAA ABO QAMAR
the time is going fast, and hurry to pick out and match some clothes, trying them on and debating which ones suit me better. I am drawn to a blue shirt with some daisies on it, while Malak insists that plain ones are better. I have her take photos of me to send to my mom for the final say. The daisies win.
At last we head to the small store at the front of Capital Mall to pick out souvenirs. Malak and I have a tradition of buying a shared keepsake every time we go out together, so we have something to remember the day by. Once, we got some stickers; another time, a small, funny keychain. On another occasion, we bought cute little socks with cartoon designs. We fill our rooms with these little treasures, each one a reminder of our fun days together.
After all these adventures, we feel tired and absolutely starving. Our stomachs are growling so loud we can hear them! We were so caught up in shopping we completely forgot to eat. So we head to one of Gaza’s popular restaurants, my favorite, Italiano. We order some delicious meals, then take them to the beach.
A salty breeze welcomes us to the shore, carrying the gentle sound of the waves. We lay a light blanket out on the soft, warm sand and settle down, setting our food in front of us. The meal, the sea, the fresh-smelling air, and my friend—everything feels perfect! I give her half my pizza, and she gives me half her sandwich. Each bite tastes even better because we’re sharing it. We chat on and on about our worries for the upcoming exams
and our university aspirations. The sea stretches out endlessly, in shades of blue as far as the eye can see. The setting sun bathes everything in a warm, golden light, peaceful and complete. The sky is painted with bright colors—reds, oranges and purples—all shimmering on the water.
It’s a magic hour and we can’t resist the urge to get closer to the sea; we take off our shoes and run barefoot along the shore. The cool, wet sand tickles our feet, and the waves splash playfully around us. We run backward, laughing, as they come in, trying not to get our clothes wet.
Walking back along the shore, we pick up colorful seashells, each one a tiny piece of the ocean’s beauty. We write our names on them, turning them into keepsakes from this special day. We take more photos, trying somehow to capture the joy and perfection of the moment.
Gaza’s eternal sea has stayed beside me from the calm of the morning when my day began, into the vibrant chaos of the evening. And with the day’s end, the box snaps shut, preserving my precious memories of extreme happiness with a dear friend on the timeless shore of my homeland.
Gaza Sea is the only place that, no matter how much of our city is destroyed, cannot be taken from us. It remains our constant refuge, where we will always escape the noise and devastation of the Israeli drones and bombs, and where memories of the Gaza we love will find us. ■
Palestinians spend time on the beach during sunset in Deir al‐Balah, Gaza on Dec. 31, 2023.
Shattered Lives: The Silent Cries of Gaza’s Children
By Reem Sleem
YOU MAY THINK there’s nothing worse than seeing your house, your haven since you were a child, reduced to rubble overnight. But what’s worse than that is when those very stones—the ones your father lovingly put in place to create that warm and cozy home—come crashing down on his body, tearing him to pieces and splattered with his blood.
Those walls you considered your support and refuge, which protected you, have let you down—your family killed without pity, leaving you lost and alone. You try to retrieve their bodies from the rubble, but you cannot. How could you, when your home now smells of death and you could be targeted at any moment? So you leave your family under the wreckage, your heart broken and burning with hatred for whoever took their lives.
This is what happened to my friend Asmaa.
ASMAA’S STORY
Last year on Oct. 10, while I was at my husband’s house in Deir al-Balah breastfeeding my child, trying to calm him down, I heard the sound of a large missile exploding near me and thought for a moment I had died. In shock, I quickly ran out to investigate.
My family home had been two stories, but it was turned to dust in the blink of an eye, and beneath it were the bodies of my loved
ones, cut into pieces like slabs of meat at a butcher shop. Some of them flew into the air from the force of the explosion, their bodies falling hard to the ground while their souls moved to heaven.
My sisters and brothers, my grandmother and grandfather, my uncle, his wife and his children were all martyred and have remained under the rubble for more than 10 months. Some of their neighbors were killed, too. In total, that blast killed 24 people.
My mother was the only survivor. God chose to grant her a lifeline, and perhaps our house took pity on her because she took care of it and cleaned it every day. She was sitting upstairs with my father when suddenly, she felt herself flying and falling on the roof of a neighboring building. She survived, but she was seriously injured, with bones broken in her skull and neck.
In that moment, the house where I grew up—in which I had beautiful memories—turned into a mass grave, smelling of blood and corpses. All that’s left is my mother and me, trying to give each other some comfort.
My face has turned pale and sad, my body emaciated, as I’m no longer able to eat and breastfeed my child as before. I long for my husband to relieve me a little, but he traveled shortly before the war began and has been unable to return.
Days have passed and I have become accustomed to visiting the graves of my family under the rubble, reciting the Qur’an to pray for their souls.
Reem Sleem is an English literature student and a story writer from Gaza. She is training with We Are Not Numbers (WANN), a pro‐ject to amplify the voices of young Palestinian writers.
PHOTO BY REEM SLEEM
Asmaa’s bombed home and her neighbor's house.
ABOVE LEFT: Asmaa’s baby who is sick due to a weakened immune system caused by malnutrition; ABOVE RIGHT: Mahmoud, who breaks up stones from the bombed houses.
MAHMOUD’S STORY
Once, while I was out walking, I found a child collecting the stones of our house, breaking them, and arranging them with care. He was singing of a lost childhood:
I am a child with something to say
Please listen to me
I am a child who wants to play
Why don't you let me
My doors are waiting
My friends are praying
Small hearts are begging
Give us a chance
Give us a chance
Give us a chance
Give us a chance
Please! Please! Give us a chance!
Mahmoud told me his story: how he wakes up each morning to collect stones from bombed houses, breaking them into fine crumbs and using them to build slabs for the graves of martyrs.
This is difficult work for a 14-year-old, and it has inflicted many injuries on him, but Mahmoud does it anyway, hoping to earn a few shekels with which to buy food for his family on Fridays.
I do not see him as an ordinary child, but rather a superhero. Other children his age in other countries are having fun and living their childhood, while this child takes on responsibilities beyond his age, working beyond the capacity of his small body to be of assistance to his family and provide for them.
As for Mahmoud’s father, the occupation killed him. As he was leaving his home, a plane targeted him directly, scattering his body
across the ground.
“My father taught me this work, and I wanted to make him proud of me, so I decided to build the slabs of his grave myself,” Mahmoud says.
Only his mother and younger siblings are left, and he has become responsible for them. So many worries accumulated in his little heart; this child has grown old even before he has matured. The occupation robbed him of his right to childhood, just as it robbed the rest of the innocent, helpless children of Gaza.
MY CHILD’S STORY
I think about my child. Will he have experiences similar to Mahmoud’s? Will he grow up amid destruction and annihilation? A child is supposed to grow up in a safe environment with his family, but in Gaza this is impossible.
Death threatens us every day and steals our loved ones, one after the other, and there is no escape from it; it could happen to us at any moment. We have committed no crime; we were born here, and we have no other home.
My child wakes up to the sounds of missiles and bombs and goes to sleep to the smells of blood and gunpowder. He cries every day, his heart pounding with fear that this brutal world will harm him.
A mother’s warm embrace is no longer a safe place for our children, and my tender kisses have lost their power to soothe. How many mothers were martyred while trying to protect their child, and how many pregnant women were brutally killed while doctors struggled to deliver their babies, orphaned even before they were born? ■
“Text Me You Haven’t Died”: My Sister Was the 166th Doctor to Be Murdered in Gaza
By Ramzy Baroud
“YOUR LIVES WILL CONTINUE. With new events and new faces. They are the faces of your children, who will fill your homes with noise and laughter.”
These were the last words written by my sister in a text message to one of her daughters.
Dr. Soma Baroud was murdered on Oct. 9 when Israeli warplanes bombed a taxi that carried her and other tired Gazans somewhere near the Bani Suhaila roundabout near Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
I am still unable to understand whether she was on her way to the hospital, where she worked, or leaving the hospital to go home. Does it even matter?
The news of her murder—or, more accurately assassination, as Israel has deliberately targeted and killed 986 medical workers, including 165 doctors—arrived through a screenshot copied from a Facebook page. “Update: these are the names of the martyrs of the latest Israeli bombing of two taxis in the Khan Younis area...,” the post read.
It was followed by a list of names. “Soma Mohammed Mohammed Baroud” was the fifth name on the list, and the 42,010th on Gaza’s ever-growing list of martyrs.
I refused to believe the news, even when more posts began popping up everywhere on social media, listing her as number five, and sometimes six in the list of martyrs of the Khan Younis
Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book, co‐edited with Ilan Pappé, Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out, is available from Middle East Books and More. Dr. Baroud is a non‐resident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is <www.ramzybaroud.net>.
strike.
I kept calling her, over and over again, hoping that the line would crackle a bit, followed by a brief silence, and then her kind, motherly voice would say, “Marhaba Abu Sammy. How are you, brother?” But she never picked up.
I had told her repeatedly that she does not need to bother with elaborate text or audio messages due to the unreliable internet connection and electricity. “Every morning,” I said, “just type: ‘we are fine.’” That’s all I asked of her.
But she would skip several days without writing, often due to the lack of an internet connection. Then, a message would arrive, though never brief. She wrote with a torrent of thoughts, linking up her daily struggle to survive, to her fears for her children, to poetry, to a Qur’anic verse, to one of her favorite novels, and so on.
“You know, what you said last time reminds me of Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude,” she said on more than one occasion, before she would take the conversation into the most complex philosophical spins. I would listen, and just repeat, “Yes…totally...I agree...one hundred percent.”
For us, Soma was a larger-than-life figure. This is precisely why her sudden absence has shocked us to the point of disbelief. Her children, though grown up, felt orphaned. But her brothers, me included, felt the same way.
I wrote about Soma as a central character in my book My Father Was a Freedom Fighter, because she was indeed central to our lives and to our very survival in a Gaza refugee camp.
The first born, and only daughter, she had to carry a much greater share of work and expectations than the rest of us.
Dr. Soma Baroud was murdered on Oct. 9, 2024, when Israeli war‐planes bombed her taxi.
She was just a child when my eldest brother Anwar, still a toddler, died in an UNRWA clinic at the Nuseirat refugee camp due to the lack of medicine. Then, she was introduced to pain, the kind of pain that with time turned into a permanent state of grief that would never abandon her until her murder by a U.S.-supplied Israeli bomb in Khan Younis.
Two years after the death of the first Anwar, another boy was born. They also called him Anwar, to carry on the legacy of the dead son. Soma cherished the newcomer, maintaining a special friendship with him for decades to come.
My father began his life as a child laborer, then a fighter in the Palestine Liberation Army, then a police officer during the Egyptian administration of Gaza, then, once again a laborer; that’s because he refused to join the Israeli-funded Gaza police force after the war of 1967, known as the Naksa.
A clever, principled man, and a selftaught intellectual, my dad did everything he could to provide a measure of dignity for his small family; and Soma, a child, often barefoot, stood by him every step of the way.
When he decided to become a merchant, as in buying discarded and odd items in Israel and repackaging them to sell in the refugee camp, Soma was his main helper. Though her skin healed cuts on her fingers, due to individually wrapping thousands of razors, they remained a testament to the difficult life she lived.
“Soma’s little finger is worth more than a thousand men,” my father would often repeat, to remind us, ultimately five boys, that our sister will always be the main heroine in the family’s story. Now that she is a martyr, that legacy has been secured for eternity.
Years later, my parents would send her to Aleppo to obtain a medical degree. She returned to Gaza, where she spent over three decades healing the pain of others, though never her own.
She worked at Al-Shifa Hospital and at Nasser Hospital, among other medical centers. Later, she obtained another cer-
tificate in family medicine, opening a clinic of her own. She did not charge the poor and did all she could to heal those victimized by war.
Soma was a member of a generation of female doctors in Gaza that truly changed the face of medicine, collectively putting great emphasis on the rights of women to medical care and expanding the understanding of family medicine to include psychological trauma with particular emphasis on the centrality, but also the vulnerability of women in a war-torn society.
When my daughter Zarefah managed to visit her in Gaza shortly before the war, she told me, “When Aunt Soma walked into the hospital, an entourage of women—doctors, nurses and other medical staff— would surround her in total adoration.”
At one point, it felt that all of Soma’s suffering was finally paying off: a nice family home in Khan Younis, with a small olive orchard and a few palm trees; a loving husband, himself a professor of law, and eventually the dean of the law school at a reputable Gaza university; three daughters and two sons, whose educational specialties ranged from dentistry to pharmacy to law to engineering.
For Soma and her family, life seemed manageable, even under siege. True, she was not allowed to leave the Strip for many years due to the blockade, and thus we were denied the chance to see her for years on end. True, she was tormented by loneliness and seclusion, thus her love affair and constant citation from García Márquez’s seminal novel. But at least she had her husband. Her beautiful house and clinic were still standing. And she was living and breathing, communicating her philosophical nuggets about life, death, memories and hope.
“If I could only find the remains of Hamdi, so that we can give him a proper burial,” she wrote to me last January, when the news circulated that her husband was executed by an Israeli quadcopter in Khan Younis.
But since the body remained missing, she held on to some faint hope that he was
still alive. Her boys, on the other hand, kept digging in the wreckage and debris of the area where Hamdi was shot, hoping to find him and to give him a proper burial. They would often be attacked by Israeli drones in the process of trying to unearth their father’s body. They would run away, and return with their shovels to carry on with the grim task.
To maximize their chances of survival, my sister’s family decided to split up between displacement camps and other family homes in southern Gaza.
This meant that Soma had to be in a constant state of moving, traveling, often long distances on foot, between towns, villages and refugee camps, just to check on her children, following every incursion and every massacre.
“I am exhausted,” she kept telling me. “All I want from life is for this war to end, for new cozy pajamas, my favorite book, and a comfortable bed.”
These simple and reasonable expectations looked like a mirage, especially when her home in the Qarara area in Khan Younis was demolished by the Israeli army last month.
“My heart aches. Everything is gone. Three decades of life, of memories, of achievement, all turned into rubble,” she wrote.
“This is not a story about stones and concrete. It is much bigger. It is a story that cannot be fully told, however long I wrote or spoke. Seven souls had lived here. We ate, drank, laughed, quarreled, and despite all the challenges of living in Gaza, we managed to carve out a happy life for our family,” she continued.
A few days before she was killed, she told me that she had been sleeping in a half-destroyed building belonging to her neighbors in Qarara. She sent me a photo taken by her son, as she sat on a makeshift chair, on which she also slept amidst the ruins. She looked tired, so very tired.
There was nothing I could say or do to convince her to leave. She insisted that she wanted to keep an eye on the rubble
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The Horror to Come: Israel is Slowly Implementing the Gaza Playbook on the Occupied West Bank
By Séamus Malekafzali
ON THE NIGHT of Sept. 11, members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) paraded through the streets of Jenin. While many of the fighters wore masks, many of the PIJ dignitaries present did not feel such measures necessary. Even with faces hidden, fighters of the organization’s Jenin brigade proudly showed off machine guns, adorned themselves with headbands of their group’s emblem and chanted loudly for the city to hear. One PIJ official stood atop steps, flanked by fighters on either side of him, grabbed one of their rifles and yelled, “We will not retreat until the last Zionist is defeated from this holy country!”
If there was any indication that the largest Israeli invasion of the West Bank in 20 years had shattered the organization, it wasn’t to be seen.
Séamus Malekafzali is a freelance journalist and writer primarily fo‐cusing on the politics of the Middle East, who writes on Substack seamus‐malekafzali.com.
For 10 days straight beginning in late August, Jenin had been subject to a non-stop assault by the Israel Occupation Forces (IOF), beginning simultaneously with other attacks on the cities of Tulkarm and Tubas, attacks which would soon spread out into nearby refugee camps, with Israeli troops being sent out of the far north to near Ramallah, the administrative center of the Palestinian Authority to harass, to threaten and to serve as an omen.
These areas in the northern West Bank were once part of what the British during the Mandate period called the “Triangle of Terror,” a cradle of resistance to colonial rule centered around Jenin, Tulkarm and Nablus. Through the Nakba, the beginning of the occupation of the West Bank and both intifadas, these places have retained and increased their reputation as a thorn in Israel’s side, a hotbed of opposition to Israeli occupation and settlement, opposition which contributed to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s decision to disengage from the northern West Bank in the mid-2000s, just as that same phenomenon in the Gaza Strip contributed to the
Palestinian armed groups attend the funeral of three Palestinians who were killed by the Israeli army during a raid in Qabatiya district of Jenin, West Bank on Sept. 20, 2024.
decision to disengage from there during that same period.
The loss of the settlements in the Strip, known as Gush Katif, has been an eternal grievance for the Israeli far-right ever since. Many soldiers involved in the current war against Gaza have been more than happy to carry that desire for vengeance back into the Strip, considering it their return to land that always belonged to them, that was stolen from them in 2005. Videos have streamed out of the area for months now of IOF soldiers proudly declaring their hopes for revenge against the Arab populace, to destroy any evidence of Arab existence in the land and to reestablish the settlements on the pulverized ruins.
While the disengagement from the northern West Bank, deemed “northern Samaria” in official Israeli parlance, may not be as often referred to, it is still very much a grievance, one that Israeli government ministers, those that Netanyahu relies on to stay in power, are just as eager to address.
No Israeli government of the past, even Sharon’s, could lay claim to the idea of being friendly and hands-off with the Palestinians in the West Bank. Since its initial occupation after the war of 1967, government after government has sought new strategies to quell the national aspirations of its people, to settle as many Israeli Jews as possible within, and above all, to assert Israeli power and its supposed invincibility. While the popular narrative in the West, even up until recently, has been that the Oslo Accords were an honest attempt at peace, the records of those Israeli officials that negotiated it certainly would not indicate a level of trust to be believed by most. Sharon may have disengaged from Gaza and the northern West Bank, but he was also the man who instigated the Second Intifada.
While present-day figures such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich would be loath as to compare themselves on any planet, much less in the same breath, to Ariel Sharon, they are nevertheless students in at least one part of his teachings.
Provocation, the kind Sharon dealt in during his prime ministership, has been a constant feature of the current Israeli government since its very first day in office, when National Security Minister Ben-Gvir visited al-Aqsa in occupied East Jerusalem, the same action by Sharon that sparked the al-Aqsa Intifada in the 2000s. Since then, Ben-Gvir has been back to the Temple Mount area over and over again, constantly ramping up his rhetoric, most recently having declared just before the beginning of the operation in the West Bank that he would push for the building of a synagogue in the al-Aqsa Mosque complex.
Ben-Gvir has not been the only instrument of provocation in the occupied West Bank. Finance Minister Smotrich has also been at the forefront, assisting in the encasing of the infrastructure of the territory’s occupation, pushing for the creation of new settlements as punishment for other countries recognizing Palestine, and claiming that attacks from Palestinian militants against IOF troops in the West Bank will be met by the towns of Tulkarm, Nour Shams, Shuweika and Qalqilya being turned into “ruined cities like in the Gaza Strip.”
Outside of that rhetoric, the first year of the current Israeli government had been the deadliest in the West Bank in history, with 506 killed by year’s end, the number of children being killed within that group having tripled from 2022. Anti-Arab pogroms by
West Bank settlers occurred in places like Huwara, cheered on by Minister Smotrich who pushed for them to go further and wipe out the Palestinian town. Jenin, before Oct. 7, was subject to a massive raid that July that would be a preview of the invasion to come, with critical infrastructure destroyed and the IOF going so far as to use drone strikes against militants, something unprecedented in its usage in the West Bank.
Precedent, if nothing else in Palestine, has been something destroyed as of late.
Since Oct. 7, Israel’s actions in the West Bank have ramped up, much of it buried under the news of the incalculable scale of death and devastation that has been visited upon it by the Israeli military on that front. What was once a shocking event, an airstrike, the first since the Second Intifada, has now become a regular occurrence, with Palestinian fighters and militant leaders being assassinated with regularity in targeted strikes in the West Bank. Nightly raids, already regular before Oct. 7, have increased in their intensity, with IOF troops moving in at all hours of the day and night to engage in combat, to destroy city infrastructure, and to have vehicles blown up by improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
The increasing power of Palestinian factions in the West Bank, groups such as PIJ’s Jenin Brigade and the Tulkarm Battalion, has been of similarly increasing concern to Israel. Reports have swirled in past
PHOTO BY MAMOUN
Jewish settlers under the protection of Israeli soldiers raid the Old City area of Hebron, West Bank on Sept. 14, 2024.
months that such groups may be able to start launching rocket attacks against Israeli territory by 2025 (there were a number of attempted, crude rocket launches in 2023), an ability that Gaza has long had and whose continued firings, nearly a year into a total siege, has been a constant frustration for Israeli officials seeking to portray Hamas and other groups in the Strip as being close to defeat. Israeli officials like Smotrich have long expressed fears that Palestinian organizations may one day have military capabilities similar to Hamas, saying as the operation went on in early September that the West Bank is “one step away” from its own Oct. 7 moment.
That kind of frustration among the far-right with the supposed lack of comparative action in the West Bank, especially after having seen the images of mass destruction in Gaza, has been a mainstay not just among officials demanding death and annihilation, but among a media apparatus eager to push the Israeli government even further right. When an IOF captain was killed in Jenin this past June, an anchor on Channel 14 wrote that the refugee camp must “cease to exist today” as punishment, calling for its population to be “evacuated” and then for the camp to be bombed from the air before being bulldozed out of existence.
While armed organizations in the West Bank have undoubtedly increased their abilities over the past few years, (the utilization of rocket-propelled grenades in this operation against Israeli troops came as a surprise to many), their level of organization is still not comparable to the organization of armed groups in Gaza. Many armed contingents in the occupied territory are smaller, more decentralized, with young men at the helm. Abu Shujaa, one of the famed leaders of the Tulkarm Battalion who was killed in a firefight in the first days of the operation, was only 26.
In the absence of complex military infrastructure and masses of fighters thousands strong, Palestinian fighters in the West Bank have distinguished their operations with the usage of increasingly powerful homemade explosives, assassinations of
stationed Israeli troops, and most recently, the return to suicide bombings inside Israel itself. The first such bombing inside Tel Aviv since 2006 by a Hamas member did not come from Gaza, but was initiated by a man from Nablus, who despite the restrictions on Palestinian movement having never been stricter, managed to smuggle a bomb all the way to Israel’s largest city.
The bomb itself ended up killing no one except the driver, but the breaking of such precedent, the reveal that suicide bombings, once thought stopped by the West Bank separation wall, had in fact just been an intentional change in strategy that could be restarted at any time, was likely enough to push Israeli officials to expedite their plans.
On Aug. 28, Israel launched its “Summer Camps” operation. Hundreds of troops poured into the West Bank, seeking to destroy “terrorist infrastructure” and other familiar-sounding goals. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in turn, announced a counter-invasion operation known as “The Horror of the Camps,” in which they promised to show Israeli soldiers “the hell that awaits them.” Since the invasion began, PIJ alone claims to have engaged the IOF almost a hundred times in combat in different cities of the West Bank, with over 50 of those instances occurring in Jenin alone. One soldier had been killed in a shootout, another in a vehicle ramming attack, and three Israeli police officers in Hebron in the southern West Bank were shot to death at a checkpoint.
While its soldiers have indeed been ambushed and engaged in firefights against Palestinian fighters, much of the efforts of the Israeli military have been outside direct combat, intending to apply the Gaza playbook to the West Bank far more than they were already doing before. The intent was not just to defeat Palestinian militants, as had been insisted to the world. The intent was to make the cities rising up against Israeli occupation unlivable.
Streets were torn up. Water lines were broken. Electricity lines were cut. Snipers shot teenagers and left old men to die. Estimates of damages reached into the hundreds of millions only a few days into the in-
vasion. UNRWA workers were not spared from Israeli violence, nor were Red Crescent medics. Armored bulldozers attempted to run over journalists. Hospitals were besieged. Buildings were destroyed. Parts of mosques were blown up. Many Palestinian civilians were forced to leave their houses. Soldiers defaced the walls of people’s homes, strew garbage inside mosques, stole the belongings of children, and recorded videos of themselves playing around in uniform as battles raged on far away. Israel claimed to have found bombs in baby strollers and tunnels near hospitals, complete mirror images of accusations that had been levied against fighters in Gaza and manufactured just as flimsily.
Israeli officials did not shy away from comparing this operation to the operation inside the Gaza Strip, but just like the operation in Gaza, they were keen to obfuscate, to deflect and to say different things to different audiences. Foreign Minister Israel Katz, when posting in Hebrew about the start of the operation, wrote, “We must deal with the threat just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and whatever steps are required.”
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon, who in the past has written opinion pieces advocating the sending of Gaza’s population elsewhere, has few qualms about the subject of the expulsion of the Palestinian population. He too, like Katz, knows what to say to the Israeli media and what to say to the international media. When questioned about Katz’s call to evacuate Palestinians from West Bank towns, Danon ignored the premise, simply stating, “This morning we proved that we are capable of fighting terrorism in Judea and Samaria [Israeli term for the West Bank], and we will continue to do that.”
As of this writing, fighting has receded as Israel has withdrawn from Tulkarm and Jenin, while fighting still remains in the city of Tubas. There is no reason to believe, however, that this is the end of the operation. Tulkarm was re-invaded after the Israeli army withdrew in the initial days, and
there is no reason to believe that Jenin may also not be re-invaded as well, a military hoping to pounce on a city that is still rebuilding the critical infrastructure Israel has destroyed, just as it did in Tulkarm. But if this operation does cease, it will not be the end of Israel’s aspirations in the West Bank. Palestinian militant factions, despite the killing of many of their leaders during this invasion, have not been defeated, and still retain their cohesion and strength. The far-right as well has had a taste of the destruction they have wanted the West Bank to suffer for years now and will not be satiated by an operation lasting even weeks. They want it all.
A few days after the start of the operation, Israel’s Minister of Environmental Protection Idit Silman, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, spelled out her desires plainly:
“The People of Israel have clear operating instructions. There is only one map and one compass. This is not just the Philadelphi Axis [in Gaza]. We are on the path to inherit the land. Beyond the fact that this is the only way we will be blessed and successful. Let them know in Jenin and Nablus and everywhere, we want our land back. Attack, and we will take back possession. We will not “conquer.” Conquer is a progressive word that the progressives brought upon us. We inherit. Inheritance from the lord.”
Silman, as has been seen with BenGvir and Smotrich, is not the only one who sees divine providence in the West Bank. It is the ultimate goal of those in power in Israel, publicly stated by Netanyahu with his open desire to annex the Jordan Valley in 2019. Even if Israeli politicians do not speak about this desire often when beside their Western backers, one does not engage in mass settlement of a territory if they begin with the intention to someday leave. This invasion has been the newest step of an Israeli policy emboldened by an Americancreated impunity that Israel keeps pushing at, trying to find where the boundaries are, and becoming amazed when it realizes that there
may indeed be none. Even when an American volunteer is killed trying to protect Palestinians, the president of the United States himself cannot help but shrug it off, accepting a nonsense IOF internal investigation claiming it to be an accident without giving it much thought.
If Israel gets what it wants in the West Bank, that being the full annexation of the territory that Netanyahu alluded to in his latest presentation about the Philadelphi Axis and the dangers he saw in disengagement, then it will certainly not be the last that Israel wants. The State of Israel has almost always justified its seizures of territory on security concerns, hoping to create military buffers, and then building settlements on land it believes to belong to them after its justifications have worked their magic on Western observers.
A war in southern Lebanon is not articulated by Israeli officials as being a war to settle another sovereign state’s south, but far-right settler movements have already emerged, sending their own Gaza-esque leaflets telling them to evacuate. Wars before in Syria and Egypt were not justified on religious expansionism, but that did not stop them from annexing the Golan Heights and building towns of thousands on the
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Sinai Peninsula. It is not out of the realm of possibility that “security concerns” will rear their ugly heads again against states that now hold peace treaties with Israel, such as Jordan and Egypt.
Israel has explained its operation in the West Bank as an operation against smuggling networks that go through Jordan. It is not difficult to see a future in which Israeli politicians begin calling for higher action, in Jordanian territory, seeing Jordanian officials as being insufficiently against Palestinian groups operating within its borders. Many Israeli settlers have not forgotten the original plans for Israel, ones that included land inside present-day Jordan, if not it in its entirety.
However, just as there is little end to what Israel may want, there is no end to the resistance to these plans. Israel’s continual anger stems from its want to engage in constant, perpetual war with Arabs it believes to be the real occupiers of the land owed to them, and then having to actually deal with what that war actually entails. Israel cannot accept the system of certain empires of the past, where populations were subdued but still allowed to exist. It can only accept full expulsion, full destruction, full annihilation, while simultaneously presenting to the world an image of peace, democracy and understanding. This can only create more opposition, more anger, more resilience, more rebellion from populations that inherently reject the proposition of being told their only option is to have their entire nationhood be destroyed, and better yet, for them to happily accept it.
From Mariam Barghouti’s dispatch from Jenin: “‘Freedom is from the river to the sea, and resistance will continue until we liberate these lands,’ Abu Ameireh said, his M-16 slung across his chest as men from his battalion surrounded him, all of them wanted by Israel and targeted for assassination. Then, as quickly as they had emerged to bury their comrades and community members, the fighters disappeared from sight.” ■
Understanding the Religious Extremism That Motivates Israeli Expansion in the West Bank
By Allan C. Brownfeld
WHILE ATTENTION was focused on Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, Israel approved the largest seizure of land in the occupied West Bank in more than three decades. This aggressive expansion reflects the settlers’ growing influence in the government. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself, has promoted the policy of growing expansion, saying that he hopes to solidify Israel’s hold on the territory and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.
Authorities approved the appropriation of 12.7 kilometers (nearly 5 square miles of land) in the Jordan Valley. Settlement monitors said this land grab connects Israeli settlements along a key corridor bordering Jordan, a move they said undermines prospects of a contiguous Palestinian state.
Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism.
U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric called it “a step in the wrong direction,” adding that “the direction we want to be heading is to find a negotiated two-state solution.” According to the U.N., about 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Much of the international community condemns these settlements as a violation of international law.
INCREASE IN SETTLER ATTACKS ON PALESTINIANS
Nadav Weiman, a former Israeli Special Forces soldier, is now director of Breaking the Silence, an organization of former Israeli army veterans that advocates an end to Israel’s occupation. As of mid-August, the U.N. Humanitarian Affairs office has recorded more than 650 attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023. Settlers have killed at least 10 Palestinians during this period and Israeli security forces have killed more than 577.
Asked why settlers destroy Palestinian schools, Weiman responds: “Because you want families to feel they are not safe
Palestinians try to save their property and extinguish a fire set by Israeli settlers in the presence of Israeli armed forces in the industrial area of the West Bank town of Beita,on Aug. 2, 2024.
here. With no school here, the kids cannot return. And if you do not have kids, you don’t have life. It’s not just about stealing livestock, it’s about destroying the sense of being safe.”
Human Rights Watch reports on physical violence against Palestinians by settlers, including “frequently stoning and shooting at Palestinian cars. In many cases, settlers abuse Palestinians in front of Israeli soldiers or police with little interference from the authorities.”
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem says settler colonists actions include “blocking roadways, so as to impede Palestinian life and commerce. The settlers also shoot solar panels on roofs of buildings, torch automobiles, shatter windowpanes, destroy crops, uproot trees, abuse merchants and owners of stalls in the market. These actions are meant to force Palestinians to leave their homes and farmland, and thereby enable the settlers to gain control of them.”
JEWISH EXTREMISM FUELING SETTLER ATTACKS
What is little understood is the religious extremism which motivates much of the settler movement. Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is a disciple of Rabbi Meir Kahane, a hero of the settler movement. In a different Israel, he was considered a terrorist and a racist and was expelled from the Knesset. He advocated an Israeli version of the Nazi Nuremberg Laws, making marriage between Jews and non-Jews illegal. Until recently, BenGvir had a portrait of Meir Kahane on his living room wall. Prof. Susannah Heschel of the Department of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College calls Kahane one of the most despicable characters to emerge in post-World War II Jewish life.
Followers of Kahane have had a major influence upon Israel. In 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a Kahane disciple, gunned down 29 Muslim worshipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. Goldstein, together with Kahane, is viewed in heroic terms by the militant settler colonial movement.
Few Americans understand the extreme views that characterize Israel’s now dominant right-wing. At the funeral of Goldstein, Rabbi Yaacov Perrin stated that, “One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.” Shmuel Hacohen, a teacher in a Jerusalem college, said, “Baruch Goldstein was the greatest Jew then alive, not in one way but in every way. There are no innocent Arabs here.”
Few people are aware of the religious intolerance which motivates the ultra-Orthodox Jewish settlers on the West Bank.
Consider the statement of one of their heroes, the former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Ovadiah Joseph: “The only reason for the existence of non-Jews is to serve Jews.” His funeral was considered the largest ever in Israel, with crowd estimates reaching 800,000. He is admired by settlers as well as other Israelis. His picture is on postage stamps and streets carry his name.
This contempt for non-Jews is widespread. Rabbi A.I. Kook, widely admired in Israel, said of Jews, “We are of a much higher and greater spiritual order than non-Jews.” Rabbi Kook’s entire teachings, which are followed devoutly by many leaders of the settler movement, are based upon the Lurianic Kabbalah. This school of Jewish mysticism dominated Judaism from the late 16th to the early 19th century. One of its basic tenets is the absolute superiority of the Jewish soul and body. According to the Lurianic Kabbalah, the world was created solely for the sake of the Jews; the existence of non-Jews was subsidiary.
Common to both the Talmud and the Halacha (Orthodox religious law) is a differentiation between Jews and non-Jews. The respected Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who headed the Chabad movement, explained: “The difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish person stems from the common expression, ‘Let us differentiate’….We have a case between totally different species. The body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality than the bodies of (members) of all nations
of the world….A non-Jew’s entire reality is only vanity….The entire creation of a nonJew is only for the sake of the Jews.” In the West Bank, followers of Rabbi Schneerson constitute one of the most extreme groups.
When an 11-year-old Palestinian girl from Nablus was killed by settlers in 1983, in the defense of the guilty parties, the chief rabbi of the Sephardic community reportedly cited a Talmudic text justifying killing an enemy on occasions when one can see from a child’s perspective that he or she will grow up to be your enemy. The theft of Palestinian olive harvests has been justified by some rabbis. Former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu stated: “Since the land is the inheritance of the people of Israel, planting on this land by gentiles is planting on land that doesn’t belong to them. If someone puts a tree on my land, both the tree and the fruit it yields belong to me.”
Some rabbis cite the biblical edict to exterminate the Amalekites to justify both expelling Palestinians from the land and killing Arab civilians in wartime.
While the U.N., the U.S. and the rest of the world believe that the West Bank is occupied territory, Israel’s current rightwing government and the settler-colonial movement have a far different view. In fact, Zionism has shared this view from the beginning. A poster from the Zionist terrorist group Irgun in 1947 quoted Genesis 15:18: “Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the River of Egypt unto the great River, the Euphrates.”
The war in 1967, when Israel captured the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Sinai and Golan Heights, led to a rise in Jewish irredentism and the movement for a Greater Israel, which focused on colonizing the occupied territories. Members of Israel’s current government speak openly of annexing the territories and expelling the West Bank’s Palestinian population.
MAINSTREAMING EXTREMISM, IN ISRAEL AND THE U.S.
It is not only extremist Israelis who claim that the West Bank should be part of Israel. An article by Barry Shaw, of the
Israel Institute for Strategic Studies, appeared in The Jerusalem Post with the headline, “Jews are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel.” He writes, “Our story tells of a God…who spoke to a man, Abraham, and told him that He would make of him a great nation…And Abraham took his people to the place that God promised. And God made of Abraham a people that cherished the land and, with generations, that land became Israel.”
Ignoring completely the Palestinians who have lived on the land for many centuries, Shaw concludes his article with a statement being heard more and more often in Israel and from its advocates in the U.S.: “Let us say it clearly and affirmatively: Jews are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel.”
Some Jewish Americans are involved in helping to finance illegal Jewish settlements on the West Bank. In 2021, the Jewish National Fund approved a new policy allowing the organization to officially purchase land in the West Bank for the expansion of Israeli settlements. An Israeli crowdfunding platform has allowed U.S. residents to donate millions of dollars to causes including illegal West Bank settlements. Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is co-director of a family foundation that has donated large amounts of money to West Bank settlements.
Synagogues in many cities, including Brooklyn and Queens in New York, Englewood and Teaneck in New Jersey, and Los Angeles, California have hosted real estate fairs that promote property for sale in the West Bank to American Jews.
Selling West Bank real estate in the U.S., critics charge, is in violation of international law. Bill Van Esveld of Human Rights Watch said that the Geneva Convention, the International Court of Justice and most other governments agree: “It’s not Israeli territory. It’s Palestinian. International law is actually quite simple. It’s really a bright-line rule: there’s no appropriation and transfer of property for settlements in occupied territory. It’s not allowed.”
Rabbi Abby Stein, a member of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council, says: “They’re selling land that—by international law and even U.S. law—Israel has no right to sell.”
ANOTHER NAKBA?
What is taking place on the West Bank today is similar to what happened to Palestinians in 1948. Nadim Bawalsa, a historian of modern Palestine and associate editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies, provides this assessment: “In the early months of 1948, Zionist forces terrorized Palestinians. They massacred
more than 100 people in the village of Deir Yassin. They destroyed Qatamon, an affluent Palestinian neighborhood near Talbiya…A couple of months ago, my mother heard on the news that some of the radical Israeli settlers on the West Bank are dropping fliers in Palestinian villages and towns telling people to leave, to go to Jordan or face another Nakba She was shaken because it reminded her of stories her parents told her of Zionists using the radio or loudspeakers to threaten Palestinians to leave Jerusalem or their fate would be similar to Deir Yassin.”
Some voices in Israel recognize what is happening in the West Bank and understand where the harsh intolerant religious rhetoric of the settlement movement will lead. Haaretz published in July 2024 an editorial titled “Israel’s continued denial of the reality of the occupation will be its ruin.” It declared: “The opinion by the International Court of Justice revealed nothing to Israelis that they do not already know…The opinion shatters the lie that the occupation is only temporary and intended only for security purposes. This is the lie Israelis told themselves during decades of occupation while they seized more and more Palestinian land and built settlements on it….The opinion bursts this bubble of lies and views various acts of the Israeli government as annexation of the territory.”
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says that the world cannot deny “the legal right of Israelis to live in their own communities in our ancestral home.” In the view of Haaretz, “If Israel continues to ignore what the world tells it, it may wake up to a reality in which it is boycotted and ostracized like apartheid-era South Africa.”
Most Americans don’t understand the settlers’ widespread religious view that God gave this land to them and that Palestinians have no right to be there. Evidently, the U.S. government also fails to understand that the “two-state solution” it periodically refers to has an increasingly diminishing territorial base. ■
Disinformation Scandal at the Oldest Jewish Newspaper in the UK
By John Gee
FOR ISRAELI GOVERNMENTS, maintaining support for Zionism among Jews outside Israel is a vital interest. Sympathetic publications aimed at a Jewish readership have played a big role in promoting positive stories about Israel, as well as portraying it as a peace-loving place that is perpetually threatened by bloodthirsty enemies, a condition that obliges it to strike out in self-defense (even though it would rather not, of course)—a victim and yet not a victim.
Britain’s Jewish Chronicle (JC) is the oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper in the world, appearing weekly and carrying wide coverage of whatever is going on within or concerning Jewish communities. Its content is laced with Zionist messaging.
In 2021, the paper was bought by a consortium headed by Robbie Gibb, who had previously been a “spin doctor” for Theresa May, when she was Britain’s prime minister. Questions have been raised about who was involved in the consortium and where real power lay. Under editor Jake Wallis Simons, the paper took a more pronounced rightwing, decidedly pro-Binyamin Netanyahu position. The Guardian (the chief source for this article) reports that in February, Gabriel Pogrund, the Sunday Times Whitehall editor, voiced his disquiet over developments at the JC on social media. The coarseness and aggression of the JC’s current leadership is such a pity and does such a disservice to our community. It also once again poses the question: who owns it!? How is it that British Jews don’t know who owns ‘their’ paper. Moreover, how can a paper not disclose its ownership? It’s an oxymoron. I hate having to pose the question publicly but
John Gee is a free‐lance journalist based in Singapore and the author of Unequal Con‐flict: The Palestinians and Israel.
I asked privately more than a year ago to no avail.
Citing this social media post, the Guardian’s Peter Beaumont reported in September that Pogrund’s reservations are widespread among liberal British Jews, who feel JC no longer represents them as it once did. Others, including former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, have raised similar questions.
For some JC contributors, matters came to a head in September over its publication of a series of nine articles by freelancer Elon Perry. Perry’s articles appeared to give detailed accounts of Israeli military operations and intelligence based on reliable sources, but journalists in Israel raised serious doubts about his credibility. The crunch came after Perry wrote that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar planned to leave the Gaza Strip together with remaining Israeli captives and take them to Iran, a claim that was then affirmed by Netanyahu when he insisted that Israel should control the Philadelphi Corridor between Egypt and Gaza, in part, to stop Sinwar’s departure. An Israeli army spokesman called Perry’s story “a wild fabrication.”
Four long-standing JC columnists— Jonathan Freedland, Hadley Freeman, David Aaronovitch and David Baddiel— resigned on Sept. 15. Colin Schindler, a prominent academic, later followed them. They considered that the JC had discredited itself by publishing fabricated articles by a writer whose claimed credentials were dubious, and they were also unhappy at the paper’s overall direction.
The JC took the offending articles down from its webpage and issued an apology to its readers. A Sept. 20
Guardian story written by Peter Beaumont, Matthew Weaver and Sam Hudson described the controversy and cited some of the criticism published in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, in which Etan Nechin had argued “that the real issue was not so much that Perry had ‘deceived the Chronicle , but [that] the newspaper was, in a sense, predisposed to deception.’” In his view, the newspaper’s editorial focus “was not on journalistic integrity, but on seemingly aligning itself with what its editors deem a ‘proIsrael’ stance.” The Guardian account explained that “By a ‘pro-Israel stance,’ Nechin meant one more aligned with Netanyahu and his inner circle....The Chronicle has increasingly abandoned journalistic integrity in order to champion being ‘pro-Israel.’ Nine times out of 10, this is a version of Israel that resonates with the Israeli right.”
The steps taken by the Netanyahu government and its supporters to manipulate the JC’s reportage in its own specific interests illustrate its intolerance of dissent. It is not enough for them that Israel should be given generally favorable and supportive coverage: it demands full and unquestioning support for its war on the Palestinians and those in solidarity with them and even liberal Zionist views are regarded as hostile and must be stifled. ■
Israel’s War on Gaza and Beyond Has Cost U.S. Taxpayers At Least $22.76 Billion
By Brett Wilkins
U.S. ARMED AID to Israel and related spending on American militarism in the Middle East cost taxpayers at least $22.76 billion over the past year, according to new research published on Oct. 7.
The Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs—which has long been the premier source for statistics on the human and economic costs of ongoing U.S.-led post-9/11 wars and militarism in the Middle East and beyond—called the $22.76 billion estimate “conservative.”
“This figure includes the $17.9 billion the U.S. government has approved in security assistance for Israeli military operations in Gaza and elsewhere since Oct. 7—substantially more than in any other
Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams, which posted this article on Oct. 7, 2024, at <www.CommonDreams.org>, under a Creative Commons license. Reprinted with permission.
year since the U.S. began granting military aid to Israel in 1959,” report authors Linda Bilmes, William Hartung and Stephen Semler wrote. Yet the report describes how this is only a partial amount of the U.S. financial support provided during this war.
In addition to the repeated multibillion-dollar rounds of military aid to Israel, related U.S. operations in the region, particularly bombing and shipping defense in and near Yemen—where Houthi rebels have attacked maritime commerce and launched missiles at Israel— have cost over $2 billion since October 2023.
“It has been difficult for the U.S. public, journalists, and members of Congress to get an accurate understanding of the amount of military equipment and financial assistance that the U.S. government has provided to Israel’s military during the past year of war,” the report states. “There is likewise little U.S. public awareness of the
Chart from the Costs of War report created by Stephen Semler.
costs of the United States military’s own related operations in the region, particularly in and around Yemen.”
The analysis adds that regional hostilities “have escalated to become the most sustained military campaign by U.S. forces since the 2016-19 air war” against the socalled Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
“The Costs of War Project has an obligation to look at the consequences of the U.S. backing of Israel’s military operations after October 7, especially as it reverberates throughout the region,” Costs of War director Stephanie Savell said in a statement. “Our project examines the human and budgetary costs of U.S. militarism at home and abroad, and for the last year, people in Gaza have suffered the highest consequences imaginable.”
According to the Gaza Health Ministry and international agencies, Israel’s yearlong assault on Gaza has left at least 149,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. U.S. military aid to Israel has continued in successive
STOP THE INSANITY
ISRAEL HAS RECEIVED billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers every year since it signed the Camp David Accords in 1978, with President Barack Obama setting the annual aid amount to $3.8 billion through 2028. Israel also has many special arms and aid agreements with the U.S., although notably no formal defense treaty.
Since World War II, Israel has received more U.S. aid than any other country. The report says, “From 1951 to 2022, the U.S. provided Israel with an estimated $317 billion (inflation-adjusted) in assistance, including $225 billion in direct military aid. The figure for total military assistance is $251.2 billion when it is calculated to the present.”
The report notes “Israel receives favorable financing arrangements related to U.S. military aid. For example, U.S. aid is provided on a ‘cash flow’ basis, which means that Israel is able to finance multi-year purchases from the U.S. based on future commitments, before the funds have been officially appro-
waves, even as Israel stands trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.
The Hamas-led October 7 attack resulted in more than 1,100 Israeli and other deaths—at least some of which were caused by [Israeli] so-called “friendly fire” and intentional targeting under the Hannibal Directive—with more than 240 people kidnapped and taken to Gaza.
Although the Costs of War Project report mainly covers U.S. aid to Israel since last October, it also notes that since 1948—the year the modern state of Israel was founded, largely through the ethnic cleansing of Palestine’s Arabs—U.S. taxpayers have contributed over a quarter trillion inflation-adjusted dollars to the key Mideast ally.
A second report published Oct. 7 by the Costs of War Project found that around 90 percent of Gaza’s population has been forcibly displaced by the Israeli onslaught and 96 percent of Gazans face “acute levels of food insecurity.” The publication cites a letter sent on Oct. 2 by a group of U.S. physicians to President Joe Biden—
priated by Congress.” The report also points out that “unlike any other country in the world, Israel is allowed to spend 25 percent of its routine annual military aid from the United States on its own arms industry.”
The report also notes the difficulty in tracking U.S. military support for Israel due to the Biden administration’s lack of transparency. “For instance, the Biden administration has made at least 100 arms deals with Israel since October 2023 that fell below the value that would have triggered the requirement to notify Congress of the details.”
The $17.9 billion in aid since Oct. 7 also does not include a major $20.3 arms deal that the State Department approved for Israel in August since the money will be spent in the coming years. It’s also unclear how much of the $20.3 billion, which includes an $18.8 billion deal for F-15 fighter jets, will be covered by U.S. military aid.
The report does not include any additional military assistance after its invasion of Lebanon in late September. It does not include the missile defense system Biden has
who has repeatedly declared his “unwavering” support for Israel—stating that “it is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4 percent of Gaza's population.” That figure includes 62,000 deaths due to starvation.
“In addition to killing people directly through traumatic injuries, wars cause ‘indirect deaths’ by destroying, damaging, or causing deterioration of economic, social, psychological and health conditions,” report author Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins wrote. “These deaths result from diseases and other population-level health effects that stem from war’s destruction of public infrastructure and livelihood sources, reduced access to water and sanitation, environmental damage, and other such factors.”
The new report comes less than two weeks after Israel secured yet another U.S. armed aid package, this one worth $8.7 billion. Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it faced a nearly $9 billion shortfall for Hurricane Helene relief efforts. ■
just agreed to send to Israel. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and the 100 U.S. troops who will crew it from Israeli military bases will deepen U.S. risks and involvement in Israel’s escalating wars.
The United States is almost certain to further involve itself in any Israeli attacks on Iran.
Multiple weather-related disasters cost $93.1 billion in 2023, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office (NOAA) for Coastal Management. Devastation left by Hurricanes Helene and Milton will cost the U.S. government untold billions in 2024 for initial relief funds and disaster recovery programs.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News on Oct. 5 that he prefers to help Israel instead of Hurricane Helene victims in his own state: “I’ve been going all over South Carolina, like most people I haven’t slept much. But look what’s going on in Israel. We have to help our friends to keep the war over there from coming here.” —Delinda C. Hanley
Although the daylight between the presidential candidates on Middle East policy is minimal, U.S. support for Israel is gradually becoming a subject of debate in U.S. politics. The Overton window has begun to shift within the Democratic Party, even as its candidates receive tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from pro-Israel Political Action Committees (PACs) and affiliated donors.
This election cycle saw unprecedented spending by the Israel lobby, which donated more to House and Senate candidates than in the last two elections combined: $44,656,374 in 2023-2024, compared to $17,175,455 in 2021-2022 and $12,661,440 in 2019-2020. Since April, the lobby has spent over $7.5 million to bolster its favored candidates in Congress.
By Jack McGrath
TOP 2024 AND CAREER RECIPIENTS OF PRO-ISRAEL PAC FUNDS
Compiled by OpenSecrets
HOUSE: CURRENT RACES
Bell, Wesley (D-MO)
Latimer, George (D-NY)
Jeffries, Hakeem (D-NY)
Gottheimer, Josh (D-NJ)
Torres, Ritchie (D-NY)
Johnson, Mike (R-LA)
Aguilar, Pete (D-CA)
Elfreth, Sarah (D-MD)
Cole, Tom (R-OK)
Calvert, Ken (R-CA)
House: Career
Bell, Wesley (D-MO)
Latimer, George (D-NY)
Gottheimer, Josh (D-NJ)
Hoyer, Steny H (D-MD)
Jeffries, Hakeem (D-NY)
Schneider, Brad (D-IL)
Torres, Ritchie (D-NY)
Brown, Shontel (D-OH)
Schultz, Debbie Wasserman (D-FL)
Stevens, Haley (D-MI)
In a perplexing twist, many candidates in both parties reported pro-Israel contributions in September that amount to less than those disclosed in April’s Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings (when the Washington Report last published donation records). Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) reported $671,578 for the 2023-2024 cycle in April but only $440,009 in September, R ep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) dropped from $1,229,070 to $932,627 and Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) fell from $271,663 to $13,500. There is no obvious explanation for these reductions. While candidates can return contributions without depositing them, it is unclear why Cruz would refund donations during a competitive race against Democratic candidate Colin Allred (who has received $164,654 from pro-Israel donors in this cycle). The Washington Report will seek answers from the campaigns about these discrepancies.
On the other hand, many candidates in both parties have seen drastic boosts in financial contributions since April. Between April and September, pro-Israel donations to the campaign of Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) increased from $7,800 to $109,034, candidate Jack Brian (R-GA) from $1,002 to $163,814, Rep. Ro
Jack McGrath is assistant bookstore director and senior staff writer for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
Blackburn, Marsha (R-TN) $407,750 Wicker, Roger (R-MS)
$386,483
Brown, Sherrod (D-OH) $338,279
Fischer, Deb (R-NE)
Senate: Career
$312,930
McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) $1,953,910
Schumer, Charles E (D-NY) $1,726,824
Rosen, Jacky (D-NV) $1,057,961
Rubio, Marco (R-FL) $1,013,563
Graham, Lindsey (R-SC) $1,000,580
Schiff, Adam (D-CA)
Tester, Jon (D-MT)
Cardin, Ben (D-MD)
$996,246
$956,987
$913,285
Stabenow, Debbie (D-MI) $840,482
Duckworth, Tammy (D-IL) $778,791
Khanna (D-CA) from $11,850 to $117,100, candidate Sarah Elfreth (D-MD) from $173,970 to $610,729, candidate George Latimer (D-NY) from $1,633,912 to $2,524,866 and candidate Wesley Bell (D-MO) from $827,094 to $2,609,157.
“Dark money” from nonprofits, which are not obligated to report their donors and have no spending limits, will also influence this election by spending exorbitantly on ads for or against candidates. Viewers don’t know the source of these ads, which rarely mention Israel. For example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent a reported $15 million to bolster George Latimer in his primary against incumbent Rep. Jamaal Bowman, but only $1.6 million was listed as campaign contributions. By definition, the individual sources of dark money spending are undisclosed, and their total sums are nearly impossible to quantify accurately.
The following pages list the donations made to congressional candidates by the pro-Israel lobby and its stealth PACs during the 2023-2024 election cycle and throughout their careers. Candidates are required to report donations to the FEC, which released these figures on Sept. 22, 2024. The FEC updates its reports once a month and finalizes its numbers after the election. The website OpenSecrets compiles those FEC reports. Visit <www.opensecrets.org> for the latest figures. ■
PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2024 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES
Alabama S Tuberville, Tommy (R)
H 1 Moore, Barry (R)
H 2 Figures, Shomari (D)
H 2 Dobson, Caroleene (R)
H 3 Rogers, Mike (R)
H 4 Aderholt, Robert (R)
H 5 Strong, Dale (R)
H 6 Palmer, Gary (R)
H 7 Sewell, Terri (D)
Alaska H At-Large Peltola, Mary (D)
Arizona S Kelly, Mark (D)
S Sinema, Kyrsten (I)
S Lake, Kari (R)
S Gallego, Ruben (D)
H 1 Galan-Woods, Marlene (D)
H 1 Schweikert, David (R)
H 3 Ansari, Yassamin (D)
H 5 Biggs, Andy (R)
H 6 Ciscomani, Juan (R)
H 6 Engel, Kirsten (D)
$134,821 H 7 Grijalva, Raul (D)
8 Lesko, Debbie (R)
8 Toma, Ben (R)
9 Stanton, Greg (D)
Arkansas S Cotton, Tom (AR)
H 1 Crawford, Rick (AR)
H 2 Hill, French (AR)
H 3 Womack, Steve (AR)
H 4 Westerman, Bruce (AR)
California S Garvey, Steve (R)
S Schiff, Adam (D)
S Lee, Barbara (D)
S Porter, Katie (D)
H 1 LaMalfa, Doug (R)
H 2 Huffman, Jared (D)
H 3 Kiley, Kevin (R)
H 3 Morse, Jessica (D)
H 4 Thompson, Mike (D)
H 5 McClintock, Tom (R)
H 6 Bera, Ami (D)
H 7 Matsui, Doris (D)
H 8 Garamendi, John (D)
H 9 Harder, Josh (D)
H 10 Desaulnier, Mark (D)
H 11 Pelosi, Nancy (D)
H 13 Duarte, John (R)
H 14 Swalwell, Eric (D)
H 15 Mullin, Kevin (D)
H 16 Eshoo, Anna (D)
H 16 Liccardo, Sam (D)
16 Simitian, Joe (D)
The Career Total column represents the total amount of pro-Israel PAC money received from Jan. 1, 1990 through May 23, 2022. S=Senate, H=House of Representatives. Party affiliation: D=Democrat, R=Republican, Ref=Reform, DFL=Democratic Farmer Labor, Ind=Independent, Lib=Libertarian, WFP=Working Families Party. Status: C=Challenger, I=Incumbent, N=Not Running, O=Open Seat (no incumbent), P=Defeated in primary election. *=Senate election year, #=House member running for Senate seat, †=Special Election. Committees (at time of election): A=Appropriations, AG=Agriculture (D=Defense subcommittee, FO=Foreign Operations subcommittee, HS=Homeland Security, NR=Natural Resources, NS=National Security subcommittee), AS=Armed Services, B=Budget, C=Commerce, FR=Foreign Relations (NE=Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs subcommittee), HS=Homeland Security, I=Intelligence, IR=International Relations, NS=National Security, WM=Ways and Means.– indicates money returned by candidate, 0 that all money received was returned.
H 17 Khanna, Ro (D)
H 18 Lofgren, Zoe (D)
H 19 Panetta, Jimmy (D)
H 21 Costa, Jim (D)
H 22 Valadao, David (R)
H 22 Salas, Rudy (D)
H 23 Obernolte, Jay (R)
H 24 Carbajal, Salud (D)
H 25 Ruiz, Raul (D)
H 26 Brownley, Julia (D)
H 27 Garcia, Mike (R)
H 27 Whitesides, George (D)
H 28 Chu, Judy (D)
H 29 Cardenas, Tony (D)
H 29 Rivas, Luz (D)
H 30 Friedman, Laura (D)
$10,200 H 31 Cisneros, Gil (D)
H 32 Sherman, Brad (D)
33 Aguilar, Pete (D)
34 Gomez, Jimmy (D)
35 Torres, Norma (D)
36 Lieu, Ted (D)
37 Kamlager, Sydney (D)
38 Sanchez, Linda (D)
39 Takano, Mark (D)
40 Kerr, Joseph (D)
46 Correa, Lou (D)
47 Baugh, Scott (R)
47 Weiss, Joanna (D)
48 Issa, Darrell (R)
H 49 Levin, Mike (D)
50 Peters, Scott (D)
51 Jacobs, Sara (D)
H 52 Vargas, Juan (D)
Colorado S Bennet, Michael (D)
H 1 DeGette, Diana (D)
H 2 Neguse, Joseph (D)
H 3 Frisch, Adam (D)
5 Lamborn, Doug (R)
6 Crow, Jason (D)
H 7 Pettersen, Brittany (D)
H 8 Caraveo, Yadira (D)
H 8 Evans, Gabe (R)
Connecticut S Murphy, Chris (D)
1 Larson, John (D)
H 2 Courtney, Joe (D)
H 3 DeLauro, Rosa (D)
H 4 Himes, Jim (D)
H 5 Hayes, Jahana (D)
Delaware S Carper, Tom (D)
Rochester, Lisa Blunt (D)
At-Large McBride, Sarah (D)
Florida S Scott, Rick (R)
S Mucarsel-Powell, Debbie (D)
2 Dunn, Neal (R)
H 5 Rutherford, John (R)
H 6 Waltz, Michael (R)
H 8 Posey, Bill (R)
9 Soto, Darren (D)
H 10 Frost, Maxwell (D)
H 11 Webster, Daniel (R)
H 12 Bilirakis, Gus (R)
H 14 Castor, Kathy (D)
H 15 Franklin, Scott (R)
H 16 Buchanan, Vernon (R)
H 20 Cherfilus-McCormick, Sheila (D)
H 21 Mast, Brian (R)
H 22 Frankel, Lois (D)
H 23 Moskowitz, Jared (D)
H 24 Wilson, Frederica (D)
H 25 Schultz, Debbie Wasserman (D)
H 25 Leib, Bryan (R)
H 26 Diaz-Balart, Mario (R)
H 27 Salazar, Maria (R)
H 28 Gimenez, Carlos (R)
Georgia S Warnock, Raphael (D)
S Ossoff, Jon (D)
H 1 Carter, Buddy (R)
H 2 Bishop, Sanford (D)
H 3 Ferguson, Drew (R)
H 3 Jack, Brian (R)
H 4 Johnson, Hank (D)
H 5 Williams, Nikema Natassha (D)
H 6 McCormick, Richard (R)
$45,000 AS FA H 7 McBath, Lucy (D)
$75,415 H 11 Loudermilk, Barry (R)
H 12 Allen, Richard W (R)
Hawaii
Hirono, Mazie (D)
Schatz, Brian (D)
1 Case, Ed (D)
Idaho H 1 Fulcher, Russ (R)
H 2 Simpson, Mike (R)
Illinois S Durbin, Dick (D)
Duckworth, Tammy (D)
H 1 Jackson, Jonathan (D)
H 2 Kelly, Robin (D)
H 3 Ramirez, Delia (D)
4 Garcia, Jesus (D)
H 6 Casten, Sean (D)
7 Davis, Danny (D)
H 7 Conyears-Ervin, Melissa (D)
H 8 Krishnamoorthi, Raja (D)
I H 9 Schakowsky, Jan (D)
C H 10 Schneider, Brad (D)
H 11 Foster, Bill (D)
H 12 Bost, Mike (R)
H 13 Budzinski, Nikki (D)
H 14 Underwood, Lauren (D)
15 Miller, Mary (R)
16 LaHood, Darin (R)
17 Sorensen, Eric (D)
Indiana S Banks, Jim (R)
H 1 Mrvan, Frank Jr (D)
H 2 Yakym, Rudy (R)
H 5 Spartz, Victoria (R)
9 Houchin, Erin (R)
Iowa S Ernst, Joni (R)
2 Hinson, Ashley (R)
4 Feenstra, Randy (R)
Kansas
2 LaTurner, Jake (R)
3 Davids, Sharice (D)
4 Estes, Ron (R)
Kentucky H 3 McGarvey, Morgan (D)
6 Barr, Andy (R)
Louisiana S Cassidy, Bill (R)
S Kennedy, John (R)
H 1 Scalise, Steve (R)
H 2 Carter, Troy (D)
H 4 Johnson, Mike (R)
H 5 Letlow, Julia (R)
H 6 Graves, Garret (R)
Maine S King, Angus (I)
H 1 Pingree, Chellie (D)
H 2 Golden, Jared (D)
Maryland S Alsobrooks, Angela (D)
S Hogan, Larry (R)
S Van Hollen, Chris (D)
S Trone, David (D)
H 1 Harris, Andy (R)
H 2 Ruppersberger, Dutch (D)
H 2 Olszewski, John Anthony Jr. (D)
H 3 Elfreth, Sarah (D)
4 Ivey, Glenn (D)
5 Hoyer, Steny H (D)
6 Rubin, Joel (D)
$9,335 H 7 Mfume, Kweisi (D)
$166,750 H 8 Raskin, Jamie (D)
Massachusetts S Warren, Elizabeth (D)
Markey, Ed (D)
1 Neal, Richard E (D)
2 McGovern, James (D)
3 Trahan, Lori (D)
4 Auchincloss, Jake (D)
5 Clark, Katherine (D)
6 Moulton, Seth (D)
9 Keating, Bill (D)
S Slotkin, Elissa (D)
H 1 Bergman, John (R)
2 Moolenaar, John (R)
3 Scholten, Hillary (D)
H 4 Huizenga, Bill (R)
6 Dingell, Debbie (D)
8 Kildee, Dan (D)
H 11 Stevens, Haley (D)
H 13 Thanedar, Shri (D)
Minnesota S Klobuchar, Amy (D)
H 2 Craig, Angie (D)
H 4 McCollum, Betty (D)
6 Emmer, Tom (R)
S Wicker, Roger (R)
1 Kelly, Trent (R)
3 Guest, Michael (R)
Missouri S Hawley, Josh (R)
Schmitt, Eric (R)
S Kunce, Lucas (D)
1 Bell, Wesley (D)
H 2 Wagner, Ann (R)
3 Luetkemeyer, Blaine (R)
4 Alford, Mark (R)
5 Cleaver, Emanuel (D)
7 Burlison, Eric (R)
8 Smith, Jason (R)
Sheehy, Tim (R)
Tester, Jon (D)
1 Zinke, Ryan (R)
S Fischer, Deb (R)
Ricketts, Pete (R)
H 1 Flood, Mike (R)
H 2 Bacon, Donald John (R)
H 2 Vargas, Tony (D)
3 Smith, Adrian (R)
Nevada S Brown, Sam (R)
S Marchant, Jim (R)
S Rosen, Jacky (D)
H 1 Titus, Dina (D)
H 3 Lee, Susie (D)
H 3 Helgelien, Elizabeth (R)
H 4 Horsford, Steven (D)
New Hampshire H 1 Pappas, Chris (D)
H 2 Kuster, Ann (D)
New Jersey S Menendez, Robert (D)
S Booker, Cory (D)
S Kim, Andy (D)
H 1 Norcross, Don (D)
H 2 Van Drew, Jeff (R)
$101,382 H 4 Smith, Chris (R)
H 5 Gottheimer, Josh (D)
7 Kean, Thomas Jr (R)
8 Menendez, Rob (D)
H 9 Pascrell, Bill Jr (D)
H 11 Sherrill, Mikie (D)
H 12 Coleman, Bonnie Watson (D)
Heinrich, Martin (D)
Lujan, Ben Ray (D)
S Domenici, Nella Louise (R)
H 1 Stansbury, Melanie (D)
H 2 Vasquez, Gabe (D)
H 3 Fernandez, Teresa Leger (D)
Gillibrand, Kirsten (D)
Schumer, Chuck (D)
1 LaLota, Nick (R)
2 Garbarino, Andrew (R)
3 Suozzi, Tom (D)
H 3 Pilip, Mazi Melesa (R)
4 D’Esposito, Anthony (R)
5 Meeks, Gregory (D)
H 6 Meng, Grace (D)
H 7 Velazquez, Nydia (D)
H 8 Jeffries, Hakeem (D)
H 9 Clarke, Yvette (D)
H 10 Goldman, Dan (D)
H 11 Malliotakis, Nicole (R)
H 12 Nadler, Jerrold (D)
H 13 Espaillat, Adriano (D)
H 14 Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria (D)
H 15 Torres, Ritchie (D)
H 16 Latimer, George (D)
H 17 Lawler, Mike (R)
H 17 Jones, Mondaire (D)
H 18 Ryan, Pat (D)
H 18 Esposito, Alison (R)
H 19 Molinaro, Marc (R)
H 20 Tonko, Paul (D)
H 21 Stefanik, Elise (R)
H 22 Williams, Brandon (R)
H 23 Langworthy, Nick (R)
H 24 Tenney, Claudia (R)
25 Morelle, Joseph (D)
26 Kennedy, Timothy (D)
Cramer, Kevin (R)
1 Davis, Don (D)
2 Ross, Deborah (D)
H 3 Murphy, Greg (R)
H 4 Foushee, Valerie (D)
H 5 Foxx, Virginia (R)
H 6 Manning, Kathy (D)
7 Rouzer, David (R)
H 9 Hudson, Richard (R)
North Carolina H 10 McHenry, Patrick (R)
H 10 Harrigan, Pat (R)
H 11 Edwards, Chuck (R)
H 12 Adams, Alma (D)
H 13 Nickel, Wiley (D)
14 Jackson, Jeff (D)
H 14 Moore, Tim (R)
S Cramer, Kevin (R)
H At-Large Armstrong, Kelly (R)
S Brown, Sherrod (D)
S Moreno, Bernie (R)
S Dolan, Matt (R)
H 1 Landsman, Greg (D)
H 2 Wenstrup, Brad (R)
H 3 Beatty, Joyce (D)
H 4 Jordan, Jim (R)
H 5 Latta, Bob (R)
H 6 Johnson, Bill (R)
H 7 Miller, Max (R)
9 Kaptur, Marcy (D)
10 Turner, Michael R (R)
11 Brown, Shontel (D)
12 Balderson, Troy (R)
13 Sykes, Emilia (D)
14 Joyce, David P (R)
15 Carey, Mike (R)
Lankford, James (R)
1 Hern, Kevin (R)
2 Brecheen, Josh (R)
4 Cole, Tom (R)
S Merkley, Jeff (D)
H 5 Chavez-Deremer, Lori (R)
5 Bynum, Janelle (D)
H 6 Salinas, Andrea (D)
Casey, Bob (D)
McCormick, Dave (R)
Fetterman, John (D)
H 1 Fitzpatrick, Brian (R)
H 2 Boyle, Brendan (D)
H 3 Evans, Dwight (D)
H 4 Dean, Madeleine (D)
H 5 Scanlon, Mary Gay (D)
H 6 Houlahan, Chrissy (D)
H 7 Wild, Susan (D)
H 8 Cartwright, Matt (D)
H 9 Meuser, Dan (R)
H 10 Perry, Scott (R)
H 11 Smucker, Lloyd (R)
H 12 Lee, Summer (D)
H 12 Patel, Bhavini (D)
H 14
Reschenthaler, Guy (R)
H 15 Thompson, Glenn (R)
H 16 Kelly, Mike (R)
H 17 Deluzio, Christopher (D)
Island S Whitehouse, Sheldon (D)
H 1 Matos, Sabina (D)
H 2
Magaziner, Seth (D)
Carolina H 1 Mace, Nancy (R)
H 2 Wilson, Joe (R)
H 4
Timmons, William (R)
H 5 Norman, Ralph (R)
H 6 Clyburn, James E (D)
H 7 Fry, Russell (R)
$9,300
$155,985
At-Large Johnson, Dusty (R)
Blackburn, Marsha (R)
Hagerty, Bill (R)
Johnson, Gloria (D)
2 Burchett, Tim (R)
3 Fleischmann, Chuck (R)
7 Green, Mark (R)
8 Kustoff, David (R)
9 Cohen, Steve (D)
Cruz, Ted (R)
Allred, Colin (D)
2 Crenshaw, Dan (R)
5 Gooden, Lance (R)
6 Ellzey, Jake (R)
H 7 Fletcher, Lizzie (D)
8 Luttrell, Morgan (R)
10 McCaul, Michael (R)
11 Pfluger, August (R)
12 Granger, Kay (R)
12 Goldman, Craig (R)
13 Jackson, Ronny (R)
14 Weber, Randy (R)
15 De La Cruz, Monica (R)
15 Vallejo, Michelle (D)
17 Sessions, Pete (R)
Wilson, Brad (R)
2 Maloy, Celeste (R)
Bernie (I)
S Welch, Peter (D)
Balint, Becca (D)
S Kaine, Tim (D)
S Warner, Mark (D)
Cao, Hung (R)
H 1 Wittman, Rob (R)
H 4 McClellan, Jennifer (D)
H 6 Cline, Ben (R)
H 7 Spanberger, Abigail (D)
H 8 Beyer, Don (D)
H 9 Griffith, Morgan (R)
H 10 Wexton, Jennifer (D)
H 10 Filler-Corn, Eileen (D)
H 11 Connolly, Gerry (D)
Washington S Cantwell, Maria (D)
1 DelBene, Suzan (D)
2 Larsen, Rick (D)
H 3 Perez, Marie Gluesenkamp (D)
H 3 Kent, Joe (R)
4 Newhouse, Dan (R)
5 Rodgers, Cathy McMorris (R)
6 Kilmer, Derek (D)
8 Schrier, Kim (D)
H 9 Smith, Adam (D)
10 Strickland, Marilyn (D)
Joe (I)
Justice, Jim (R)
S Mooney, Alex (R)
Wisconsin S Baldwin, Tammy (D)
Johnson, Ron (R)
Steil, Bryan (R)
2 Pocan, Mark (D)
H 3 Van Orden, Derrick (R)
4 Moore, Gwen (D)
6 Grothman, Glenn (R)
(R)
(R)
Wyoming S Barrasso, John (R)
2023-2024 Total House Contributions: $38,398,592 2023-2024 Total Senate Contributions: $6,257,782
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OTHER VOICES FROM THE MIDDLE EAST CLIPBOARD
Compiled by Janet McMahon
Palestine Defines Us
BY TOM SUAREZ
The citizenry of past nations engaged in genocide woke up each morning focused on the challenges of everyday life, not those of the people their rulers were butchering. The victims may have been across continents or within the same population, and so awareness of the slaughter varied, but propaganda and dehumanization were the ever-present balm for uneasy consciences and political cover. Those who rose above the brainwashing were limited in their ability to challenge their rulers, and faced consequences—often brutal—if they did.
Yet to varying degrees, posterity has held the country as a whole morally responsible. Whatever any mitigating considerations, posterity has judged “we didn’t know” skeptically.
Imagine yourself, then, as a doctoral history student in 2124, researching the archives from that dark stain on the old Western Empire known simply as the Palestinian Genocide. What would you see?
Today’s genocide is perpetrated not by an individual renegade nation, nor by an empire in the traditional sense, but by a consortium, led by the United States. We, the consortium’s citizens, too wake up every morning to our own problems, not those of the people being massacred in our name. We too are manipulated by racist propaganda intended to make us willing partners in this consummate crime, all the way from the crude lies of Fox News, to the
insidious manipulation of The New York Times and the self-righteous arrogance of PBS. And we too are prisoners of the power structures under which we live.
But there is a qualitative difference between past genocides—Belgium murdering the Congolese, the Ottomans murdering the Armenians, the
27
Palestine Defines Us, Tom Suárez, mondoweiss.net OV-37
Israel After Oct. 7: Between Decolonization and Disintegration, Ilan Pappé, www.aljazeera.com OV-38
BBC Interview With Hamas Deputy Chief Is a Case Study In State Propaganda, Jonathan Cook, www.jonathan-cook.net OV-39
Why I Am Rooting for Bisan
Owda to Win a News Emmy, Tafi Mhaka, www.aljazeera.com OV-41
The Other Side of the Border, Qassam Muaddi, mondoweiss.net OV-42
Israel’s Great Chance: Another War, Gideon Levy, Haaretz OV-44
Kill More A-rabs, Eric S. Margolis, www.ericmargolis.com OV-44
Israel’s Attack on Lebanon Using Exploding Electronics Is Part of A Long History and Strategy of Targeting Civilians, Jonathan Ofir, mondoweiss.net OV-45
Nazis murdering Jews and others—and today’s, the murder or erasure of anyone in historic Palestine who is not Jewish. We cannot claim any equivocation. We own this genocide outright. And as ruthless as the blowback can be, opposing it is not a death sentence, as it was, for example, in 1930s Germany.
Priming Hezbollah Pagers to Explode Is a Genius Move. But It’s Also an Israeli Failure, Yossi Melman, Haaretz OV-46
The United States Is Already at War, Belén Fernández, www.aljazeera.com OV-47
Blinken Lied to Congress About Israeli War Crimes Because He Knows He’ll Get Away With It, Caitlin Johnstone, www.caitlinjohnstone.com.au OV-48
CAIR Calls for Ousting of “Notoriously Orientalist” Biden Middle East Adviser, Sharon Zhang, www.truthout.org OV-49
Cheney’s Policies as VP Caused Immense Human Suffering on A Global Scale, Ziyad Motala, www.aljazeera.com OV-50
Debate in Nuclear-armed Former Colony Fails to Reassure Global Community, Patrick Gathara, www.aljazeera.com OV-52
Unlike past genocides, we watch ours play out in real time on our phones. But we have been witnessing our genocide all along. The Israeli state is predicated on a supremacist ideology whose inevitable end is genocide, its more honest politicians bluntly confirm the intent, and the state’s history is 76 years of continuous, unbroken proof.
But we—the so-called “West” and above all the United States—keep ourselves passive via the illusion of freedom and democracy, and the sense of moral self-assuredness it imparts. Whatever our failings, we are an open, modern society guided by informed discussion and a law-based political structure.
To immerse ourselves in this illusion, we permit freedom of speech within an artificial spectrum calibrated to exclude anything that challenges it. As Palestinians are slaughtered, we bask in our ability to say whatever we wish, from one extreme of this artificial range to the other. The truth that lay beyond it is not censored per se; it simply doesn’t exist. That those who venture to its upper limits suffer abuse and destroyed careers under the hatchet of the “antiSemitism” smear, affirms the illusion that they spoke at the limits of what could be.
And so, for 76 years we have been kept busy braving that prescribed ceiling. We talk of Israel’s actions, and what the state does, bemoaning the disease’s ravages while safeguarding the disease itself. The purveyors of genocide are happy because talk of its actual cause—the existence of the Israeli state itself, a state whose very foundation is genocidal—is nowhere to be found.
We engage in our political system with the same dishonesty, a two-party monopoly presented as “democracy.” Which flavor of genocide is your cup of tea? Do you prefer Woke genocide or threat-to-democracy-itself genocide?
Palestine is hardly the only sin committed by the U.S. & Co., but it is the defining injustice that encapsulates all the others. It is not an incident, not a coup, not a military action, not a war, not foreign policy, not a political quag-
mire, but a messianic obsession that permeates our very psyche, an addiction to genocide for whose sake we are willingly destroying ourselves. For much of the world, Palestine is the “line in the sand” to our staggering hypocrisy. We own this genocide. It defines us. It is us.
November 2024, election month, marks 107 years since Britain issued the Balfour Declaration and 77 years since the United States pushed through UNGA Resolution 181 (Partition). In both cases, it was well understood that the documents’ words were empty and that we were institutionalizing the ethnic cleansing, and ultimately the genocide, of Palestine’s native population river-to-sea.
Now that the genocide has switched to high gear, we double-down on our self-righteous delusion: “no genocide” is not an option on November’s U.S. election menu, nor is truthful news about Palestine finally an option in the major media. Short of a radical and immediate reckoning thanks to the mass uprisings across the country and the world, “genocide” will be our epitaph. Groups and individuals targeted by efforts to penalize BDS or to compel people to reject it will now have an important new tool in their legal arsenal as they assert their rights either administratively or judicially. They can now invoke the authoritative ruling of the World Court to credibly assert that participating in boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israeli occupation, colonization and apartheid is not only a moral imperative and constitutional and human right, but also an international legal obligation.
Israel After Oct. 7: Between Decolonization and Disintegration
BY ILAN PAPPÉ
Ayear has passed since Oct.7, 2023, and it is time to explore if we have a better understanding of this monumental event and everything that followed it.
For historians like me, a year is usually not enough to draw any significant conclusions. However, what happened in the past 12 months falls within a much wider historical context, one that stretches back at least to 1948 and, I would argue, even to the early Zionist settlement in Palestine in the late 19th century.
Therefore, what we can do as historians is place the past year within the long-term processes that have unfolded in historical Palestine since 1882. I will explore two of the most important ones.
COLONIZATION AND DECOLONIZATION
The first process is colonization and its opposite—decolonization. Israeli actions both in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank in the last year gave new credence to the use of these twin terms. They transited from the vocabulary of the activists and academics of the pro-Palestine movement to the work of international tribunals such as the International Court of Justice.
Mainstream academia and media still refuse to define the Zionist project as a colonial or, as it is referred to more accurately, a settler-colonial project. However, as Israel intensifies the colonization of Palestine in the next year, that might prod more individuals and institutions to frame the reality in Palestine as colonial and the Palestinian struggle as anti-colonial and dispense with tropes about terrorism and peace negotiations.
Indeed, it is time to stop using misleading language peddled by U.S. and Western media, like “Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas” or “peace process,” and instead talk about Palestinian resistance and decolonization of Palestine from the river to the sea.
What will help in this effort is the growing disrepute of the Western mainstream media as a credible source of both analysis and information. Today, media executives are fighting tooth and nail against any change in the language, but they would eventually come to regret its place on the wrong side of history.
This change of narrative is important because it has the potential to affect politics—more specifically, the politics of the Democratic Party in the United States. The more progressive Democrats have already embraced a more accurate language and framing of what is happening in Palestine.
Whether this will be enough to effect change in a Democratic administration should Kamala Harris win the election remains to be seen. But I am not sanguine about such a change unless the processes of social implosion within Israel, its growing economic vulnerability and international isolation put an end to the hollow Democratic efforts to resurrect the dead “peace process.”
If Donald Trump wins, the next U.S. administration will be the same as the current one at best or it would openly grant Israel a carte blanche at worst.
Regardless of what happens in the U.S. election next month, one thing will remain true: As long as these twin frames of colonization and decolonization are ignored by those who have the power to stop the genocide in Gaza and the Israeli adventurism elsewhere, there is a little hope for pacifying the region as a whole.
THE DISINTEGRATION OF ISRAEL
The second process that surfaced in full force in this last year was the disintegration of Israel and the possible collapse of the Zionist project.
The original Zionist idea of planting a European Jewish state at the heart of the Arab world through the dispossession of the Palestinians was illogical, immoral and impractical from the onset.
It has held on for so many years because it has served a very powerful alliance that, for religious, imperialist and economic reasons, has regarded such a state as fulfilling the ideological or strategic objectives of whoever was part of that alliance, even if sometimes these interests contradicted each other.
The alliance’s project of solving a European problem of racism through colonization and imperialism in the midst of the Arab world is entering its moment of truth.
Economically, an Israel that is engaged not in a short successful war as in the past, but in a long war with little prospect of a total victory, is not conducive to international investment and economic bonanzas.
Politically, an Israel that commits genocide is not as attractive any more to Jews, especially those who believe that their future as a faith or a cultural group does not depend on a Jewish state and in fact might be more secure without it.
The governments of the day are still part of the alliance, but their membership depends on the future of politics all together. By this I mean that the catastrophic events over the past year in Palestine, alongside global warming, the crisis of immigration, increasing poverty and instability in many parts of the world have exposed how distanced many political elites are from their peoples’ elementary aspirations, concerns and needs.
This indifference and aloofness will be challenged, and every time it is successfully confronted, the coalition that sustains the Israeli colonization of Palestine will be weakened.
What we did not see in the past year is the emergence of a Palestinian leadership that reflects the impressive unity of the people inside and outside of Palestine and the solidarity of the global movement of support for them.
Maybe it is too much to ask at such a dark moment in Palestine’s history, but it will have to occur, and I am quite positive it will.
The next 12 months are going to be a worse replica of the past year in terms of the genocidal policies of Israel, the escalation of the violence in the region and the continued support of governments, backed by their media, for this destructive trajectory. But history tells us that this is how a horrific chapter in the chronology of a country ends; it is not how a new one begins.
Historians should not predict the future, but they can at least articulate a reasonable scenario for it. In this sense, I think it is reasonable to say that the question of “whether” the oppression of the Palestinians will end can now be replaced with “when.” We do not know the “when,” but we can all strive to bring it about sooner rather than later.
BBC Interview With Hamas Deputy Chief Is a Case Study in State Propaganda
BY JONATHAN COOK
The BBC no longer bothers to hide the fact that its news service acts as nothing more than the British state’s willing propaganda channel.
Last night on the “News at Ten,” Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen se-
cured a rare interview with Hamas’ deputy political chief, Khalil al-Hayya.
Anchor Clive Myrie introduced the segment by warning: “Many will find his comments abhorrent.” But the only person making abhorrent assertions was Myrie himself, observing that, in the interview, the Hamas leader “claims the Palestinian people have faced violence at the hands of Israel for several decades.”
No, Clive. The world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, as well as every major human rights organization, has concluded that Israel’s belligerent military occupation of the Palestinians’ territory is illegal and violent—not as a claim, but as an indisputable fact.
Israel’s refusal to recognize a Palestinian state and allow Palestinians self-determination; Israel’s building of hundreds of illegal settlements on Palestinian land and the transfer of Israeli Jews, often militia groups, into those settlements; Israel’s 17-year siege of Gaza; and Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinian people to force them to submit to these indignities, are all forms of structural violence. Again, that is not a claim. It is how international law judges what Israel has done and is doing.
Next, Myrie required Bowen to justify at length why the BBC was allowing a Hamas political leader—not a military leader—to be given air time. Note, al-Hayya’s boss, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated by Israel while he was involved in negotiations to bring about a cease-fire. Like some kind of gangster, Israel murdered the man on the other side of the table it was supposed to be talking to.
The BBC provided none of that as context, of course, for its interview. It was too busy placating Israel and the British government by issuing apologies and warnings before it offered a rare insight into Hamas’ side of the story.
So what did al-Hayya say that was so “abhorrent”? Here are the main points al-Hayya raised in the interviewyou can listen to his precise wording via <https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cd
d4rpv5jp0o?utm_source=substack&ut m_medium=email–> under Bowen’s mainly hostile questioning:
1. Hamas launched its attack on Oct. 7 because the world had forgotten about Gaza even as Israel was slowly strangling the tiny territory to death through its 17-year siege. Hamas wanted to put Gaza back on the international community’s radar, and had decided it could do so only through military action.
2. Hamas fighters had been told not to target Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, only Israeli occupation soldiers. Hamas does not endorse harming civilians. However, there were failings by individuals in sticking to that plan.
3. Israel, not Hamas, is the party responsible for destroying Gaza as evidenced through its bombardments of schools, shelters and hospitals. Hamas’ killing of 1,200 people could not be used to justify Israel killing more than 50,000 people in Gaza. Israel is “motivated by the lust to destroy.”
4. The accusation that Hamas uses the people of Gaza as “human shields” is not true. “They [Israel] destroyed mosques on the heads of their owners when there were no fighters. They destroyed houses and high-rise buildings when no one was in them...It is all Israeli propaganda.”
5. Netanyahu is the one obstructing a cease-fire. Even if Hamas surrendered today, Gaza’s next generation would take up the struggle because the Palestinian people want their freedom and have a legitimate right to resist the occupation. “People need to understand that Israel wants to burn the whole region.”
6. The Palestinians need a state and self-determination, and the Palestinian refugees a right to return to their homeland, if the region is ever to calm down.
7. It is Israel trying to eliminate the Palestinian people, not the Palestinians destroying Israel. “Give us our rights, give us a fully sovereign Palestinian state…Israel does not recognize a onestate solution or a two-state solution. Israel rejects it all.”
8. [Responding to a question about whether he considers himself a terrorist] “I’m seeking freedom and defending my people. To the occupation, we are all terrorists—the leaders, the women and the children. You heard what Israeli leaders called us: we are all animals.”
Now, one can debate whether alHayya’s statements are accurate or truthful, or whether he is being sincere. But nothing at all he says here
can be viewed as “abhorrent”—unless you are shilling for Israel. He deplores attacks on civilians, he accuses Israel of bringing about Gaza’s destruction, he blames Netanyahu for blocking a cease-fire, and he appears to be ready to settle for a two-state solution, though he doesn’t believe Israel will agree to it.
In fact, his comments are far, far more moderate and far less inflammatory than statements regularly made by Netanyahu and most of the Israeli political and military leadership. Netanyahu, remember, is being sought by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, while the country he leads is on trial for what its sister court, the ICJ, considers a “plausible genocide” Netanyahu has incited and overseen. Not that the BBC ever mentions either fact.
And yet the state broadcaster never prefaces remarks from Netanyahu or other Israeli leaders—such as the selfdeclared fascist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich—with any kind of warning, let alone one that many viewers may find their remarks “abhorrent.”
And while we are at it, if al-Hayya’s remarks are the yardstick, how was Keir Starmer’s comment that Israel had a right to deprive Palestinian civilians of food, water and fuel—that is, to collectively punish them by starving them to death—not also deemed “abhorrent” by the BBC?
What becomes ever harder to deny is that the BBC isn’t reporting what is happening in the Middle East. It is aggressively framing it in such a way as to present Israel as the victim of events, and thereby assist in carrying out a genocide in Gaza and begin a second slaughter in Lebanon.
Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist. A 2011 recipient of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism, he was based in Nazareth, Israel, for 20 years, returning to the UK in 2021. He is the author of three books on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and has also contributed chapters and essays to several edited volumes on Israel-Palestine.
This article was first posted on his blog at <www.jonathan-cook.net>, Oct. 4, 2024. His work is also available at <jonathancook.sub stack.com>. Reprinted with permission.
Why I Am Rooting for Bisan Owda to Win a News Emmy
BY TAFI MHAKA
Bisan Owda, a young Palestinian journalist, activist and filmmaker from Gaza, deserves the highest accolades for the excellent work she has done in the past 11 months to expose the realities of Israel’s genocidal war on her people. From the very beginning, she has been a reliable, informative and trustworthy voice from the ground in a conflict that killed more journalists than any other in recent memory.
At significant personal risk, she reports on the plight of the tens of thousands of children who have become orphans in Gaza. She sheds light on the extensive destruction wrought by the advanced weaponry supplied to Israel by the Biden administration. Despite Israel’s best efforts to hide the truth, she shows the world how Palestine is undergoing another Nakba.
As such, I am delighted that she has been nominated for an Emmy Award in the “Outstanding Hard News Feature Story” category with the short documentary she made for AJ+ titled “It’s Bisan From Gaza and I’m Still Alive.”
The poignant and incisive eightminute feature follows her journey as she is forced to leave her home in Gaza City and displaced numerous times amid Israel’s continuing assault on the Strip.
Regrettably, almost immediately after the announcement of her nomination, defenders of Israel’s war and its simultaneous assault on journalism—embarked on a campaign to prevent Owda from receiving the recognition she de-
serves for the exemplary work she managed to do under the most difficult conditions.
First, an Israeli communication consultant accused Owda of being a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—a left-wing Palestinian political movement that is designated a “terrorist organization” by several Western countries, including the United States—a charge she denies. This led high-profile pro-Israeli accounts on social media to attack her journalism as terror propaganda and condemn her Emmy nomination.
Consequently, on Aug. 20, pro-Israel entertainment industry nonprofit “Creative Community for Peace” issued an open letter to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), the body responsible for the News and Documentary Emmys, requesting Owda’s nomination to be retracted based on these accusations.
Thankfully, the academy stood behind the decision to nominate Owda. Adam Sharp, NATAS president and chief executive, stated that his organization has not seen any evidence of Owda having any active ties to the PFLP. He further noted that the award has a history of recognizing works that have been controversial, “in the service of the journalistic mission to capture every facet of the story.” He also underlined that Owda’s work was selected for nomination by independent judges from the industry, and from among 50 submissions in one of the year’s most competitive categories.
The suggestion made in the open letter that Owda has “terror ties” and thus her journalism should not be honored but discarded as propaganda, is preposterous. For anyone with a little knowledge of the history of the Palestinian people and the relentless abuse they suffered for decades under Israeli occupation, it is clear that, like many others before her, Owda is being targeted for reminding the world of the humanity of Palestinian people and exposing the truth about Israel’s brutal ethnic cleansing operation.
Israeli narratives, which frame Palestinians as inherently violent, unreasonable sub-humans—as anti-Semitic savages who attack benevolent and civilized Israel for no reason—have dominated mainstream media without challenge for so long that they have become an accepted reality. With many media outlets almost never giving Palestinians a platform to talk about their reality under Israeli occupation, the humanity of an entire people has been erased in the eyes of the international community, with devastating consequences.
Recently, the advent of social media, and the rise of Global South media voices like Al Jazeera, began to disturb this sad status quo.
Since the beginning of this latest and most violent chapter in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people, honest, direct and courageous Palestinian voices like Owda’s broke through the mold of a once tightly controlled media landscape that habitually panders to colonial narratives.
Her work, marked by a raw intensity and immense emotional debt, reached people around the world and exposed many of them to the painful reality of being a Palestinian in Gaza for the first time. Indeed, many Africans like me, who for too long depended on the biased output of Western news outlets to understand the so-called “Middle East conflict,” found Owda’s authentic account of the Palestinian reality both informing and refreshing.
In a media landscape where Israeli military spokespeople get both the first and the last word in news reports on the genocide they are committing, where Palestinians who lost dozens of family members to Israeli bombing are made to condemn any efforts at resistance to be allowed to speak about their loss, where Palestinians inexplicably “die” but Israelis are “killed” and “slaughtered,” voices like Owda’s should be appreciated, honored and protected at all cost.
Since Israel’s very inception, Western media have been complicit in its crimes against Palestinians. Especially
leading British and American media organizations which, for decades, held a monopoly on deciding what is accepted as “truth” about Israel-Palestine, helped Israel legitimize its violence and land theft by pushing narratives that dehumanize Palestinians.
But now that Owda, and other courageous Palestinian journalists like her, are able to reach large audiences, these organizations have lost the power to act as the sole arbiter of truth on Israel-Palestine. Israel can no longer silence Palestinian voices and make the world accept Israeli narratives as the indisputable truth of the conflict.
Owda, at just 26 years old, made much more significant contributions to journalism, and the global understanding of the conflict in Palestine, in the past 10 months, than the seasoned Western journalists parroting Israeli talking points have done in many decades.
Owda’s reports are neither dramatic nor thrilling; they do not indulge in colorful sensationalism. Rather, they present the stark realities of Palestinian existence, imbued with the inevitability of profound suffering, anguish and death. These accounts are unembellished reflections of a people and a land devastated by Israel, revealing the depths of human failure and Western moral corruption.
Through her short films, Owda reveals how more than 40,000 Palestinians, mostly innocent women and children, have not suddenly “lost their lives” amid a “conflict” between “Israel and Hamas,” but instead have been brutally killed by an occupying military force armed with the state-of-theart weapons provided by Western powers. Owda conveys the stories of the dead, reminding the world of their humanity, and the humanity of the Palestinians who so far survived this genocide.
This is what journalism does at its best. This is what journalism is for. And this is why I am with all my heart rooting for Owda to win an Emmy Award on Sept. 25. I know Owda does not do
what she does to win Western awards. I know her work will remain as valuable and noteworthy even if she never wins another award or important accolade. But if she wins, it will still be a slap in the face of those who, like the signatories of the open letter to NATAS, want Israel to continue shaping the narrative of this “conflict” singlehandedly. It will show that the work of Palestinian journalists cannot be ignored, and the truth of Palestine—and this genocide—will not remain hidden.
Last week, the border between Palestine and Jordan was on full alert following a shooting attack that killed three Israeli security personnel at the Allenby Bridge border crossing. Israel closed down all border crossings with Jordan, preventing Palestinians from the West Bank to travel for two days before eventually reopening, albeit with more stringent security measures.
The attack was a shock for both Jordan and Israel, not only because it was completely unexpected but also because of the identity of the man behind it.
Maher al-Jazi, 46, was not of Palestinian descent. He was a truck driver from one of the largest and most influential clans in Jordan, the Huweitat clan. He had served in the Jordanian armed forces and had no political affiliations. In essence, al-Jazi came from a sector of Jordanian society that represents a
deeply local Jordanian tribal identity, laying bare the extent to which Israel’s genocide in Gaza has reverberated across the region and impacted all of its people.
A week before the attack, I visited Amman for the first time in my life. It was a strange feeling to be in an Arab city not under occupation. It was like being at home, but in very different conditions; the complex urban infrastructure that one would find in any world capital, the freedom to travel across the country for hours without being stopped by the army or police, without being attacked by settlers, without being hounded by the constant sense of vulnerability and anguish—all of it, in a nutshell, felt at once foreign and familiar, reflecting the basic human desire to be free.
It also felt strange to hear Jordanians’ discussions about their daily concerns. The upcoming parliamentary elections that ended up taking place the following week, the economic hardships of the working class, the differences between oppositional political currents—it all felt familiar, but with a crucial difference. Nobody talked about a family member whose house had received a demolition order, or about someone they knew who had their administrative detention renewed. Nobody spoke of how they were trapped in their house for a week because of a military raid in town, or how their property lost all its value because some settler decided that he owned it and set up an outpost on the property.
It felt like Jordan was a “normal” country with “normal” problems, although I remained aware that these problems, like any other Arab country, were only normal in comparison to Palestine’s colonial context.
I always assimilated this idea of “normality” in other countries where I have lived, primarily Europe and America, but to my mind, being in an Arab country was always associated with a life under occupation. In that moment, I realized in a painfully tangible way how cut off we Palestinians have been
from the reality of our immediate Arab surroundings, from its daily life and social complexities. Communication with the outside world for many Palestinians of my generation has mostly meant communicating with the Western world.
This is in stark contrast to previous generations, whose interactions were mostly with the surrounding Arab countries. In those days, most of our cultural influences flowed from Cairo or Beirut, and the Palestinian liberation movement was based in exile in different Arab countries. Even though most families in the West Bank have relatives east of the Jordan River, for me and many of my peers, I have always seen Jordan as a stop on our way to somewhere else, a place to stay a night or two at a relative’s home before boarding a plane at Amman’s international airport, which is the only way Palestinians from the West Bank can leave the cage created by Israel.
There was something else I couldn’t miss during my short stay; amid Jordan’s “normality” and Amman’s daily hustle and bustle, Palestine is everywhere. At any public restaurant or coffee shop, there is always a TV screen airing Al Jazeera’s live coverage of the war in Gaza. The word “Gaza” and other symbols of Gaza’s resistance are present on T-shirts in street stalls and adorn posters and graffitied walls.
But Palestine’s presence in Jordan is also deeper than that. It is built into the identity of the place; stores are named after Palestine, Jerusalem or other Palestinian cities, as they have been for decades; the iconic map of Palestine hangs on young women’s necklaces; bookstores are full of Palestinian literature—I was surprised to find a brand new edition of the complete works of Hussein Barghouthi, a Palestinian novelist from the 1990s, which the bookseller told me sold like hot bread among college students.
Candidates for the parliamentary elections from all political stripes holding public meetings at crossroads always mentioned Palestine and Gaza— with zero exceptions—in the middle of
rattling off talking points about the local economy and public services. Some of the references to Palestine didn’t make a lot of sense in the context of the speech, but they were always there, as if candidates knew that Palestine was “a must” to win voters’ attention.
That’s when I realized that just as we Palestinians feel isolated from our natural extension in the neighboring Arab region, Arab peoples on the other side of the border feel connected, yet isolated, from their natural extension in Palestine. That is what Jordanians were expressing. In times of war and genocide, they feel frustration at not being able to play a more significant role in attempting to stop the genocide.
Much has been written about the inability of Arabs to play a role in their region’s affairs. But such a role can only be fulfilled if Arab peoples are able to be a part of the Palestine question. The major decisions impacting it are still made in Washington, which has not only alienated Palestinians but the people of the entire region.
The artificial isolation of Palestine from its Arab surroundings never removed Palestine from the consciousness of Arab peoples. Israel fooled itself when it thought that it could keep the Arab street passive forever while doing what it likes to Palestinians. It fooled itself when it thought it could normalize relations with the entire Arab world while sidelining the Palestine question. It fools itself again when it expects to end threats coming from Lebanon and Yemen without ending its genocide in Gaza.
Without solving the question of Palestine through freedom, dignity and self-determination, all sense of “normality” in the Arab world will never truly be “normal.”
After exhausting the great opportunity in Gaza, Israel is turning to exhausting the next great opportunity, a war in Lebanon. When it comes to war, Israel is the land of unlimited opportunities. Every war is an opportunity and every opportunity brings a war.
Is there a problem in Gaza? War. Is there one on the northern border?
Another one. Many Israelis are excited. After all, they’ve been waiting for such an opportunity for years. Others support it silently, under an oppressive cloud, and nearly all of them are convinced that there is no other option.
It’s one thing to regard war as a horrific necessity, but it’s something else when seen as an opportunity: an opportunity to shape a new world, a new reality, a better one. Hamas will be eradicated, the hostages released and Hezbollah will be ridiculed. The evacuated residents of the north will return to their homes, the Galilee will flourish and its flowers will bloom. The same will happen in communities along the Gaza border. What a wonderful opportunity war provides.
The fact that throughout its history, Israel has not yet embarked on a single war that has bettered its situation or solved its problems, with some of them, such as the 1967 war, even unadmittedly worsening its situation, has not convinced a single person. Just wait for the next war. It will solve all our problems once and for all.
“Once and for all” is the “total victory” of yesteryear. After supposedly defeating Hamas—once and for all—Israel will also defeat Hezbollah, once and for all. The problem is that this always ends in a few years of quiet followed by a war that is worse than its forerunners. The supporters of a big
war in Lebanon now explain their lust for seeing the IDF on the outskirts of Beirut again by calling it a great opportunity.
Over the weekend, they exhorted decision-makers to act. After all, they argued, the 500 newly blinded people in Lebanon, a result of exploding pagers, provides a golden opportunity that will not return anytime soon. So, what the hell are you waiting for to start the war?
The very concept of war as an opportunity points to a sick mindset. Viewing war as a sole and primary means of solving problems suggests a mental distortion. But in a country in which Karni Eldad, a columnist in the daily Israel Hayom, calls the dozens of people killed, the thousands of people wounded and the hundreds blinded by exploding pagers in Lebanon “an immense gift to our nation, which greatly deserves it ahead of the new year,” one is not surprised by anything.
“The amazing blows the enemy in the north has sustained was exactly what our nation needed: the elegance, the precision, the humiliation, the thinking one million steps ahead,” she waxed lyrical. A million steps ahead. However, for sane people, war is an opportunity for nothing whatsoever other than bloodshed, destruction and loss.
The school embracing the “once and for all” concept seems particularly foolish after the war in Gaza. After all, the war there was meant to solve our problems once and for all. Not one of them has been solved after a year of bitter combat, with tens of thousands of fatalities and total destruction. Israel will emerge from the war in Gaza in a much worse situation than it entered it.
How can one even think that a war against a much stronger enemy, in much more difficult terrain, with an exhausted army, facing global revulsion, will bring about a better result than the fiasco in Gaza? It can only mean that most Israelis have not yet internalized the extent of the failure in Gaza. They have not yet reached the obvious conclusion that it would have
been better if Israel had not embarked on a war there, then proceeding in a rush toward Sidon. Just as in the case of Rafah, there is no [opposition]. There are protests, but not against a war.
It’s hard to think of such a conjunction of inconceivable developments: while soldiers are still killing, being killed and sowing ruin in Gaza, futilely and with no purpose, other forces are making their way to the north for an even more accursed war, it too designed to solve problems once and for all. And everyone sees the voices and buys the lies. And after Lebanon we’ll tackle Iran. There too we’ll have an opportunity, there too we’ll solve our problems once and for all.
Iwas with the Israeli army in 1982 when it invaded Lebanon and battled a new resistance militia, Hezbollah. Ten years later, I was in Afghanistan with a new Muslim resistance movement, Taliban.
Both groups have been demonized by Western and Israeli media and governments as “terrorists,” a meaningless but effective propaganda label that reduced both movements to the status of mad dogs and criminals. The term “terrorist” implies that the object of this libel can have no legitimate political or moral rights. Dropping 2,000 lb. bombs on apartment buildings, as Israel is doing in Gaza and Lebanon, is “anti-terrorism” to the biased Western media.
Today, many Americans have been fooled into believing that anyone who opposes U.S. imperial policies abroad is a terrorist—a mad dog that must be destroyed on sight. In U.S. media, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iranian are usually accompanied by the attached term “terrorist.”
This is the old Soviet practice of incessantly repeating an accusation until everyone believes it.
Hezbollah, or the Party of God, was founded in southern Lebanon at the end of its 15-year civil war, 1975-1990, as a local Shi’i militia to battle the Amal Sunni militia.
Hezbollah’s conflict with Israel began when Israeli armored units shot their way into the Lebanese market town of Nabatiyeh, which was thronged by Shi’i celebrating the important holy day of Ashura. Israeli forces dispersed the local Shi’i with gunfire. Some Shi’i shot back. Their struggle was on. Hezbollah’s stated objective was to advance the cause of Shi’i Islam, purge Lebanon of corruption and foreign influence and found a state for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees created when the new state of Israel was set up by Britain and the U.S. Hezbollah refused to cooperate with the U.S. It became allied to Iran, and then to Syria just as the U.S. and Israel sought to overthrow Syria’s Assad government. The so-called “conservative” Arab regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf—all of them under Washington’s thumb—were terrified by Hezbollah and other Muslim reformist movements.
Israel targeted Hezbollah for special attention after its forces invaded Lebanon three times and were bloodied by effective resistance from Hezbollah fighters armed with improved infantry weapons. Hezbollah became the “bête noire” in Washington, which relied heavily on Israeli intelligence data for its views of the Mideast.
Now, Israel is trying to provoke Iran into a larger war and drag in the U.S. as well. Iran’s nuclear facilities and its oil industry would be prime targets. Israel’s hard right is calling for the destruction of Iran’s industrial base and the overthrow of its Shi’i theocracy. This is pretty rich coming from a nation dominated by far-right religious parties that want to return Israel to its biblical borders.
The bottom line here is that Iran huffs and puffs but has amazingly little
military capability after over half a century of punitive Western sanctions. Tehran will keep on dodging Israeli provocations. But the next ones could be aimed at Iran’s Shi’i leadership. The low-IQ legislators who make up the U.S. Congress will clap like trained seals when this happens.
In fact, watching the conflict between Iran and Israel reminds me vividly of the 19th century Zulu and Sudan Wars in which British troops used quick-fire artillery and maxim machine guns to mow down their hapless, spear-armed African opponents.
Israel’s Attack on Lebanon Using Exploding Electronics Is Part Of a Long History And Strategy of Targeting Civilians
BY JONATHAN OFIR
The massive unfolding attack in Lebanon targeting personal electronics belonging to members of Hezbollah, which has so far killed at least 20 people and wounded roughly 3,000, is already beyond doubt Israel’s work. The attack that began on Tuesday has continued into a second day, with more reports of other personal communication devices exploding, killing at least nine people and injuring dozens of others at a funeral on Wednesday for people who had been killed in the first attack the day prior.
The ongoing attack, which can only be described as terrorist in nature, is unprecedented in its scope and method, but the nature of its indiscriminate attack is far from unique for Israel. In fact, Israel’s doctrine of inflicting massive harm to civilians is named after the area of Beirut, Dahiya, where this very attack was centered. The most recent development marks a shocking advancement in Israel’s wholesale disregard for human life but it is not new, even if you would never learn that from reading the Western press.
WESTERN MEDIA SPIN
The New York Times team of Patrick Kingsley, Euan Ward, Ronen Bergman and Michael Levenson covered the attack, and while they did name Israel as the culprit, it worked to include Israel’s blatantly false P.R. angle that it was a targeted attack.
The Times reported:
“According to American and other officials briefed on the attack, Israel hid explosive material in a shipment of Taiwanesemade pagers imported into Lebanon. The explosive material, as little as one or two ounces, was inserted next to the battery in each pager, two of the officials said. The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from the Gold Apollo company in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon, according to some of the officials. According to one official, Israel calculated that the risk of harming people not affiliated with Hezbollah was low, given the size of the explosive.”
The Times also wrote that “the blasts appeared to be the latest salvo in a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that escalated after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7,” giving this an aura of mere military activity, rather than a blatantly imprecise and deadly attack on a civilian population. American whistleblower Edward Snowden, cited on this site yesterday, correctly summarized the focus and impact of the attack:
“What Israel has just done is, via *any* method, reckless. They blew up countless numbers of people who were driving (meaning cars out of control), shopping
(your children are in the stroller standing behind him in the checkout line), et cetera. Indistinguishable from terrorism.”
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara provided a reality check, perhaps most pertinent for Western audiences:
“For our viewers around the world, it is probably helpful to do some ‘role-play’ here. Imagine if 1,200 people, active in the Pentagon, State Dept. and CIA, had pagers explode in their faces, arms and abdominals. How would you think the U.S. would feel about that?”
The Times notes Israel’s “long history of using technology to carry out covert operations against Iran and Iranianbacked groups” as if it were some impressive technological achievement. But really, in order to understand what Israel is doing here, we must look at its track record of indiscriminate attacks. And this is, in fact, not only historically relevant but strategically and geographically relevant as well.
THE PATH FROM INDISCRIMINATE ATTACKS TO GENOCIDE
The name of the Dahiya Doctrine stems from the Dahiya quarter of Beirut that Israel targeted and leveled during the 2006 war, a quarter where many families affiliated with Hezbollah lived. In 2008, then-military Chief of Northern Command Gadi Eisenkot (later chief of staff and centrist minister) coined the doctrine and outlined “what will happen” to any enemy that dares attack Israel:
“What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on…We will apply disproportionate force on [the village] and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases.”
Israel applied this method already in its 2008-9 Gaza onslaught. The U.N. “Goldstone Report” of 2009 concluded that Israel had conducted a “deliberately disproportionate attack, designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population,” and noted that the Dahiya Doctrine “ap-
pears to have been precisely what was put into practice.” Just to reiterate: “Punish, humiliate and terrorize.” That last word, “terrorize,” should give us all pause, especially in this particular context.
The recent Gaza onslaught has in its way been the implementation of this doctrine into full-blown genocide. This is not surprising, since the vein of deliberate harm to civilians as a logic of “warfare” has been in the DNA of this doctrine to begin with.
So now, Israel is blowing up pagers. The prospect of this being called an act of terror by Western media appears to be very low. That is still considered a radical notion when it comes to Israel, because terror is a political term that is only reserved for enemies of the West. For the readers of The New York Times, it is just a “latest salvo” and not a reflection on the nature of Israel itself.
Priming Hezbollah Pagers to Explode Is a Genius Move. But It’s Also an Israeli Failure
BY YOSSI MELMAN
The near-simultaneous explosion of 3,000 to 4,000 pagers used by Hezbollah operatives, including top commanders, followed the next day by the self-detonation of hand-held radio devices, could have been a brilliant and innovative operation, showing that for imaginative spycraft planners the sky is really the limit. But its implementation was wrong, and the whole project is un-
likely to live up to its planners’ expectations as a strategic game-changer.
The two days of blasts across Lebanon are attributed to Israel’s Mossad. This assumption is based on precedent: According to foreign reports, the Israeli intelligence community, led by Mossad, executed similar operations in the past aimed at disrupting, infiltrating and sabotaging Hezbollah and Iran’s communication lines and materiel.
Hezbollah, its mentor Iran, and Israel have been playing cat-and-mouse with communications and cybersecurity for decades. After the second Lebanon war of 2006, Hezbollah exposed the communication gear used to run agents for Israel and exchange messages between them.
Hezbollah, with the help of Iranian engineers, built its own new communication lines and equipment. Two years later, Iran found that a virus had been planted in the computers of the centrifuges enriching uranium in Iran’s Natanz plant. The virus, known as Stuxnet, damaged the spinning centrifuges and paralyzed them for several months.
Such sophisticated operations, involving software and hardware, are planned over a long period and require the most skillful, advanced engineers, programmers, scientists and agents in the field.
One can assume that planning and preparing the Hezbollah pagers and radio devices operation, which in intelligence parlance is known as infrastructure operations, took a considerable period of time, probably many years, maybe even a decade.
Also based on past precedent and foreign reports, it is likely that the Mossad had used front companies for missions intended to penetrate, “poison” and damage enemy systems and equipment. It opens a company which appears to be completely innocuous and legitimate, equipped with offices, phones, computers and purchasing agents. They even sometime erect their own warehouses and manufacture equipment.
The Mossad sells to the enemy genuine, flawless equipment in order to gain its trust. After some time, the front company sends in subsequent shipments flawed machines or, in the case of the pagers and radio devices, machines that contain a small amount of explosives to be activated when the right moment arrives and the right signal is given.
It is widely assumed that the Mossad created the front company which, as reported, was located in Hungary. Hezbollah, along with its Iranian counterparts, are conducting counter-espionage investigations which may lead to the discovery of more Mossad networks, assets, front companies and infrastructure which could have links to the Hungarian one.
Hezbollah knows that from a technological point of view, it is no match for Israel’s high-tech powerhouse. They have realized time and again that they have become transparent for the eyes and ears of Israeli intelligence, and that their communication networks have been infiltrated.
This was the reason that they decided to partly switch from using contemporary communications devices, like mobile phones and computers— which can be easily detected and hacked—to simpler systems like pagers, considered today a throwback “technology.” Beepers were outdated 20 years ago, but, like analogue phones, the pagers are more difficult to crack.
I assume that operations of such breadth and depth are intended to be a weapon of ultimate surprise, which can be used only once. Once it is used, the methodology is exposed and a precious intelligence asset is burned.
Whoever carried out the operation prepared it for the fateful moment that a full-scale war breaks out with Hezbollah. It was aimed to be an opening strike to shock the enemy, sow confusion and chaos among its ranks and to use their weakened circumstances to inflict a much bigger blow.
That’s what Israel did in 1967 at the start of the Six-Day War. Israel’s air force surprised Egypt with a pre-emp-
tive strike which destroyed 400 war planes which were sitting like ducks on the tarmac. Within three hours the Egyptian air force was finished, enabling Israel’s land forces to cross into Sinai and conquer it within six days.
That’s what should have happened with the Hezbollah pagers. In my opinion, the operation should have been just the opening shot of a larger campaign which would begin immediately. It didn’t happen and the element of shock and surprise of this unique tool was wasted. Why? Why such an unwise order was given?
Assuming that it was Israel behind the operation, my conclusion is that it was Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who pushed the trigger. It is well-known and well-documented that Netanyahu is primarily interested in improving his standing in the polls to hold on to power, despite his colossal failures and with the corruption charges against him. In other words, as we’ve witnessed in the past, the prime minister is ready to sacrifice vital national security interests in order to show off and reap populist acclaim.
Hours after the pagers exploded, media reports appeared claiming that the operation was activated because Hezbollah operatives suspected a flaw in, or contamination of, the devices. Assuming that the Mossad is responsible for the operation, I believe these reports were a spin leaked by Netanyahu’s people to deflect the accusation that the operation was prematurely activated. In other words, the purpose of the reports was to explain that the planners and the decision makers had no choice but to execute the operation right now.
If this is what happened, one wonders where were the chief of staff Herzl Halevi and Mossad head David Barnea to slam on the brakes and advise Netanyahu not to prematurely activate such a priceless jewel in the crown.
The original purpose of this operation was to save Israeli lives. If and when Israel intends to invade Lebanon with boots on the ground, Hezbollah
will respond by launching a massive bombardment of hundreds, if not thousands, of rockets, missiles and drones hitting Israeli soldiers and civilians all over the country. The central tool in Hezbollah’s command and control systems were the pagers and radio devices which would have been activated to direct the attack. Israel appears to have successfully sabotaged the pagers, thus inhibiting, even if partially, the Hezbollah strike.
But now this impressive tool has been exposed, Hezbollah and Iran will do their homework, draw operational and intelligence lessons, purchase another and safer communication system, and whoever was behind the attack will have to start from scratch.
Yesterday, Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s assassination in Beirut of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah last week and its assassination in Tehran of Hamas’ political chief Ismail Haniyeh in July.
United States President Joe Biden instructed the U.S. military to assist Israel in neutralizing the missiles—not that Israel is not already equipped with various layers of ultra-sophisticated protection against incoming projectiles, which permit it to go about slaughtering folks left and right while suffering minimal damage in return.
During a news briefing at the White House, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan announced that U.S. naval destroyers had “joined Israeli air defense units in firing interceptors to shoot down in-bound missiles.” Praising the “professionalism” of the Israeli military, Sullivan also lauded the “skilled work of the U.S. military and
meticulous joint planning in anticipation of the attack.”
Of course, not once has it occurred to the Biden administration to meticulously thwart Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where officially more than 41,000 people have been killed in less than a year, although the true death toll is without a doubt exorbitantly higher. Nor has the oh-so-skilled U.S. military deemed it necessary to interfere in the wanton butchery currently going down in Lebanon, where Israel just killed more than 700 people in less than a week.
And while many an international observer has sounded the alarm that the U.S. could now be “dragged” into a regional war—warnings that will only increase after the Iranian missile attack— in reality the U.S. is not really being “dragged” anywhere.
Rather, the U.S. is in a position entirely of its own making. And the fact of the matter is that the U.S. is already at war.
To be sure, even prior to the launch of the genocide, the U.S. habit of flinging billions of dollars at the Israeli military on an annual basis long ago made it transparently complicit in Israeli efforts to disappear Palestine. Since Oct. 7, the billions have only multiplied, despite Biden’s intermittent squawking about cutting off the supply of certain offensive weaponry to Israel.
In August, the Biden administration approved a $20 billion weapons package to its Israeli partner in crime. And on Sept. 26, the Reuters news agency reported Israel’s announcement that “it had secured an $8.7 billion aid package from the United States to support its ongoing military efforts and to maintain a qualitative military edge in the region.”
The package was said to include “$3.5 billion for essential wartime procurement…and $5.2 billion designated for air defense systems including the Iron Dome anti-missile system, David’s Sling and an advanced laser system.”
In other words, Israel will be increasingly well-poised to “defend” itself against legitimate responses to its own
actions—actions that quite literally qualify as terrorism.
In the end, it’s not rocket science: the financial and military support consistently extended to Israel by the U.S. does not denote a country that is being “dragged” into a conflict. It denotes a country that is, for all intents and purposes, an active belligerent in the conflict.
The U.S. also lent a helping military hand to Israel back in April, when Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles in response to a lethal Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. On this occasion, too, Iran was widely cast in the role of terrorist aggressor— and never mind the retaliatory nature of its action.
It is meanwhile helpful to recall that the U.S. has for decades done a fine job of “dragging” itself into regional war— the 2003 U.S. pulverization of Iraq comes to mind—so it should come as no surprise to once again find the country front and center against a backdrop of mass slaughter. From American drone attacks on weddings in Yemen to rush shipments of bombs to the Israeli military in 2006 to aid in the ravaging of Lebanon, it seems the U.S. has never met a Middle Eastern conflict it was not excited about.
And although the Biden administration continues to claim ad nauseam that it desires a cease-fire in Gaza, the road to a cease-fire in a case of genocide does not go through billions upon billions of dollars in weaponry to the genocidal party.
At the briefing on Tuesday, Sullivan warned that: “There will be severe consequences for this attack and we will work with Israel to make that the case.” Translation: The U.S. will carry on doing its part to escalate regional havoc in tandem with Israel and force more, um, “consequences.”
Sullivan also stressed that this was a “fog of war” situation, and that he reserved the right to “amend and adjust as necessary” his initial assessment.
But in the fog of the latest war one thing, at least, is clear: the U.S. is already a primary belligerent.
Blinken Lied to Congress About Israeli War Crimes Because He Knows He’ll Get Away With It
BY CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
As Israel butchers hundreds of civilians in its latest attacks on Lebanon, leaked documents have surfaced revealing that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken knowingly lied to Congress about Israel’s siege warfare against civilians in Gaza.
ProPublica’s Brett Murphy, who has been covering aspects of this story for months, has a new article out titled “Israel Deliberately Blocked Humanitarian Aid to Gaza, Two Government Bodies Concluded. Antony Blinken Rejected Them.” In it we learn that both USAID and the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration produced two separate reports this past spring concluding that Israel was deliberately blocking much-needed humanitarian aid from Palestinian civilians in Gaza, which under U.S. law should have led to the suspension of U.S. weapons supplies. Blinken dismissed these find-
ings, as did the rest of the headless cohort known as the Biden administration.
Days after receiving these reports, Blinken delivered a statement to Congress that he knew to be false, saying, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”
This was a lie. Blinken’s own people were telling him Israel was obstructing aid, but he lied to Congress about it in order to ensure that Israel would keep receiving the weapons it needs to keep killing Palestinian and Lebanese civilians.
This is what happens when you don’t prosecute your war criminals. Blinken lied to Congress that Israel wasn’t assessed to have been blocking aid when both USAID and the State Department’s refugees bureau had indeed assessed that the Israeli government is doing precisely that, because he knew he’d never be jailed for lying in facilitation of horrific war crimes.
Blinken has watched George W. Bush’s entire cabinet not only walk free but continue to have high-profile careers in government, punditry, think tanks and the military-industrial complex, when they all should have been caged for two decades now. He watched CIA officials like Michael Hayden lie to Congress about the agency’s torture program without ever facing any consequences. He watched Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lie to Congress about the NSA’s surveillance program without ever facing any consequences. He knew he could lie to Congress about some of the worst atrocities his nation has ever participated in because he knew there would never be any consequences for this.
None of the world’s worst people are in prison, but if you ever did anything to try to bring them to justice yourself you’d spend the rest of your life behind bars, or be executed. The law doesn’t exist to protect ordinary people from the worst of our society, it exists to protect the worst of our society from ordinary people.
It’s worth noting here that while powerful men in Washington break the
law and lie in facilitation of mass atrocities, the U.S. is executing Black men without evidence of their guilt. The state of Missouri just executed a man named Marcellus Williams despite objections from prosecutors, jurors and the victim’s own family due to a lack of solid evidence that he actually committed the murder he was convicted of. Days earlier, Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah was executed in North Carolina despite the key witness in his case recanting his testimony against him.
Both men were Black, and both men were Muslim. As men with white skin lie with impunity to help butcher brown-skinned civilians in the Middle East, I personally find this noteworthy.
This has been going on a long time. In 1902, the renowned attorney Clarence Darrow said the following in a speech to inmates at the Cook County Jail in Chicago:
“Those men who own the earth make the laws to protect what they have. They fix up a sort of fence or pen around what they have, and they fix the law so the fellow on the outside cannot get in. The laws are really organized for the protection of the men who rule the world. They were never organized or enforced to do justice. We have no system for doing justice, not the slightest in the world.”
It’s just as true in 2024 as it was in 1902.
Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian opinion writer whose work, co-authored with her American husband, Tim Foley, is entirely reader-supported. Her newsletter is available on Substack and her website is <www.caitlin johnstone.com.au>. This article was first published on both sites, Sept. 25, 2024. Reprinted with permission.
CAIR Calls for Ousting of “Notoriously Orientalist” Biden Middle East Adviser
BY SHARON ZHANG
Advocates are calling for the ousting of a top Biden administration official who has acted as the “shadow president” on Middle East policy, directing much of the administration’s decisions in the region as the U.S. has enabled Israel to plunge it into chaos and destruction.
On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that Middle East adviser Brett McGurk “must go” after Politico reported that he’s been encouraging Israeli officials to escalate their fighting against Hezbollah and Lebanon.
“President Biden’s Middle East foreign policy has been a disaster, partly because he has surrounded himself with notoriously Orientalist and consistently wrong advisers like Bush administration veteran Brett McGurk,” said Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director for CAIR.
“McGurk has acted as a shadow president on foreign policy for nearly four years, enabling President Biden’s worst instincts while pursuing a delusional vision of a Middle East permanently remade in McGurk’s Orientalist image,” Mitchell went on. “McGurk needs to go.”
McGurk is relatively unknown to the public, but he has been instrumental to Biden’s policies on Israel and, broadly, the Middle East.
He has served in every presidential administration since George W. Bush, first as a director for Iraq and Afghanistan policy under Bush, and now as the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. HuffPost described him as “one of the most powerful people in U.S. national security,” who crafts options for the administration’s approach to the region in order to advance his grand vision of a Middle East molded to his interests, regardless of the wishes of the people and sovereign governments there.
McGurk has been heavily involved in the U.S.’s policy toward Israel, and earlier this year had been pushing a plan to allow wealthy countries like
Saudi Arabia to reconstruct Gaza after the genocide. Progressives in Congress had tried to get a campaign to oust McGurk off the ground earlier this year, seeing him as a primary source of the U.S.’s fueling of unrest and tensions in the Middle East.
Advocates for Palestinian rights have called for the removal of several Biden administration officials as they’ve seemingly purposefully violated domestic and international law in order to enable Israel’s genocide.
Last week, calls for Secretary of State Antony Blinken to resign or be impeached reached a fever pitch after the publishing of a bombshell ProPublica report. The report revealed that he lied to Congress about internal administration findings that Israel had committed human rights violations and should thus face a partial or full arms embargo.
Among those who called for his resignation were CAIR and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), who said: “[Blinken] lied. People went hungry, and some died. He needs to resign now.”
This week, Veterans for Peace also called for consequences for Blinken’s role in Israel’s genocide. In a letter, the group called for the Department of Justice to assemble a grand jury to investigate and potentially indict Blinken and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for violations of U.S. law regarding military assistance and for lying to Congress, citing the ProPublica report.
Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. She can be found on Twitter: @zhang_sharon. This article was first posted at <www.truthout.org>, Oct. 2, 2024, under a Creative Commons license. Reprinted with permission.
Cheney’s Policies
As VP Caused Immense Human
Suffering on a Global Scale
BY ZIYAD MOTALA
In an unsurprising yet telling development, Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney has thrown his support behind the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, over his party’s candidate, framing former President Donald Trump as an unprecedented threat to the United States. On its face, this endorsement might appear as a principled defense of democracy from a longstanding Republican stalwart. But beneath the surface lies a troubling irony.
Cheney, the architect of some of the most disastrous foreign and domestic policies of the early 21st century, now seeks to claim the moral high ground. The legacy of his policies—particularly the havoc unleashed during the Iraq war and the broader “war on terror”— continues to reverberate globally, causing suffering and instability that far surpass anything Trump has wrought to date.
During Tuesday’s presidential debate, Harris proudly touted Dick Cheney’s endorsement as a badge of honor—a moment as baffling as it was revealing.
Embracing a man whose policies left a trail of death and destabilization in their wake as a champion of American values lacks any semblance of moral clarity. Cheney, whose hands are stained with the blood of countless innocents from Iraq to Guantanamo, who undermined American democracy and terrorized countless innocent Americans under the “war on terror,” should not be celebrated, especially by someone seeking the mantle of progressive leadership.
Cheney’s tenure as vice president under George W. Bush is synonymous with neoconservative ambition, a vision of American dominance built on military intervention and disregard for international law. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 is perhaps the most glaring example of this approach. Alongside President Bush, Cheney pushed for a war based on false premises, most notably the existence of
weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq, and a supposed link between Saddam Hussain’s regime and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Both claims were categorically debunked in the years that followed, yet the human and financial costs of the war are staggering.
Estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths range from hundreds of thousands to well over a million, depending on the source. This war destabilized an entire region, paving the way for the rise of extremist groups like ISIL (ISIS) and contributing to ongoing cycles of violence and displacement. The political vacuum created by the toppling of Hussain remains unfilled, as Iraq continues to grapple with internal conflicts and external influences.
Domestically, the costs were equally profound. The war drained trillions from the United States economy, money that could have been directed toward infrastructure, education or healthcare. Thousands of U.S. troops lost their lives, and many more returned with life-altering physical and psychological wounds. Veterans of the Iraq conflict have some of the highest rates of PTSD and suicide among recent generations of American soldiers, underscoring the toll of this misadventure.
And yet, those celebrating Cheney’s endorsement of Harris over Trump are now portraying him as a defender of democracy, as if the destabilizing effects of his policies were somehow a lesser evil. The truth is that while Trump’s brand of populist nationalism has damaged the social fabric of the United States, the neoconservative project Cheney helped lead caused immense human suffering on a global scale—far beyond anything Trump has so far accomplished.
Cheney’s endorsement of Harris, framed as a repudiation of Trump’s divisiveness, conveniently ignores his own role in eroding civil liberties in the U.S. and across the world.
One of Cheney’s signature policies, the “war on terror,” brought with it the expansion of executive power and a
profound shift in the relationship between the American government and its citizens—especially Muslim Americans.
The PATRIOT Act, passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, granted the U.S. government sweeping surveillance powers, many of which were abused in the name of national security. Cheney was one of the most ardent advocates of these measures, arguing that extraordinary threats required extraordinary responses. In practice, these measures disproportionately targeted minorities, particularly Muslim Americans.
Programs like the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) singled out men from predominantly Muslim countries, leading to widespread racial profiling and unconstitutional detentions. Muslim communities in the U.S. were left to bear the brunt of Cheney’s overreach, living under a cloud of suspicion that persists to this day.
Internationally, the “war on terror” led to even graver abuses. Cheney oversaw the use of torture in U.S. military operations. “Enhanced interrogation techniques,” such as waterboarding, were deployed at facilities like Guantanamo Bay and CIA black sites across the globe. These practices violated basic human rights and international law, leaving a stain on America’s global reputation. Many of the individuals detained and tortured were never formally charged with any crime. To this day, Guantanamo Bay remains a symbol of injustice, where detainees languish without trial or meaningful recourse.
The erosion of civil liberties Cheney helped to engineer not only devastated communities but also created a culture of fear that Trump later capitalized on during his rise to power. Anti-Muslim rhetoric, which played a key role in Trump’s 2016 campaign, has its roots in the fear-mongering that Cheney and his neoconservative allies perpetuated during the Bush administration. In this sense, the groundwork for Trump’s policies on immigration and national security was laid by Cheney himself.
When examining Cheney’s legacy, no issue looms larger than the invasion of Iraq. The war, waged on false pretences, remains one of the costliest misadventures in modern American history. Under Cheney’s influence, the Bush administration sidelined diplomacy, dismissing warnings from the international community and bypassing the United Nations Security Council. The war not only violated international law but also undermined the very principles of sovereignty and self-determination that the U.S. purported to champion.
The ripple effects of the Iraq war are still being felt today. The instability it created in the Middle East has made it fertile ground for extremist groups, leading to a proliferation of violence that has engulfed nations far beyond Iraq’s borders. The rise of ISIL, the ongoing Syrian civil war, and the refugee crisis that has strained Europe can all be traced back, at least in part, to the power vacuum created by the toppling of Hussain.
Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence of the war’s catastrophic consequences, Cheney has never fully reckoned with his role in bringing about this disaster. By endorsing Harris, he is attempting to paint himself as a responsible elder statesman, but his track record tells a different story—one of hubris, miscalculation and indifference to human suffering.
One of the reasons Cheney’s endorsement may resonate with some Democrats and centrists is the perception that Trump represents an existential threat to American democracy. Trump’s brand of populism, his encouragement of far-right extremism, and his open disregard for democratic norms have indeed damaged the political fabric of the U.S. However, Cheney’s legacy of violence and imperialism abroad, coupled with his domestic assault on civil liberties, presents a far more troubling picture of the threats to democracy.
Trump’s most egregious actions have played out on American soil, targeting immigrants, people of color and mar-
ginalized groups. His rhetoric has fueled political violence and stoked deep divisions within American society. But the scope of Cheney’s policies, especially those that played out on the world stage, exceeds Trump’s in terms of sheer human suffering. The wars Cheney championed, particularly the Iraq war, claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced millions. The torture and surveillance programs he helped oversee have left a lasting legacy of fear and suspicion, both at home and abroad.
What makes Cheney’s endorsement, and the Democratic Party’s embrace of it, particularly galling is the way in which they gloss over these past sins in order to paint him as a guardian of American values. While Trump’s rhetoric and policies may have caused harm within the U.S., Cheney’s decisions inflicted untold suffering on far more people all across the globe. The selective moral outrage they direct at Trump, while embracing Cheney as a savior of democracy, is a testament to the hypocrisy of the liberal political establishment in the country.
As we navigate American politics, we must be careful not to view figures like Cheney solely through a partisan lens. His critique of Trump, while valid in some respects, cannot erase the devastating impact of his own policies. Cheney’s endorsement of Harris should not be interpreted as an act of moral courage, but rather as a cynical attempt to rehabilitate his public image in the face of a deeply divided country.
Ultimately, both Trump and Cheney represent different forms of danger to American democracy and global stability. While Trump has undeniably stoked internal divisions and undermined democratic norms, Cheney’s actions as vice president set the stage for some of the most catastrophic conflicts of the 21st century. His policies eroded civil liberties, violated human rights, and destabilized entire regions, leaving a legacy of fear and instability that continues to haunt the world today.
The Democratic Party and some of its liberal and progressive backers’ apparent decision to absolve Cheney of any responsibility for the havoc he unleashed on the world simply because he now opposes Trump is devoid of morality. Both men have caused irreparable harm, and neither should be celebrated for their actions. Instead, we should take this moment to reflect on the broader failures of the political system that allowed both Cheney and Trump to rise to power in the first place. Only then can we begin to chart a course toward a more just and equitable future.
Debate in Nuclear-armed Former Colony Fails to Reassure Global Community
BY PATRICK GATHARA
Efforts to restore democracy to the United States, a troubled, oil-rich former British colony with a history of political violence, may have suffered a serious setback this week after yet another chaotic presidential debate, some Americanists say.
Held in the relatively stable northeastern state of Pennsylvania on the eve of the 23rd anniversary of the country’s worst terrorist attack, the debate was a chance to showcase the democratic progress the country had
made since the violent, shambolic elections and attempted coup nearly four years ago.
However, it got off to a less than stellar start. The three moderate candidates in the race—Jill Stein, Cornel West and Chase Oliver—were barred from participating. Instead, the contest pitted the two front-runners: former President Donald Trump, the candidate of the far-white Republican Party, widely thought to be the political wing of white-Christianist militias, and Kamala Harris, the current vice president, who led a palace coup two months ago that forced the aging, unpopular incumbent, President Joe Biden, to abandon his quest for re-election.
During the debate, moderators drawn from the U.S. media, once considered one of the most vibrant in the region, struggled to get Trump and Harris to answer questions about their views and policies, and the session at times degenerated into name-calling, fearmongering and outright lying. The two candidates traded insults, incited anti-China sentiment, differed over women’s rights and whether the country is facing an invasion by hordes of violent, pet-eating criminal immigrants, and agreed on backing the genocidal regime in Israel. There was little articulation by either candidate of a coherent vision for the country.
Now with Americans watching the spectacle unlikely to be impressed by the quality of leadership delivered by democracy, there are fears the country could resume its slide into autocracy. Before the debate, polls showed the two candidates locked in a dead heat. After the debate, the data show they are in fact deadlocked in a race to the bottom. It is indisputable that voters who watched the debate came away disillusioned by the choices they face. In a poll conducted immediately after the event, only 45 percent say they were left with a positive view of Harris, who many believe won the debate. Trump fared worse—only seen positively by 39 percent. In a sign of just how concerned elite Americans are
about the declining faith in democracy, Taylor Swift, a local celebrity, took to social media immediately after the debate to endorse Harris and urge her fellow citizens not to give up hope but instead do research and make a choice.
Propping up democracy in the U.S. has long been a vital priority for safeguarding global peace, given its linchpin status in the Caucasian bloc. Analysts say allowing autocracy to once again flourish in North America and in the ethnostates of sub-Scandinavian Europe could lead to yet another allout Caucasian tribal conflict that would draw in the rest of the international community—a third world war.
Further raising the stakes, the Caucasian bloc is home to four rogue nuclear-armed nations—the U.S., United Kingdom, France and Russia—which are in violation of their commitment to disarm under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. There are concerns over what would happen should these weapons fall into the hands of white-wing Christianist groups.
In the coming weeks, the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will begin in the nearby city of New York, and during the high-level week when heads of state take to the podium for the general debate, how to rebuild faith in democracy in the U.S. is expected to be high on the agenda. Given the failure of the internationally recognized Biden regime to enact crucial electoral reforms to prevent a repeat of the 2020 fiasco, the UNGA may be the last chance for the world to help save the U.S. from itself and put the long-suffering American people on a better path to peace and stability.
ON SEPTEMBER 4, Portland, Maine, became the first city on the East Coast and the fourth in the nation to pass a resolution to divest from entities implicated in Israel’s myriad violations of international law. Introduced by Councilor April Fournier, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, the bill calls on Portland’s city manager to divest from “all entities complicit in the current and ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza” for as long as “the occupation of the Palestinian Territories and the violations of human rights” continues.
The resolution was sponsored by the Maine Coalition for Palestine (MCP), comprised of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Southern Maine Workers Center, Veterans for Peace, Party for Socialism and Liberation and 12 other grassroots organizations.
More than 80 Israeli and American entities are listed in the bill, including Barclays, Boeing, Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Volvo, General Dynamics, the Bank of Jerusalem and General Electric.
General Dynamics’ inclusion on the divestment list is particularly notable because its subsidiary, Bath Iron Works (BIW), is one of Maine’s largest private sector employers. A shipyard that primarily manufactures vessels for the U.S. Navy, BIW has been protested by MCP activists numerous times over the past year. MCP has also demonstrated at General Dynamics’ Weapons Systems plant in Saco, Maine, which provides “advanced, technology-led defense, aerospace and security solutions that empower the U.S. military and its allies,” according to its website.
The divestment resolution is not the first time Portland has addressed Israel’s war on Gaza. In January, the City Council voted on a resolution that urged the Biden administration and Congress to facilitate an immediate ceasefire, hostage release and unhindered flow of humanitarian aid. Brought forward by Councilor Pious Ali, the Portland City Council adopted the ceasefire resolution unanimously.
Portland Mayor Mark Dion, a City Councilor and former sheriff, opened the decisive meeting to public comment with an appeal
Jack McGrath is a staff writer for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Middle East Books and More assistant director.
Mainers testify in support of divestment at the Portland City Council meeting.
for civility. Dion requested that attendees, who filled the chamber and overflow rooms to capacity, show respect toward the proceedings and each other. “Everyone’s entitled in this chamber to equal access to this voice, and I’ll enforce that,” he said.
Public comments showed varying degrees of adherence to Dion’s ground rules. Jake Webber, a member of Maine DSA’s Palestine working group, recalled that “one guy with an [Israel Defense Forces] dog tag and an American flag around his waist started taunting the pro-Palestine crowd directly from the mic and the Mayor yelled at him,” prompting applause from the audience. “Another guy misspoke and said that Hamas built a bunker underneath the U.N.,” while a third stated that “October 7th was worse than the Holocaust.” David Klein, the head of WEX Venture Capital, called the resolution anti-Semitic because it “singles out Israel among all the nations for censure and divestment.”
Abby Alfred, a Jewish consultant at BCT Partners, argued in favor of the measure. “It is not anti-Semitic to divest from any company or other entity that is profiting from the murder of children… it is the least we can do.”
Dean Haleem, the Palestinian owner of TIQA restaurant in Portland, voiced his support for divestment. “What Israel is doing now is genocide,” he said. “I am pleading with you to make sure that none of my tax contributions are ever used to fund the extermination of my ethnic group.”
Jamila Levasseur, a Jewish descendant of Holocaust survivors and the wife of anti-imperialist militant Ray Luc Levasseur (whose organization, the United Freedom Front, bombed numerous institutions complicit in South African apartheid), spoke in support of the resolution. Describing Israel’s devastation of Gaza as “another Holocaust,” Levasseur endorsed divestment as “a powerful tool to bring peace and justice to all of Palestine.”
After more than three hours of emotionally charged public comments, the City Council entered deliberations. The MCP turned out in droves for the meeting, with a number of members giving prepared remarks before the Council. Of the 72 people who spoke during the public comment period, 53 supported divestment and 19 opposed the resolution.
The Portland City Council voted unanimously in favor of divestment. “I don’t harbor any fantasy that we’re changing the economic playing field for those who invest in providing arms and supplies to the effort in Gaza,” Dion said. “The reason I’m voting yes [is] because I think it’s important that we say it’s enough and to send a signal. Maybe it encourages one of our federal delegations to speak up and say what needs to be said.”
City Finance Director Brendan O’Connell noted that Portland does not currently hold investments in the listed organizations, although it has in the past. The resolution still serves a preventative purpose by urging the “City Manager to not make any future directly held general fund investment” in the entities.
In a press release following the resolution’s passage, MCP pointed out the disconnect between public sentiment and policy, observing that “Maine Senators Susan Collins (R) and Angus King (I), and Representative Jared Golden (D) accept significant campaign contributions from the Israel lobby ($647,758, $231,276 and $615,120 respectively), and they have refused to listen to their
constituents’ demands to stop the killing of children in Palestine.”
“As Jews in Portland, we have immense gratitude for the Portland City Council’s resolution to divest municipal funds from the Israeli government and corporations complicit in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians,” said Sarah Snyder, a spokesperson for the Maine chapter of JVP.
“Just as the people of the world spoke to end South African apartheid with economic pressure, we must do the same for Israeli apartheid and genocide.” ■
Alexandria City Council: Divest From Apartheid Genocidal Israel!
By Dr. Rosemarie M. Esber
THE STUDENTS’ CHANT Disclose, Divest! We will not stop! We will not rest!—was prominent during the worldwide university encampments in solidarity with the Palestinians. The students’ demands for their universities to divest from apartheid Israel is gaining momentum at local levels across the United States. Human rights activists are demanding that their respective cities and states divest from Israel, which is committing daily violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws.
Across the river from Washington, DC, in Virginia, a diverse group of residents coalesced in early October 2023 to form the Alexandria for Palestinian Human Rights (Alx4P) collective. Soon after Israel commenced its genocide in Gaza, following Hamas’ October 7 attack in Israel, Alx4P asked the Alexandria Human Rights Commission (HRC) to recommend a Gaza ceasefire resolution to City Council.
CITY COUNCIL IGNORES ALEXANDRIA HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION
In March 2024, after months of discussion and public comments, the citizen-member HRC voted in favor of a “Recommendation to join Representative Don Beyer in a call for a long-lasting ceasefire in Gaza.” The seven-member Alexandria City Council, led by Mayor Justin Wilson, ignored the HRC’s recommendation and refused to discuss its residents’ repeated pleas at City Council Public Hearings or in private meetings with Council members to support a ceasefire resolution. Alx4P believes that a ceasefire resolution in Alexandria would be particularly impactful because many members of the Biden–Harris administration and Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) are city residents. To date, Alexandria City Council has taken no action on the HRC’s recommendation to call for a ceasefire resolution in Gaza.
DIVEST FROM ISRAEL NOW!
After the summer recess, Alx4P returned to City Council Public Hearings to ask the City Council to divest the City of Alexandria
Rosemarie M. Esber, Ph.D., is the author of Under the Cover of War: The Zionist Expulsion of the Palestinians (Arabicus 2009). Her second book, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Palestinians, is forthcom‐ing in 2025.
from investments in Israel. Alx4P and supporters showed up to city hall in large numbers on Sept. 14, 2024, with “Divest Now” signs. During public comment, Colleen Moore asked the City Council to urge the Virginia State Senate in its January 2025 legislative package to divest the Local Government Investment Pool from apartheid and genocide. Moore traveled to Jerusalem and occupied Palestine this year with a delegation of United Methodist and Presbyterian leaders. She stated that Virginia invests taxpayer dollars in companies that are directly responsible for human rights violations, including Caterpillar, Toyota, Airbnb and Lockheed Martin. Caterpillar bulldozers routinely demolish Palestinian homes and infrastructure in violation of international law.
Treyvon Jordan, a new resident to Alexandria, called for divestment from companies that profit from Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. He said, “No one is safe in Palestine—not the innocents, not the U.N., not even American citizens.” Jordan, an attorney and Marine Corps veteran, said the economic divestment from apartheid South Africa is a blueprint for actions that have worked in the recent past to end apartheid. Fern Faiz said he has faced Islamophobia since he was a child in the wake of 9/11. Watching the brutal murder of Palestinians and the silence of elected officials tells people like him that their deaths are justifiable, leading him to feel unsafe at home in Alexandria.
Seth M. expressed his disappointment in the city’s failure to pass a ceasefire resolution but was not surprised by the United States’ indifference to genocide. His grandmother was born in Breslau, Germany in the 1930s. Her family was able to sail from Hamburg on the St. Louis ocean liner to Cuba with more than 900 mostly Jewish refugees. But Cuba refused to accept the refugees’ landing
permits. The United States turned the ship away from the Florida coast, and Canada also refused the ship sanctuary. The St. Louis was forced to return to Europe where about one-third of the passengers perished in the Holocaust. Seth M. said Palestinians, mostly children, are being killed by U.S. bombs financed by our tax dollars for the simple fact that they were born in Gaza. “I beg that you do not repeat the inaction and apathy suffered by my family in 1939.”
Both Colleen Moore and J. N. asked that the Virginia Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) be disbanded. VIAB is embedded in the Virginia state government and diverts state, federal and local funds and grants intended for Virginians away from Virginia businesses and toward Israeli businesses. “VIAB is directly funded by Virginia taxpayers while no other Virginia advisory boards are funded by taxpayers, including the African American, Asian, Latino, Women, or LGBTQ+ advisory boards,” J.N. stated.
Mental health counselor Andrew Cuan works with children in Alexandria who fled violence in other countries. He said, “The trauma that these children have faced is heartbreaking.” Witnessing the daily trauma of Palestinian children, he said, “I cannot support that we are investing in companies that are investing in war crimes in Israel.”
GENOCIDE IS A LOCAL ISSUE
Alexandria is directly invested financially in genocide and apartheid in at least three ways, Amanda Eisenhour informed the Council. The city invests nearly a billion dollars in its supplemental pension funds, the Local Government Investment Pool and the Virginia Retirement System. Alexandria has major investments in companies manufacturing weapons, including
Alexandria residents demand their City Council divest from apartheid genocidal Israel.
Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Palantir, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Boeing. The Israeli military uses U.S. weapons to kill Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in violation of international laws. “The city could take meaningful action to divest itself from genocide, at the very least through the funds we directly control.” Invest our finances responsibly, Eisenhour urged.
Glen, a Jewish Alexandria resident, expressed horror that the Biden-Harris administration could stop the genocide by merely threatening to immediately end the supply of U.S. weapons but still refuses to do so. Instead Biden and Harris have made empty calls for a ceasefire. Alexandria’s elected officials also have feigned helplessness in calling for a ceasefire, Glen stated, “but you have the ability to divest the city’s investments from Israel.” Most Zionists are Christians. Jews are very divided on the issue of Palestine, and there is a flourishing anti-Zionist Jewish movement in Alexandria, Glen said. Catherine Shulman, a Jewish Alexandria teacher, told the City Council, “What you are doing now is what you would have done during the Holocaust. In the future, students will study your inaction.”
Alexandria residents want their tax dollars to be used to benefit the community and to address the issues of homelessness, mental healthcare and food insecurity, which remain underfunded local problems in Alexandria. They urged the City Council to “do everything in their power to ensure that the local dollars entrusted to their care are invested responsibly, rather than in apartheid and genocide.” Their impassioned message to the Alexandria City Council is to have the moral courage to be the city of equal human rights that Alexandria so proudly claims to be. ■
Students for Justice in Palestine and the University of Maryland: A Behindthe-Scenes Look at the Historic Case
By Susan Kerin
MANY PALESTINIAN ACTIVISTS have been inspired by the victory of the University of Maryland’s Students for Justice in Palestine (UMD-SJP) chapter, which sued school administrators for cancelling a planned interfaith vigil on Oct. 7. Interviews with UMDSJP leaders and their legal team provide an interesting case study on the ways in which intimidation tactics—including direct threats of violence— as well as overt biases shaped the cancellation decision and on the corrupting elements that ocurred behind the scenes.
According to Tori Porell, staff attorney at Palestine Legal which provided pro bono legal services in the case, “the violation of the First Amendment was so blatant—completely suspending all speech for one significant day to target one viewpoint—that we initially thought that by writing a letter to the university, they would understand and reverse course.” The letter was ignored, however, and so Palestine Legal filed the lawsuit. The Council on American-Islamic Relations also provided legal services and the American Civil Liberties Union wrote a supporting amicus brief.
Susan Kerin is chair of Peace Action Montgomery, a chapter of Peace Action, the nation’s largest peace organization.
Virginians commemorate one year of genocide in a vigil on Oct. 8 in front of Alexandria’s City Hall.
Hundreds of attendees listen as the names of Palestinian infants killed in the war in Gaza are read aloud during a vigil organized by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace at UMD along McKeldin Mall in the heart of the University of Maryland campu s on Oct. 7, 2024 in College Park, MD.
During the trial, the University of Maryland was forced to defend its position. It quickly backpedaled on the cause cited in its original cancellation letter, which stated that “there was no immediate or active threat.” This was a preventative measure.
THREATS FROM PRO-ISRAEL PARTIES
In his testimony, the university’s chief of police cited violent threats from pro-Israel individuals, including a letter expressing an intent to hold a KKK rally the same day; an email hoping that the university president’s children and grandchildren would be slaughtered; and a phone call from a Jewish mother stating her intention to bring a gun to campus “locked and loaded.” So while administrators felt compelled to suppress UMD-SJP’s protected free speech because of these threats, they seemingly did not feel any additional action was required in response to an individual (who freely gave her name) openly threatening to come on campus to kill students.
Abel Amene, a member of UMD-SJP’s executive board, shared that these threats—all sent before the cancellation letter—contradicted the university’s original “no threats” assertion. Amene feels that administrators cherry-picked these letters to shield and deflect from their real intent, which was to suppress the event because they did not approve of the group’s viewpoint. Another UMD-SJP member agreed, stating “the real reason for the cancellation was the content of our speeches which are anti-imperialist and support Palestinians.”
This theory is seemingly reinforced by a pro-Israeli campaign form letter with anonymous signatories. The demands of that letter
dictated what UMD-SJP should be banned from saying, including using the words “genocide” and “apartheid” and referencing a death count that differs from State Department figures. (In June, the House of Representatives banned the State Department from using the Gaza Health Ministry death toll.) The letter also demanded that the university adopt the controversial and weaponized definition of anti-Semitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
All three interviewees noted that the judge openly expressed his personal views through his questioning, such as repeatedly asking the student witness whether she supported foreign groups. Porell shared that the student witness remained unrattled by the questioning, “answering the judge honestly and confidently.”
The second SJP-UMD representative added that, despite the judge’s personal views, Judge Peter J. Messitte remained steadfast to the principle “that the First Amendment doesn’t bend nor cave because of mob opinion,” and ultimately made the right decision. Messitte wrote, “This is a matter of law, not of wounded feelings.”
Amene noted that the biases were shared by the highest political officers in Maryland. Both former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan and current Governor Wes Moore issued statements supporting the university’s efforts to suppress the UMD-SJP. Moore’s statement was actually made after the judge ruled in favor of the UMDSJP’s preliminary injunction request. Both Hogan and Moore’s oath of office requires them to “protect and defend the Constitution,” which includes the First Amendment.
AFTER THE RULING
The recent ruling was only a preliminary injunction to have the event, so the trial will continue. Amene noted that during media interviews, he has frequently been asked why UMD-SJP decided to hold their event on Oct. 7 rather than just agreeing to reschedule for another day. His response: “Israel has been killing Palestinians every day and had been engaged in the complete destruction of all systems that support life every day. So activists for Palestinian rights need to also be out there every day.”
More than 500 student and community members attended the Oct. 7 event, which was co-sponsored by the university’s Jewish Voice for Peace chapter. The program included a reading of the names of all the infants who were killed by Israel this past year, followed by educational opportunities, kite-flying, interfaith prayers, student stories of personal family loss and poetry. The second UMD-SJP representative described it as “simply beautiful.”
Amene agreed, noting that it was never intended to be a protest but rather a somber vigil focused on the themes of peace and justice. He added that, while the university’s cancellation attempts were unsuccessful, it admittingly was challenging to organize an event after losing four weeks of planning activities because of the trial. He also noted that there were several attempts to disrupt the event but they were ignored and having media in attendance also helped to deter the disrupters.
The second UMD-SJP representative expressed the chapter’s determination to continue to educate, organize and advocate. This includes a #DivestUMD campaign to remove the university’s $2 billion investments from companies that profit from human rights violations.
ADVICE: DOCUMENT EVERYTHING, CONSULT AND ADVOCATE
Porell, who was an early client of Palestine Legal when she was an undergraduate SJP activist herself, noted that while campus suppression of student voices on Palestine is not new,
campus leadership has “seemed to take suppression to another level” following last spring’s “student intifada.” She advises student activists to “document everything and trust your gut. If something they’re telling you doesn’t seem right, reach out for help.” Amene highlighted the power of lawsuits, noting that it is a powerful tool and a “force for change.”
The second UMD-SJP representative described “advocacy like watering a tree. You may not see the progress right away but you are making incremental progress.” This month, the efforts of UMDSJP students and their legal team demonstrated the blossoming of this advocacy work. ■
State Department Declares
“Security
Zone” Around Blinken’s House to
Squelch Demands for a Ceasefire and Arms Embargo
By Plaintiffs
FOR SIX MONTHS, activists maintained a presence outside the McLean, Virginia home of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, demanding that he work for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an arms embargo to Israel. (See pp. 58-59 May 2024 Washington Report.) On July 26, the encampment was forcibly removed by Virginia State Police. The protesters took the case to court, demanding the right to restore the encampment, but before the judge rendered a verdict, the area in which the encampment had been located was rezoned as federal property, effectively ending the trial. The following text is the plaintiffs’ press release, lightly edited for publication.
Arlington County Judge Louise DiMatteo halted a hearing that was intended to determine the legality of the Virginia State Police’s raid and destruction of the 24/7 peace vigil on July 26, 2024, six months after the vigil began. The 24/7 protest was set up on Jan. 26, 2024 on the public space adjacent to the residence of U.S.
Protesters call for a ceasefire outside Secretary of State Antony Blinken's Arlington County home, January 26, 2024.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken due to his central role in arming Israel’s aggression on Palestinian civilians that has resulted in over 41,000 civilian deaths in Gaza.
On Oct. 2, 2024, the third and final day of the hearing, the proceedings were abruptly interrupted by defense counsel who presented “new information” that would impact the judge’s ruling and derail the case against them.
In a private briefing with Judge DiMatteo and counsel, John Alsup, head of Blinken’s Diplomatic Security (DSS)—who had previously testified in support of the defense—claimed that a “federal protective zone” was being set up in the exact vicinity to encompass the location where the vigil once stood. The expanded security perimeter will fully prohibit public access to the entire area, thus rendering the hearing “moot,” according to Judge DiMatteo.
Alsup was unwilling to testify on the record or in front of plaintiffs or media. Judge DiMatteo heard from Alsup in closed chambers and ordered the court records to be sealed. The briefing was not a scheduled part of the hearing, nor was the State Department or DSS a party to the lawsuit brought against State of Virginia by the peace activists.
Following the private meeting, Judge DiMatteo notified the court that she will not proceed with the hearing because she “no longer had anything to decide.” The case is now indefinitely suspended, until the U.S. Department of State decides to remove the “security bubble” where the vigil once stood.
Hazami Barmada, a plaintiff in the lawsuit and organizer of the peace vigil, said: “We know Blinken and his security detail do not want us there. But it is disgraceful that the State Department can barge into an official court proceeding in which they are not involved and derail a legal outcome. This abuse of government power renders the legal process useless and sets an extremely dangerous precedent. Under the manufactured guise of security and safety, our freedom of expression and our First Amendment rights have been stripped without a fair trial or opportunity to be heard.”
Plaintiffs had brought suit against the State of Virginia in midJuly following threats made to protesters by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and Virginia State Police. The case for emergency injunctive relief was intended to prohibit the arbitrary shutdown of the vigil by the State of Virginia that had been deemed “legal” and in no violation of law by Arlington County and its police department, whose jurisdiction this previously fell under.
While the case was pending an emergency injunctive relief hearing before the Arlington County Circuit Court, on July 26, 2024, VA State Police in a heavily militarized raid of over 100 armed officers, forcibly removed the peace vigil that was erected on public land adjacent to the residence of the U.S. Secretary of State, on Chain Bridge Road in McLean, rather than awaiting the decision of the court. The raid occurred several weeks after the Anti-Defamation League emailed Governor Youngkin’s office re-
questing a closure of the vigil. The hearing was to determine the legality of the forced removal and to allow the activists to return to the area they were removed from.
The State of Virginia argued that the presence of the vigil posed a risk to motorists. However, VDOT testified during the initial days of the trial that over 2.4 million vehicles had passed the vigil location during the six-month period with no injury to pedestrians or motorists.
Since the forced removal of the vigil, NBC4 news reported that the State of Virginia spent a whopping $339,642 between July 26 and Sept. 10 to ensure that the peace vigil cannot return to the location.
“We’re witnessing compounding cases of injustice. Initially, the State of Virginia circumvented Arlington County’s jurisdiction over Chain Bridge Road because it did not like the fact that Arlington deemed the activists’ activities legal and protected. Subsequently, the State of Virginia circumvented the Arlington Circuit Court’s jurisdiction to hear the emergency injunctive relief motion by raiding and dismantling the peace vigil while the case was pending. In the last straw, the DSS and the Feds circumvented the Circuit Court’s powers to rule on an outcome of the case by simply gating-off the area in dispute under the pretense of national security. This shows how far they will go to circumvent the law to squash protests,” said Sam W. Burgan, the attorney for the Plaintiffs.
Plaintiff and activist Michael Beer said: “The State, under the facade of safety, and the Feds, under the facade of security, are doing nothing but setting up barriers to free speech on the shoulders of Chain Bridge Rd., thereby pushing protests into the street. Ironically, the suppressive actions by the State and Feds are counterproductive and are making everyone more unsafe at considerable cost to the taxpayers.”
Activists are making necessary pivots to maintain daily protests and are looking into other legal avenues to ensure that they have a fair trial and protection under the law.
The activists are a diverse peaceful grassroots community who represent a wide range of ages, religions, backgrounds and professions. Activists are protesting Blinken due to questions around Blinken’s legal obligations to the U.S. legal system, namely the Leahy Law, in addition to concerns about his decisions to circumvent Congress and withhold interdepartmental documents that highlighted Israel’s violations of human rights and deliberate blocking of humanitarian aid. ■
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How Israel is Exploiting Sectarian Rifts in its Assault on Beirut and Southern Lebanon
By Layla Yammine
Lebanese volunteers prepare food portions for displaced people at Father Hani Tawk’s charitable facility, Mariam’s Kitchen, in Beirut on Oct. 17, 2024, amid the continuing war between Israel and Lebanon. The charity kitchen provides around 3,000 meals per day for displaced families and people in need.
ON SEPT. 23, more than 500,000 people were displaced from southern Lebanon after Israel launched a full-scale attack on towns and civilians under the pretext of targeting Hezbollah’s storage facilities. We’ve seen this play out in Gaza and we know for a fact that this excuse aims to manufacture consent to massacre entire families and destroy entire towns. The Israeli goal is clear: to rob the land and kill the people—while expelling those it cannot kill.
Palestine is not the only place Israel is trying to occupy under the pretext of a promised land. Lebanon has always been a target of Israel’s occupation forces.
At the same time, internal Lebanese social rifts and contradictions, which have been politically institutionalized in a confessional
Layla Yammine is a journalist and researcher based in Beirut, Lebanon. She is a staff journalist at Th e Public Source, a Beirut‐based independent media organization. This article was published on Oct. 15, 2024, by Mondoweiss and reprinted with permission.
political system, are being exploited by Israeli forces to get Lebanese citizens from different sectarian and political backgrounds to turn on one another.
On one hand, there are a large number of supporters of the resistance and liberation movements, while on the other, there is a far-right group that supports normalizing relations with Israel and markets “peace” as the only way forward. This same group is associated with the militia that massacred Palestinians during the Lebanese Civil War from 1975 to 1990, most infamously during the Sabra and Shatila Massacre in 1982 that took place with the help of Israeli forces.
Lebanon has experienced a surge in the uncovering of informants and collaborators over the past few weeks who have been caught on the ground by the Lebanese Security Forces. This has fueled speculation among people that the Israeli government has reached out once again to its internal supporters to create a deeper division within the Lebanese population. These Israeli attempts to sow division come at a time that requires full-scale unity and social solidarity rather than deepening social rifts.
By exacerbating the sectarian tensions that have long plagued Lebanon, Israel aims to weaken both the resistance and the broader society in service of the larger goal of invasion and occupation.
EXACERBATING SOCIAL FISSURES
When the first wave of the displaced from the south arrived in Beirut, many of them asked to stay away from the “Christian” areas, where they did not feel welcomed. But in times of war, the enemy is the same for everyone, and so is the threat. Those social rifts were overlooked for a while, and everyone opened
their homes to friends and families from the south.
But it didn’t last. At the end of September, almost five days after the start of intense fighting, videos of a fight circulated online showing people refusing to shelter those whom they accused of having brought the war upon Lebanon. The altercation took place in Ain al-Rummaneh, a “Christian” street in Beirut where some people from the south had rented an apartment. Slowly and quietly, a number of displaced families decided to leave some of the Christian areas, once again under threat of homelessness.
Intissar is 24 years old. She’s from the south of Lebanon, where the majority of the people are Shi’a. When the heavy bombing started, she and her family fled immediately. They didn’t know where they were going and just wanted to leave, expecting to find open homes for them in Beirut considering the state of war. “It’s not a war on us alone, it’s a war on all of Lebanon and everyone!” she said.
Intissar said that once they arrived in a Christian area in Beirut, “I started noticing people looking at me strangely walking down the street because of my hijab, but I didn’t understand why. Am I the first veiled woman who walks these streets?” Intissar and her family started to get scared and limited their movements in the area. “At this point, we stopped being afraid of the war. We were just worried by people around us,” she said. Those fears were confirmed when two men knocked on their door one evening, threatening them and asking to speak with the owner of the apartment. “Immediately after that night, the building owner called us and told us that we’re not allowed to stay in the apartment,” Intissar said.
“I don’t know if they think that the enemy [Israel] is only fighting one sect, but after that incident, we stopped looking for a safe place from the war—we started searching for a place that accepts us! We always thought that if something like this happens, we would all be brought together, but this was much harder than the
actual war we’re living through—being rejected by our own people,” she added.
This incident alone did not deepen the societal rift within broader Lebanese society, drawing widespread public condemnation of the event on social media amid calls for unity. Volunteers from many different backgrounds continued to help displaced people, exemplifying the attempts of ordinary Lebanese citizens to bridge historic social cleavages.
But despite these attempts, the targeting of certain neighborhoods and buildings by Israeli airstrikes led many on the ground to believe that Israel was attempting to further the rift—by bombing historically “safe” areas of the city and hence aiming to dissuade the locals of those areas from taking in the displaced.
But most crucially, they are areas that have always opened their homes to displaced people during previous wars in Lebanon. The message Israel wanted to send by targeting these areas was clear: if you house displaced people, you will be attacked.
FAKE NEWS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE
In parallel to these attacks, Lebanese people in many areas across Beirut and elsewhere started receiving text messages or calls on landlines asking them to leave their buildings or flee their locations immediately because they were close to a “Hezbollah facility.”
Some of these messages named specific buildings full of civilians in the historically “safe areas” of Beirut. For two days straight, fake news circulated over WhatsApp groups and via text messages, either asking people to evacuate immediately or asking people not to accept southerners in their towns or homes, as they might be Hezbollah members. People took these threats seriously and thought that they were from the Israeli army, leading to widespread panic.
After a while, it was discovered that most of these messages were fake. They were either sent by people “pranking” each other,
or by other more nefarious actors sending mass messages. The Lebanese Internal Security Forces announced that they are looking into the incidents and will take appropriate measures to deal with the situation. The timing of the incidents resulted in an even more terrified population, already on edge over the possibility of being bombed or displaced at any moment.
More recently, on Sep. 30, another wave of fake news flooded the local and international channels about the “start of a ground invasion.” International channels would report “the beginning of the invasion,” while local channels would copy the news without verification, even though most local channels have war correspondents on the ground in the south. Right-wing media channels that politically aligned with the groups that massacred Palestinians during the civil war immediately picked up the Israeli narrative and disseminated it without fact-checking. For an entire day, people thought that all of Lebanon was being invaded, but in reality, Israel had launched a “limited” invasion that was being actively pushed back and forced to retreat by the Lebanese resistance. The same thing happened a few days later when the Israeli army published pictures from a town it claimed to have invaded, only to be completely denied later in the evening.
Since the beginning of the “ground invasion” on Sept. 30, the occupying Israeli forces have failed to permanently position themselves on Lebanese territory, as of the time of writing. During the first two days of the vaunted ground invasion, eight Israeli soldiers were killed. An estimated 39 Israeli soldiers were killed between the start of the invasion to Oct. 11, while the Israeli attacks killed over 2,255 Lebanese and injured over 10,524.
One of the most important aspects of this war is the Israeli campaign of psychological terror and media propaganda. The Israeli government is doing everything in its power to weaken and divide the social fabric of Lebanon, hoping to foment mass flight and social disintegration among those who remain. ■
Time to Throw Israel Out of U.N.
Peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) man an observation point along the so‐called Blue Line on the border between Lebanon and Israel, near the southern Lebanese town of Marwahin on Oct. 12, 2023. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned U.N. Secretary‐General António Guterres to “immediately” evacuate U.N. peacekeepers from combat areas in southern Lebanon, claiming that the U.N. forces serve as “human shields” for Hezbollah.
I HAVE REPORTED on the United Nations since 1989, and both Palestine and Security Council reform have haunted the agenda over those decades. There have been other items—Kashmir, Cyprus and the Congo spring to mind—but they tend to bubble on the back burner rather than frothing over at the front of the stove. The entangled impasse over Palestine and Security Council reform has gradually eroded U.N. credibility as ordinary U.N. members have tried to circumvent the veto.
Back in 1989, the UK and U.S. considered Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress as no better than the PLO—in other words, similar to where Hamas and Hezbollah are now, certified terrorists and pariahs. In 1988 Yasser Arafat was refused entry to the U.S. to address the General Assembly, and so the whole General Assembly decamped to Geneva to protest the U.S. breach of international law. It had little effect on the U.S., whose electorate even then was being prepared for the MAGA-mania to come. In anticipation of current doublethink, Mandela was praised to the skies by commentators who tried to overlook his vociferous support for the PLO and Arafat. One of the few who was stupidly brave enough to challenge Mandela over it was the over-rated anchor for “Nightline,”
U.N. correspondent Ian Williams is the author of U.N.told: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War (available from Middle East Books and More).
By Ian Williams
Ted Koppel—and Arafat handed him his buttocks on a bun for his stupidity, refusing to pander to the Zionist liberal consensus.
However, apart from the idyllic period after Oslo where some Israeli politicians appeared to take its promises of Palestinian statehood seriously, Israel has been weighed in the balance and found wanting in almost every venue of the U.N. In the last year, to almost universal condemnation Israel continues its depredations, not only untrammeled by opposition but with massive economic, military and political support from at least two Security Council members. The two issues, Israeli lawlessness and support for that lawlessness by Security Council members, are closely related. Without the atavistic structure of the Security Council, Israel could not exercise a proxy veto through the U.S. (and occasionally Britain). Without that veto Israel would be legally pilloried, an international pariah. Israel and its friends know how important their membership of the U.N. is and has been.
While blowhard Israeli ministers disdain U.N. resolutions, astute lawyers in Israel’s foreign ministry toil incessantly to produce the excuses needed to muddy the waters just enough to avert international action. But one wonders when the pushback will begin, when major powers and media will mention that Israel does indeed wear a butcher’s apron.
Edward Said was the thunderous prophetic voice in the wilderness warning all who would listen that Israeli leaders would never fulfill their commitments. Infected with the optimism and enthusiasm for the Oslo accords, I had originally been distressed by his Jeremiah-like invocations, but within a year I apologized to him. He was entirely right, even though at that time Israel’s duplicity revealed itself in foot dragging and nitpicking rather than the absolute criminality it has now descended to.
But now Israel is pushing the limits. At the beginning of October, Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared U.N. Secretary General António Guterres persona non grata. “Anyone who cannot unequiv-
PHOTO BY CHRISTINA ASSI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
ocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel does not deserve to step foot on Israeli soil,” Katz ranted, adding “This is an Israel-hating secretary-general, who gives support to terrorists.”
But not, it seems, to the acceptable sort of terrorists who assassinate people on Iranian soil or threaten unilateral bombings on Iranian nuclear facilities or booby trap cellphones and pagers and blitz Gaza and Beirut.
When Katz made his ill-considered remarks, the Foreign Ministry’s lawyers were not consulted, or perhaps they had given up. Certainly, one suspects that Katz was not taking advice from Washington, let alone his prime minister, whose precarious hold on power deprives him of any disciplinary authority over his coalition ministers. In fact, refusing entry to the U.N. secretary general, together with bans on other U.N. representatives and Israeli ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan shredding the U.N. Charter on the General Assembly podium should be considered as a symbolic withdrawal from the organization.
In the Israeli lexicon “terrorists” include babes in arms, but not Israelis who drop bunker busters on refugee tents nor Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) troops who shoot up aid trucks. Israeli defiance of the U.N. and international courts was not hindered by occasional bleating from the White House. Indeed, the same week that Katz gave the finger to Guterres, the IOF in Lebanon encamped itself right next to Irish troops, part of the U.N. peacekeeping force. In other contexts this would have provoked howls about “human hostages,” but the Irish are made of sterner stuff and refused to move even though an Israeli tank muzzle was pointed directly at them.
The Irish refusal to fade away paid dividends. In the end it was the Israelis who moved, perhaps after Washington wonks had weighed the effects on the Irish American lobby of occasioning harm to a thin blue line with a stripe of green added. That did not stop Israel firing on the Italian base, although with unusual discretion, not actually killing anyone. But it demonstrates consistency at least.
Even the U.S. remonstrated, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer got close to accepting the Irish call that the Israeli move was in breach of international law. This charge sheet of “procedural” infractions against the U.N. Charter, international law, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and so on ad infinitum should be more than enough for U.N. members to place sanctions on Israel even before we get to the serious stuff like mass murders and the Genocide Convention, which evoke a duty on members to intervene, which is why South Africa tried so hard to get the judgment.
But the flow of bombs and votes in defense of Israel continues unimpeded. Indeed, while the world was “distracted” by the Israeli assault on Lebanon, Israel announced its latest criminal illegality: its intention to confiscate UNRWA headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem and use the land for illegal Jewish settlement building. Even the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. sounded caution.
Why are there Israeli troops in Lebanon? Why don’t American and British commentators open each sentence with an invocation of the Lebanese right to self-defense?
The predecessor to the United Nations, the League of Nations, melted away in the face of obduracy from Germany, Japan and the USSR, which was expelled after invading Finland. Unlike that body, the Security Council has enforcement power.
Some see U.N. reform as the answer to a member-state’s intransigence: extend permanent seats, take Britain and France’s permanent seat, restrict veto powers. Such procedural measures will not be effective, although the Uniting for Consensus group with wider, elected, representation can improve the effectiveness and legitimacy of the organization. What we really need are more principled delegations who will refuse to accept Israel as a legitimate member of the community of nations. Russia was thrown off the Human Rights Council and for all its bravado the U.S. does not have the temerity to stand this year and face the humiliation of defeat that Saudi Arabia just suffered.
Must Israel’s current representative to the U.N., Danny Danon, dance across the General Assembly podium with the deputy general’s head on a platter to move members to action? It is time for the pandering to stop. Erdan’s shredding of the U.N. Charter should have been considered Israeli abrogation of the charter; barring the secretary general indicates that Israel has no part in the organization; and so does banning UNRWA and the threat to confiscate its assets in Jerusalem to build illegal settlements on occupied territory. The FBI got Al Capone for tax evasion—now is the time for Israel to be squeezed out for its manifest procedural breaches of the U.N. Charter and Vienna Convention even if the two veto holders cover for it on genocide.
By declaring Guterres persona non grata, Israel has probably saved the secretary general’s reputation, dimmed by his relative caution in addressing Israeli depredations. To be attacked by an enemy of mankind and international law is no bad thing. But now there should be follow-up. The membership of the United Nations should now be carving away at Israel’s membership prerogatives since, even if states are reluctant to act on Israel’s egregious violations of international law, it has now clearly broken the basic rules of international diplomacy. To borrow a Trump catchphrase, it is time to “Throw them out!” ■
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International Law Follows Power, Not Vice Versa
By Bruce Fein
A demonstrator holds a sign with Binyamin Netanyah’s picture and the words “Wanted for Genocide” in Times Square, New York City on Sept. 26, 2024. Marchers protested the Israeli prime minister’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly and called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and across the Israel‐Lebanon border.
AS WITH GHOSTS, international law is much talked about, but nobody sees it.
The reason is simple. International law finds expression in raw power, not principles of justice. Thus, Thucydides related in The History of the Peloponnesian War, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Victor’s justice is not justice but the brandishing of military power by other means.
The Nuremberg Tribunal was summoned into being by the victors of World War II: the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France. Each was represented by two judges. The charges against Nazi leaders for aggressive war or crimes against humanity were carbon copies of what the Soviet Union did in invading Finland, Poland and the Baltic States, and perpetrating the Katyn Forest massacre of 20,000 Polish officers. The saturation bombing of Dres-
Bruce Fein was associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan and author of American Empire Before The Fall . He is currently an international and constitutional lawyer <www.law officesofbrucefein.com>.
den, the firebombings of Tokyo, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes in deliberately targeting and killing civilians on an industrial scale. But neither Britain nor the United States, neither Prime Minister Winston Churchill nor President Harry Truman, were ever prosecuted for war crimes.
Soldiers know international law is a mirage. Six years before his death, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was interviewed in the documentary “The Fog of War.” When asked about U.S. actions in Japan during World War II, McNamara responded, “[General Curtis] LeMay said if we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he’s right....LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose, and not immoral if you win?”
WARS OF AGGRESSION
The Nuremberg Tribunal punished Nazi leaders for wars of aggression, that is, wars not in self-defense to actual or imminent attack,
including Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia and Greece.
By any non-Orwellian interpretation, the U.S. conducted a criminal war of aggression against Iraq in 2003. Iraq was not threatening the United States. Indeed, nofly zones and international embargoes on Iraq following its defeat in the 1990 war against Kuwait had crippled Iraq’s military capability. Secular President Saddam Hussain was threatened by Iran’s radical mullahs and al-Qaeda. He possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He had no delivery vehicles that could reach the United States. But the prospect of a prosecution of the U.S., former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, or former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice for criminal aggression against Iraq is fanciful. It is like expecting a murderer to prosecute himself for homicide.
Paragraphs 3 and 4 of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter provide: “All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” Yet these cornerstones of international law are honored in the breach rather than in the observance.
North Korea invades South Korea in 1950. No prosecution for aggressive war. France, Britain and Israel attack Egypt in 1956. No prosecutions for aggressive war. The Soviet Union invades Hungary in 1956. No prosecution for aggressive war. China attacks Tibet in 1950. No prosecution for aggressive war. The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan in 1979. No prosecution for aggressive war. Egypt attacks North Yemen in 1962. No prosecution for aggressive war. The United States initiates wars against Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam. No prosecutions for aggressive wars. The
United States initiates war against BosniaHerzegovina in 1993 and against Serbia in 1999. No prosecutions for aggressive war. The U.S. initiates war against Libya in 2011. No prosecutions for aggressive war against President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta or National Security Adviser Susan Rice.
Russia invades and annexes Crimea in 2014. No prosecution for aggressive war. Russia invades Ukraine in 2022. At present, no prosecution for aggressive war. Only if Russia is crushed would the possibility of an aggressive war prosecution against President Vladimir Putin become real.
In other words, the crime of aggression is indistinguishable from a war that is lost rather than won. The deterrent against aggression is zilch because no nation enters a war thinking it will be defeated.
CRIME OF GENOCIDE
The international crime of genocide is similarly prosecuted only against the weak. The strong escape with impunity. Think of China and the Uighurs or Tibetans. Myanmar and the Rohingya and Karen people. Nigeria and Biafrans. Israel and Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. International law is like a spider’s web. It captures the weak but is shredded by the strong.
Why should Israel’s notorious flouting of international law (in the form of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes) against Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank be surprising? Israel is the superpower of the Middle East fortified by the unconditional support of the United States, the world’s only superpower. And so Israel is shielded from accountability. Nothing new on that score.
As long ago as Oct. 3, 2001, according to Israeli radio Kol Yisrael, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres warned Prime Minister Arel Sharon that refusing to heed incessant U.S. requests for a ceasefire with the Palestinians would endanger Israeli interests and “turn the U.S. against us.” An infuriated Sharon shouted, “every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and
will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it.”
Does Israel target civilians for death, a war crime per se? In 1978, Israeli renowned military analyst Ze’ev Schiff characterized remarks of Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur as follows: “The Israeli army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously….The army has never distinguished civilian from military targets—but purposely attacked civilian targets.” Former U.N. Ambassador and Foreign Minister Abba Eban elaborated that Israel under then Prime Minister Menachem Begin “is wantonly inflicting every possible measure of death and anguish on civilian populations in a mood reminiscent of regimes which neither Mr. Begin nor I would dare to mention by name.”
ISRAEL‘S PAGER WAR CRIME
Israel’s planting explosive devices in pagers ordered by Hezbollah in Lebanon constituted a war crime on two counts. It targeted civilians not engaged in combat. And it risked grossly disproportionate harm to civilians in comparison to any plausible military objective. But don’t hold your breath waiting for war crimes prosecutions.
International law means whatever powerful nations say it means, neither more nor less. International tribunals have neither the sword nor the purse, but only judgment, which power scorns. International law is “is only a promise to the ear to be broken to the hope, a teasing illusion like a munificent bequest in a pauper’s will,” to quote from Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson in Edwards v. California (1941).
We have never transcended the law of the jungle, although species narcissism has given birth to the delusion that we have.
Can this change? Only if the species celebrates the thinker over the armored knight. To believe that might happen, however, would be a triumph of hope over experience. Even Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount was dead on arrival, delivered on the most blood-stained land on earth. ■
Documentary Meticulously Outlines Israeli War Crimes
By Dale Sprusansky
IN EARLY OCTOBER, Al Jazeera Investigations released an 80-minute documentary titled “Investigating War Crimes in Gaza.”
This well-done, gut-wrenching documentary relies heavily on footage taken by Israeli soldiers and serves as an authoritative record of the cruel and brazen human rights violations committed by Israeli soldiers since Oct. 7, 2023. The film would unquestionably suffice as firm evidence in any war crimes trial, should the world ever hold Israel to such scrutiny.
“These videos don’t show a professional army; they show an army that at times appears to almost completely lack any selfdiscipline,” Charlie Herbert, a retired major general in the British Army, tells viewers.
Some of the footage shown has been well-circulated online: homes and businesses being ransacked, money and jewelry being looted, civilian buildings being demolished and Israeli sol-
diers dressing themselves in the undergarments of displaced and slain Palestinian women. Revenge and hatred—not tactical necessity—are clearly the motivating factors behind these actions.
Critically, the documentary not only exposes all these crimes, it also in many cases names the perpetrators. Al Jazeera was able to use more than 2,500 social media accounts to identity soldiers in the videos, displaying their names on the screen as viewers watch them violate international law. A fair number of the soldiers proudly broadcasting their crimes are dual nationals, meaning Western governments could hold them accountable. But, as the film outlines, Western leaders are supplying Israel with endless weapons, making them collaborators in the violation of human rights, rather than enforcers of international law.
After sharing videos of mostly property crime, the second half of the film moves to vastly more chilling offenses. Even if you have spent the past year closely following developments in Gaza, the footage, as well as testimonies from Palestinians, will likely shake you. “The thing that is really shocking to me is the repeated posting of videos of detainees’ humiliation,” Bill Van
Dale Sprusansky is managing editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs magazine.
This feature length investigation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit exposes Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip through the medium of photos and videos posted online by Israeli soldiers themselves.
Esveld of Human Rights Watch observes.
One Palestinian man, Fadi Bakr, a 25year-old father, is featured in several scenes. First, he describes being ambushed, shot and kidnapped by Israeli soldiers while seeking food. He shares one grueling memory after another. “A soldier removed my blindfold and forced me to lie on my belly,” he recounts. “There was a repugnant smell. I raised my head and found that I was lying on a corpse that was nearly decomposed.” The Israeli soldier informed Bakr that if he failed to cooperate, he would also be killed and left to rot.
In a later scene, we learn that matters only got worse for Bakr. He was eventually transported to Sde Teiman prison within Israel, where Israel has carried out its most grotesque torture of Palestinian detainees. In the most nauseating part of the film, Bakr describes being dragged onto a slab with a handful of other prisoners. Their blindfolds are removed, and one man is forced onto his stomach and stripped naked. A soldier sprays something on his back and unleashes a dog. “The dog raped the young man. It raped him, literally speaking. Rape,” Bakr
relays, his face clearly conveying the shock and trauma he retains from witnessing such an act.
He is hardly alone. The film proceeds to show footage of other men released from the prison. Put simply, they look like they have emerged from the depths of hell. Completely shattered, disoriented and malnourished, they recount their torture as best they can. Their lives are clearly irreparably damaged.
The documentary continues to outline myriad other crimes, including those against children and the press. Importantly, it also dedicates significant time to showing evidence of Israelis using Palestinians as human shields. One example includes tying a man to the front of a tank to thwart enemy gunfire. In another case, two men are equipped with cameras and forced to serve as unwitting scouts, scanning for ambushes and boobytraps.
The story of a man named Jamal receives particular attention in the film. His account is powerful, as much of what happened to him was captured on camera. After being kidnapped and beaten, he appeared in handcuffs at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. He was sent by the Israelis to tell everyone to evacuate, or else they
would all be killed. His mother was inside and begged him to stay, but he informed her the Israelis threatened to kill her if he did not return to the soldiers. Jamal’s mother followed him out of the hospital, only to watch him get riddled with Israeli bullets. Video footage shows other evacuees, including doctors, being executed by Israeli soldiers.
“Lots of people say Israeli forces shouldn’t be allowed to take cameras and phones into combat,” Herbert comments in the film. “I’m glad that they are allowed to, because it allows the world to witness what’s happening.”
But to what avail? Palestinian American writer Susan Abulhawa begins the film by noting that this is a “live-streamed” genocide, meaning “nobody can say they didn’t know.” Yet as she points out at the end of the film, all this evidence of war crimes does nothing to alter the mindset of powerful Western leaders. “Palestinians are aware that they have been abandoned, that the world that speaks of human rights and international law is lying, that those concepts are meant for white people, or for Westerners,” she says. “Palestinians have been discarded like rubbish.” ■
Frames of Conflict: Understanding Palestine Through Cinema and Screen
By Diana Safieh
THE CONFLICT in Palestine is often portrayed as being too complex for Westerners to understand. This essay offers a list of documentaries, feature films and television shows that can help educate viewers and inspire meaningful conversations. These films reflect the politics and history of the Palestinian liberation struggle, life in Palestine and broader Middle Eastern issues. They range from personal narratives and historical analyses to on-the-ground journalism and feature films, and all are worthy of a binge if you are looking to get a deeper insight of the issues affecting the Palestinian people, at home and in the diaspora.
DOCUMENTARIES
Britain in Palestine 1917-1948 (2015 Balfour Project, YouTube)
This documentary explores Britain’s historical involvement in Palestine, particularly the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and its implications for both the Arab and Jewish communities in Palestine. The film provides a critical look at colonialism, the impact of British policies on the ground and the historical events that have shaped the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a valuable resource for understanding the historic responsibility of Britain in Palestine.
The Occupation of the American Mind (2016, Directed by Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earp) A stunning look at how—and why— American media coverage of the conflict regularly minimizes the occupation, vilifies critics of Israeli policy and dehumanizes the Palestinian people. A new abridged free online version of this riveting film meets the current political moment like nothing else.
The Tinderbox (2022, Directed by Gillian Mosely, YouTube) This
Diana Safieh is a writer and podcaster whose areas of expertise are Palestine, true crime and anything even slightly unusual. She currently works with St John Eye Hospital and the Balfour Project in the UK. She was recently invested as a member of the Order of St. John for her efforts, just like her father, Ambassador Afif Safieh and great uncle.
documentary delves into the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by exploring the lives of individuals caught in the crossfire. It provides personal narratives from both Israelis and Palestinians and seeks to foster understanding and empathy by highlighting shared experiences and the quest for peace.
The Night Won’t End: Biden’s War on Gaza (2024, Kavitha Chekuru, Al Jazeera) A hard-hitting documentary that focuses on the experiences of three Gazan families during Israel’s genocidal (and ongoing) war. It examines the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s devastation of Gaza despite growing criticism. It delves into the human toll of the conflict and critically analyzes the role of American foreign policy in the ongoing conflict.
The Gatekeepers (2012, Directed by Dror Moreh, Apple TV or Amazon Video) This documentary features candid interviews with six former heads of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, who reflect on their experiences, the challenges of counter-terrorism, the moral dilemmas faced in decision-making and the impact of their policies on both Israelis and Palestinians.
Five Broken Cameras (2011, Directed by Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi, Amazon Video) This documentary provides a first-hand account of the nonviolent resistance movement in Bil’in, a Palestinian village facing land confiscation by Israeli settlements. Filmed by Emad Burnat, a local farmer, the five cameras of the title refer to the cameras that Israel broke during protests. The film captures the resilience and determination of the villagers as they confront military forces and offers a powerful depiction of grassroots activism.
The Wanted 18 (2014, Directed by Amer Shomali, Paul Cowan) This animated documentary tells the remarkable story of a group of Palestinian villagers in Beit Sahour who sought to establish their own dairy farm during the First Intifada. The villagers cleverly used a herd of 18 cows to challenge Israeli control over food supply, creating a local milk production system as a form of peaceful resistance.
Palestine Is Still the Issue (2002, Directed by John Pilger, Amazon Video) Renowned journalist John Pilger returns to Palestine to explore the ongoing struggles faced by Palestinians under occupation. Through interviews and on-the-ground reporting, he exposes
the harsh realities of life in the West Bank and Gaza, emphasizing the human cost of Israel’s colonization of Palestine.
Gaza Surf Club (2016, Directed by Philip Gnadt, Mickey Yamine, Amazon Video) This unique documentary provides an unexpected glimpse into the lives of young surfers in Gaza, who find freedom and joy in the waves despite the harsh realities of life in a war-torn region. It challenges stereotypes by highlighting the vibrant culture and aspirations of Gaza’s youth, illustrating how surfing becomes a form of resistance and self-expression amid adversity.
Ghost Hunting (2017, Directed by Raed Andoni, Amazon Video) In this innovative documentary, Palestinian exprisoners come together to reconstruct their experiences of torture and interrogation in Israeli jails. Using a staged approach, the film creates a space for healing and reflection, allowing the men to confront their past traumas.
Open Bethlehem (2014, Directed by Leila Sansour, <www.openbethlehem.org>) This intimate documentary follows filmmaker Leila Sansour as she returns to her hometown, Bethlehem, offering a personal perspective on life in the city amid political turmoil. Through her journey, the film explores themes of identity, displacement and the significance of home. Sansour’s story-
telling captures the struggles of everyday life under occupation while highlighting the resilience and hope of the Palestinian people.
Roadmap to Apartheid (2012, Directed by Ana Nogueira, Eron Davidson, Amazon Video) This documentary draws parallels between the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the system of apartheid that once existed in South Africa. Through interviews with activists, politicians and scholars, the film examines the legal and social structures that perpetuate inequality in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Tantura (2022, Directed by Alon Schwarz, Amazon Video) This documentary investigates the massacre in the village of Tantura during the Nakba in 1948, focusing on the mass expulsion of Palestinians
and the subsequent erasure of their history. The film combines personal testimonies, archival footage and historical analysis to shed light on the enduring impact of the massacre on both the village’s former residents and the collective memory of the Palestinian people.
Israelism (2023, Directed by Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen, Amazon Video) A powerful documentary series that examines
how young American Jews, who were once deeply supportive of Israel, are increasingly turning against the Israeli government’s policies, especially regarding Palestine. It provides insight into the generational divide on views toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as broader implications for U.S. foreign policy.
FILMS & TELEVISION SERIES
The Present (2020, Directed by Farah Nabulsi, Amazon Video) This short film follows the journey of a father and his young daughter as they navigate a series of Israeli military checkpoints in the West Bank. Their mission is to buy a gift for the girl’s mother, but the routine trip becomes an exploration of the absurdities and hardships of daily life under occupation. The film highlights the emotional toll of living under colonial rule, illustrating themes of resilience, family bonds and the desire for normalcy amidst chaos.
Omar (2013, Directed by Hany AbuAssad, Amazon Video) In this gripping thriller, a young Palestinian man named Omar becomes entangled in a web of deception when he is coerced into becoming an informant for the Israeli military. The film portrays the complexities of love, loyalty and betrayal as Omar grapples with the demands of his new role while trying to maintain his relationship with his childhood sweetheart.
Divine Intervention (2002, Directed by Elia Suleiman, Amazon Video) This dark comedy offers a satirical look at Palestinian life under Israeli occupation. Through a series of vignettes, the film follows the everyday life of Elia, a man navigating the complexities of his environment while grappling with love, loss and identity.
3000 Nights (2015, Directed by Mai Masri, Amazon Video) This drama tells the story of a pregnant Palestinian woman named Layal who is imprisoned in an Israeli jail. The film follows her harrowing journey as she endures confinement while preparing for motherhood. Through Layal’s experiences, the film raises crucial questions about justice, human rights and the impact of war on families.
Farha (2021, Directed by Darin J. Sallam, Netflix) Set during the tumultuous events of the Nakba in 1948, Farha follows the story of a young girl witnessing the ethnic cleansing of her village. Farha’s journey becomes a poignant exploration of innocence lost amid conflict. The film skillfully captures the perspectives of a child experiencing trauma and displacement, offering a fresh viewpoint on a critical moment in Palestinian history.
Huda’s Salon (2021, Directed by Hany Abu-Assad, Amazon Video) In this gripping thriller, a Palestinian woman named Huda finds herself caught in a dangerous web of blackmail and betrayal. Set in contemporary Palestine, the film explores the complex dynamics of power and resistance as Huda navigates her dual identity as a woman living under Israeli occupation and a collaborator with the Israeli occupation. The narrative unfolds as Huda’s life takes a dark turn when a secret is revealed, forcing her to confront her past and make harrowing choices for survival.
Salt of the Sea (2008, Directed by Annemarie Jacir, Amazon Video) This road trip movie tells the story of Soraya, a Palestinian-American woman who returns to her family’s homeland to reclaim her grandfather’s property, only to find herself entangled in the harsh realities of life under occupation.
Paradise Now (2005, Directed by Hany Abu-Assad, Amazon Video) This dark comedy follows two Palestinian childhood friends, Said and Khaled, who are recruited for a suicide bombing mission in Tel Aviv. The narrative explores their motivations, the societal pressures they face and the moral dilemmas inherent in their decision-making.
The Promise (2011, Directed by Peter Kosminsky, Amazon Video) This British historical drama follows a young petulant woman named Erin as she retraces her grandfather’s experiences as a British soldier stationed in post-World War II Palestine. The narrative intertwines Erin’s present-day journey with her grandfather’s memories, providing a dual perspective on a pivotal period in Palestinian history.
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Through flashbacks, viewers witness the complexities of British colonial rule, the struggles of the Jewish and Palestinian populations, and the events leading up to the establishment of the State of Israel.
Mo (2022, Solvan “Slick” Naim, Netflix) This comedy-drama series follows the life of Mo Najjar, a Palestinian refugee living in the U.S. with his family. The show explores themes of displacement, immigration, identity, and the long-lasting impact of being stateless, blending humor with poignant social commentary. Mo’s refugee status provides a window into the broader experience of Palestinians in exile and non-Arab refugee communities in the U.S.
The films and documentaries listed above serve not only as educational resources but also as powerful storytelling tools that capture the human experiences behind the headlines. These narratives encourage meaningful conversations about peace, justice and human rights. [Please comment and provide additional suggestions.] ■
Lessons Learned from an Ongoing Genocide
By Ida Audeh
ADDRESSING THE
U.N. in September, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held up a map of historic Palestine, in which the West Bank and Gaza Strip were not delineated; the whole territory, from the river to the sea, was labeled Israel. Other maps of Israel are even more ambitious and include parts of Lebanon and Syria as well. Israel sees the war with the Palestinians, and now with Lebanon, as an opportunity to change the map of the Arab world to make it more hospitable to Israeli expansionism and domination. The United States had the same impulse after September 2001, seizing the moment to embark on a global program of regime change, to make the world more amenable to U.S. hegemony.
Palestinians try to extinguish the fire that broke out after Israel’s airstrike on families in tents outside al‐Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al‐Balah, Gaza on Oct. 14, 2024.
Footage on social media showed tents engulfed in flames and people trying to res‐cue those trapped inside. Families screamed as they watched parents and children burned alive.
Bank and in the northern Gaza Strip.) Israeli leaders have threatened this very explicitly, using the word “Nakba” to leave no doubt about their intentions. They have long lamented that the 1948 Nakba had not been more thorough. After Oct. 7, 2023, they saw an opportunity and seized it. If Israel loses, its colonial experiment—as a Jewish ethnostate representing Western aims in the region and destabilizing the Arab world— comes to an end. Jews who live in Palestine will have to live like everyone else in a non-Zionist state yet to be created. Already tens of thousands of Israelis have decided that the country has no future, and they’ve used their second passports to emigrate.
As the genocidal war against Palestinians enters its second year, some things are very clear.
Israel’s wars in Palestine and now Lebanon are joint U.S.-Israeli wars. The U.S. could stop the carnage if it chose to, but it chooses instead to offer full military, tactical, financial and political support to Israel. European countries with colonial and genocidal histories assist Israel to the extent they can. The result is that the most industrial “advanced” countries in the world are supporting the destruction of the Gaza Strip, besieged for the past 17 years, and Lebanon, a country that has teetered on collapse for the past several years. Their goal is to demonstrate that resistance to U.S.-Israeli hegemony is futile. This single fact transforms the war into one with global implications.
Israelis and Palestinians are engaged in an existential battle throughout historic Palestine. If Palestinians lose, they most likely will be ethnically cleansed from the soil of Palestine in a repeat of the 1948 Nakba. (In fact, that process has already begun in the West
Both parties know what is at stake. This understanding fuels the savagery of the Israeli army, fully supported by the Israeli people and the Biden administration, and the tenacious resistance of the Palestinian fighters. One year of carpet bombing and bloodletting, and Israel hasn’t managed to accomplish a single one of its stated military aims in Gaza. In fact, one of those goals—securing the release of the Israelis held in Gaza—no longer seems to factor into military considerations at all. It is waging a war of terror on civilians to prepare them for Israel’s Final Solution.
A high civilian death toll is precisely the point for the colonizer. In Gaza, the figure of 42,000 dead used by the health ministry includes only documented deaths; it is clear to everyone that in the massive mounds of rubble throughout the Gaza Strip, decomposing bodies are buried. Lebanon is getting similar treatment, with bombing of residential areas in which entire families are snuffed out.
The U.S. has denounced calls for a ceasefire as unacceptable. It prefers to give Israel time and space to kill civilians, in the hopes of improving Israel’s negotiating position and enabling it to dictate the terms of an end to hostilities. What Israel, the U.S. and other colonial backers have not yet figured out is that atrocities don’t cow people
Ida Audeh is senior editor of the Washington Report
PHOTO BY ABDALLAH
F.S. ALATTAR/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES
into accepting subjugation. Burying lots of children shot in the head has the uncanny effect of stiffening the backbone and fueling rage, which in turn produces fighters who understand that they cannot negotiate with a savage enemy bent on their destruction. When you’ve lived through the worst you can imagine—loved ones dismembered, relatives shuttled from place to place like sacks of potatoes and bombed anyway, the dead fed to roaming dogs, starvation—what is left for you to fear?
Israel has no red lines. Since its creation, Israel has been supported, armed and politically protected by Western countries. The result is the creation of a powerful, savage Frankenstein that ends Palestinian bloodlines; shoots children in the head; runs torture centers where Palestinian noncombatants are beaten, electrocuted, starved and gang raped; deliberately destroys hospitals and schools; targets U.N. agencies and personnel and makes geographies uninhabitable. The consequences of Western indulgence of Israel are explored in the recent Al Jazeera investigative study, (see p. x) which assembles social media postings from Israeli soldiers. The seeming unawareness by Israeli soldiers that their trophy moments are evidence of war crimes is deeply disturbing to the viewer.
They actually believe that no human law applies to them.
Israel’s sabotaging of pagers and walkietalkies delivered to Lebanon in September is a clear case of state-sponsored terrorism because the devices were remotely detonated as their users were in public spaces. At least 12 were killed and thousands injured; many were blinded. This is on a par with targeting hospitals and medical staff and turning commandeered hospitals into mass graves.
Israel’s assassination of political leaders demonstrates a need to deliver some red meat to the Israeli public in the absence of securing the release of Israelis from Gaza. Its assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in July in Tehran, followed less than two months later by its assassination of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, were grievous blows to both organizations, but not the knock-out punches that Israel and the U.S. might have hoped. Israel has a long and sordid history of assassinating Palestinian political figures. The Palestinian encyclopedia (<palquest.org>) lists 37 actual and attempted assassinations of Palestinian figures from 1970 to 2019. The resistance movement fighters know that they are marked men, and their organizations have
found ways to continue functioning after they are gone. They are honored for their sacrifices.
U.S. officials who support Israel are becoming more freakish and disturbing with each passing month. What can be made of revelations that U.S. Secretary State Antony Blinken signed off on Israeli attacks on humanitarian convoys and buried internal reports concluding that Israel was blocking aid into Gaza. Or plastic-faced State Department spokesman Matthew Miller claiming that Israel is taking steps to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza even as a mountain of evidence shows that famine is widespread, a fact that World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain acknowledged?
Even people who don’t care about foreign policy have to be dismayed by the sight of a charlatan like Netanyahu being invited to address Congress and receiving no fewer than 58 standing ovations as he spewed lie after lie about the Israeli army’s conduct in Gaza. What good can come from legislators with such questionable morals and no selfrespect, who see fit to give a gracious audience to a foreign war criminal?
This blind support for Israel even as it commits genocide explains at least some of the unease Americans feel when contemplating Gaza. Palestinians are being killed wholesale, but Americans feel threatened, too. U.S. institutions and state agencies have come down harshly on protesters on university campuses. White nationalists who shoot social justice protesters while the police stand by are not very different from Israeli settlers who shoot Palestinians while the army stands by to offer backup support. Whether in Palestine or the United States, dissent is crushed in ways designed to serve as a deterrence for others. State power is absolute and cannot be questioned. Can we live in such a world?
The Israeli army is an effective demolition battalion and mass killer of noncombatants, but it is psychologically de-
People inspect the remains of tents housing displaced civilians after Israeli attacks on the courtyard of al‐Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al‐Balah, Gaza on Oct. 14, 2024.
feated. It has destroyed every university in Gaza and most of the hospitals and killed noncombatants without restraint. But when Israeli soldiers come under fire, Palestinian fighters hear them curse their leaders, the same leaders who show no interest in securing the release of Israelis. When Palestinian fighters prepare for an ambush, they regard it as an honor and pay tribute to other brigades and to their fallen leaders— Haniyeh, Nasrallah and those who died years ago, whose names are given to the guns they use. They have a cause they believe in, and they are part of a history and tradition that they understand and honor and believe can liberate Palestine from the river to the sea. They fight for the future; the Israeli cause, incubated in the 19th century, seems increasingly preposterous, a racist setup long rejected by normal people. The Palestinian resistance is aided by resistance movements in the Arab world. The current war demonstrates that Palestine is an Arab, not exclusively Palestinian, cause. Hezbollah knows that unless Israel is defanged, it will always pose a
threat to Lebanon and to the Lebanese people, who are being wiped out like Gazans, entire families at one go. Groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, countries that have been ravaged by Western colonial actors, are coming to the aid of the Palestinians because they understand the need to end Western domination of the region. That domination began more than a century ago, with the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, with which the French and British divided the Levant into states and spheres of influence that suited their wishes, indifferent to the histories and wishes of the people. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 generously promised the support of the British government for the creation of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine. The Bush administration (2001-2009) took upon itself the foolhardy mission of implementing regime change in countries it thought should be more malleable to U.S. (and Israeli) wishes, and its wish list included Iraq, Libya and Syria; these countries are now in shambles. Everywhere the U.S. and Israel impose their will, they leave wastelands behind.
The battle waged for the liberation of Palestine calls to mind the battles waged in the epic trilogy Lord of the Rings, where warriors band together to fight against the seemingly crushing evil forces of Sauron. The odds are against them, and they know they won’t all live to see the scourge expunged from the realm, but they must at least try, because to do less would be ignoble.
Palestinians and their allies too, understand what is at stake. As of this writing, Israel is expelling Palestinians from the northern Gaza Strip in the first stages of what it thinks of as a final solution for the matter of the Palestinians. It is laying claim to territories in southern Lebanon to afford itself more living space. The combined Israel-U.S.-Western forces against them are merciless, and they must not be allowed to prevail.
What Israel and the U.S. are doing in Palestine, and now Lebanon, will set precedents for future lawless regimes. Unless the international community sets some red lines and backs them with deterring force, no one will be safe anywhere in the world. ■ (Advertisement)
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Ankara Braces for Wider Conflict
By Jonathan Gorvett
SOON AFTER ISRAELI TROOPS began their October invasion of southern Lebanon, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed the Turkish parliament in Ankara. “The next place [Israel] will set its eyes on,” he said, “will be our homeland.”
Israel had not expressed any intention of attacking Türkiye, but Erdogan’s words highlight growing concern in Ankara over the widening regional conflict. They also highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of Türkiye’s current position in the region.
Indeed, in recent years the country has shifted from being an unlikely ally of Israel to a champion of those resisting it. Now, though, Ankara’s ability to influence any of the multiple sides in the conflict seems increasingly in doubt.
At the same time, however, one other outcome might well be a strengthening of Ankara’s position in relation to a long-term regional rival—Iran.
ALLIES AND ENEMIES
While the 1990s and early 2000s were a golden age of TurkishIsraeli relations, these began to sour after the election of Erdogan’s pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) in
The body of Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers during a peaceful protest in the West Bank, is carried by police in Izmir, Türkiye on Sept. 13, 2024. Eygi, 26, a dual Turkish‐U.S. national, was killed on Sept. 6 in the town of Beita, outside of Nablus, West Bank.
Jonathan Gorvett is a free‐lance writer specializing on European and Middle Eastern affairs.
2002. The government of then-Prime Minister Erdogan grew increasingly critical of Israel’s actions.
This reached a nadir in 2010, when Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara—a ship containing humanitarian aid and mainly Turkish pro-Palestinian activists heading for Gaza—and killed 10 of them. This unleashed a stream of invective against Israel from Erdogan and other Turkish officials, repositioning Türkiye as an increasingly popular voice around the Arab world. It also sent Türkiye’s relations with Israel into a nose dive. While trade has continued between them, those relations have never really recovered.
ARAB SPRING—AND AFTER
In 2011, Erdogan also championed the side of those rebelling around the Arab world, with Ankara sending support to those fighting the Assad regime in Syria, which included Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Türkiye also backed the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), who took control in Egypt. Hamas was originally the Palestinian branch of MB, giving Ankara some influence with the leaders of Gaza.
Intervention in Syria, however, put Türkiye at odds with Iran and its ally Hezbollah, who have supported Assad with troops and equipment.
Nowadays, however, Türkiye has been renormalizing its relations with Arab regimes. This has meant distancing itself from the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas to win favor in Egypt. As part of this normalization strategy, Erdogan has also recently reached out to Assad—a move currently still rebuffed—and Israel. October 7, 2023, threw a monkey wrench into this process. As the Palestinian casualties have mounted, Ankara has used increasingly harsh rhetoric to condemn Israel. When Israeli soldiers murdered Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi on Sept. 6, 2024, in the occupied West Bank, President Erdogan highlighted this as an example of how the Israelis “attack barbarically and shed blood indiscriminately.” Then, at the U.N.
General Assembly in late September, he likened Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to Hitler.
However, when Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sept. 27, Erdogan’s condemnation was a lot more muted.
“Erdogan was calm and measured, expressing concern about civilian casualties,” Murat Aslan from Hasan Kalyoncu University in Gaziantep and a senior researcher with the Ankara-based think tank SETA, told the Washington Report
Why that was so illustrates much of the current complexity of Türkiye’s position in the region.
SECTARIANISM VS REALPOLITIK
For some, this difference in responses is a result of deep sectarian divisions in Islam.
Türkiye is largely Sunni, while Iran and Hezbollah are Shi’a and the Assad regime is dominated by Alawites—a group traditionally close to Shi’ism.
While traditionally, Turkish political Islam has been anti-sectarian, some have seen this Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis as a “Shi’a Crescent” hostile to the interests of Türkiye and Sunni Islam.
Thus, when Nasrallah was killed, Türkiye’s largely Sunni anti-Assad rebel allies in northwestern Syria celebrated. For others, though, “Erdogan’s restraint was not sectarianism, but realpolitik,” Aslan told the Washington Report “Lebanon is not just Hezbollah.”
In other words, Erdogan was acknowledging that Nasrallah was not popular with all parties with whom Türkiye has to work.
WIDENING CONCERNS
At the same time, Ankara has concerns that expansion of the war in Gaza into Lebanon may have other repercussions. The uprising in Syria led to some 4 million refugees fleeing to Türkiye, with initial sympathy turning to resentment in many cases. Ankara does not want to see an additional wave of refugees.
“There is concern escalation might ignite other dynamics, too,” says Aslan. These include a heightening of conflict in Syria and Iraq, where Türkiye has troops currently fighting Kurdish People’s Protection Units and Kurdish Workers’ Party forces.
Ankara sees these as linked terrorist separatist organizations, with networks inside Türkiye itself. AKP members often see these groups as backed by Israel, leading to the concern expressed by Erdogan that a wider regional conflict might lead to an increase in attacks in Türkiye.
BATTLE FOR INFLUENCE
For some, the current harsh rhetoric against Israel in fact highlights the inability of Türkiye to influence events in the region.
“In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Türkiye was seen as having an important balancing role,” Gonul Tol, founding director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey Program, told the Washington Report. “After October 7, many thought Türkiye could do the same between Israel and Hamas. But this didn’t happen, as Türkiye doesn’t have leverage with either.”
Indeed, Türkiye now finds itself with little influence over any of the main actors in the current conflict, either in Lebanon or Palestine.
Yet the conflict may impact the influence of another regional power—Iran, with which Türkiye is “not so much a rival as a regional competitor with a rival vision for the Middle East,” Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, regional director of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara, told the Washington Report.
This competition plays out around the region and also in the South Caucasus, where Türkiye supports Azerbaijan, but Iran has traditionally backed Armenia.
If the current conflict weakens that power, “This may pave the way for Türkiye to realize its goals elsewhere in the region,” Tol says.
As the casualties mount, however, such an outcome may come with a heavy price. ■
Qaddafi: Dead for Over a Decade but Still a Hero
By Mustafa Fetouri
A Muammar Qaddafi look‐alike participates in an observance marking the 1969 al-Fateh Revolution in the Libyan city of Bani Walid on Sept. 1, 2024. Celebrations were held across Libya in remembrance of the September revolution of 1969, when Qaddafi seized power. Man y participants demanded that his son, Saif al‐Islam, rule the country.
MANY LIBYANS today believe their country is worse off than it was back in 2011 when Col. Muammar Qaddafi was in charge. To the majority, Qaddafi was the “guarantor” of social stability, economic prosperity and above all “security despite all his shortcomings and policy failures,” said Musbah, a high school teacher who does not want his family name published. “We really miss the man.”
To prove his point, Musbah referred to the thousands of people who celebrated the 55th anniversary of Qaddafi’s coming to power on Sept. 1, 1969.
This year’s celebrations of al-Fateh Revolution, or the coup d'état that brought the 27-year-old Col. Qaddafi to power, have been notable for two reasons: they were widespread across Libya, making the event nosier, more jubilant and more center stage; and they were attended by large numbers of people, most of whom were children 13 years ago. They hardly knew Qaddafi let alone experienced life under his rule.
Southwest of the capital Tripoli, the small city of Bani Walid is
still a stronghold of Qaddafi supporters. Its fete included a parade with a Qaddafi look-alike, complete with bodyguards. In southern Libya many people came out to remember the man the West portrayed as evil, whose removal would be the first step to a better, stable, peaceful and prosperous Libya. The opposite turned out to be true, and his death signaled the death of the country.
This year, also, for the first time the Internal Security Agency tried to scare people away from the celebrations by jailing a couple of people in Tarhouna, south of Tripoli, accusing them of burning the “national flag.” They could hardly have accused them of supporting Qaddafi, because doing so publically would have been a serious embarrassment.
WHY IS QADDAFI STILL POPULAR?
Faraj Ibrahim lost 15 of his extended family, including four brothers, defending Qaddafi. He believes that “Libyans will never forget Qaddafi” especially after they were denied the chance to pay their last respects to him. After Qaddafi’s murder, his body was buried in an unmarked grave outside Misrata. The rebels responsible for his death have, so far, refused to hand over his body to his family.
Faraj, a civilian, found himself face to face with Qaddafi on Aug. 24, 2011 as “the leader [Qaddafi]” and his companions arrived in Mustafa Fetouri is a Libyan academic and freelance journalist. He received the EU’s Freedom of the Press prize. He has written extensively for various media outlets on Libyan and MENA issues, and has published three books in Arabic. His email is mustafa fetouri@hotmail.com and Twitter: @MFetouri.
his hometown, Sirte, to make their last stand. Faraj immediately went to work in securing safe places for Qaddafi and every morning would take his instructions to deliver to loyal fighters in Sirte and beyond.
On Oct. 20 Qaddafi decided to leave Sirte and head south; Faraj drove him out. Quickly the convoy of a few cars was bombed from the air. Faraj believes it was a NATO drone that attacked them twice. By mid day the rebels captured Faraj and took him to Misrata where he spent the next six years in jail without trial. Qaddafi was captured alive but killed in a gruesome way. In an emotionless voice, Faraj said that those who “killed him fear him alive and dead” and that if his grave were known, it would “become a shrine.”
The reasons for that devotion are not hard to understand. Under Qaddafi, Libyans lived quite comfortably compared to their neighbors. The government subsidized almost everything including durable domestic goods, food items, water and electricity. Critics say Qaddafi used the oil money to buy people’s silence. That might be true, but it made the lives of millions of Libyans much easier. Education and medical care were free while interest rates on mortgages were kept low. A liter of gas at the pump was cheaper than bottled water, and above all security was prominent.
After his assassination everything changed, including things people had taken for granted like security. Nowadays fighting between two militias inside the capital has been a regular occurrence. The successive governments that came to power since Qaddafi was toppled have been corrupt, weak and unable to improve public services. Throughout the past 13 years, people have suffered regular power and water shortages, as well as cash shortages at the banks. In some years, whole months have gone by without cash in the banks in a country where almost everything is paid for in cash.
Things like this have made people compare how their lives used to be and what they have become. NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011 was ostensibly about freedom, prosperity and accountability; Libyans
were told that Libya would become a paradise as soon as Qaddafi was gone. Over a decade since his death, everything has become worse and people just regret what happened. They feel cheated and made fools of by the Western propaganda against him, which explains why so many Libyans are still attached to him.
LIBYA TODAY
Since Qaddafi’s assassination, Libya has been in a state of anarchy. The three stated goals of the West’s “humanitarian military intervention”—democracy, stability and security—are nowhere in sight. The country, once one of the safest in Africa, is dangerous to live in. Its security apparatus and the armed forces in the western areas, including the capital, are dominated by militias made up of school drop-outs and unemployed young people. Many of their leaders are fugitives and convicted criminals who managed to recreate themselves as “legitimate” leaders of security organs, paid for by the Libyan treasury, but their loyalty lies elsewhere.
The U.N. mission in the country, which was supposed to help stabilize the country and smoothly steer its democratic transition has, so far, exhausted the efforts of nine envoys.
Worse still, the country is divided under two competing authorities. The Government of National Unity in Tripoli came to power through a bribery-marred deal brokered by the United Nations in 2021. Eastern Libya, on the other hand, is under a parallel government voted in by the Benghazi-based parliament but in reality dominated by General Khalifa Haftar and, increasingly, by his sons. Forces loyal to him, the Libyan National Army, control much of the country where most oil is produced and exported. Haftar tried in 2019-2020 to take Tripoli but failed, despite having the support of then President Donald Trump and his hawkish National Security Adviser John Bolton.
The main task of the Government of National Unity was to organize elections planned for December 2021. Haftar’s name was on the ballot, even though his dual U.S./Libyan citizenship automatically
bars him from holding any public office. Also running was Qaddafi’s son, Saif alIslam, whose family name might have translated into votes. Libyan elections were shelved because Saif al-Islam appeared on the verge of winning the presidency— something that annoyed both U.S. and UK ambassadors to Libya, to the point of publically speaking against his nomination.
The de facto division of the country, many fear, could one day become reality whereby another country or two might emerge out of united Libya.
DECEITFUL WEST
According to Mustafa El-Zaidi, it is the “deceitful West” that toppled the Qaddafi regime, not the Libyan people. El-Zaidi is a top plastic surgeon and self-exiled leader of the Libyan National Movement Party, one of several pro-Qaddafi political movements founded in exile. Now living in Cairo, he was deputy foreign minister during the civil war with firsthand knowledge of the political manuevers that went on behind the scenes in 2011. He believes that “the West never had any real vision for Libya” after Qaddafi and never really cared about “Libyans and how they might live.”
He claims that what happened was a “conspiracy” quickly seized upon by the West to topple the regime that never “submitted to them.” It was not “about Qaddafi,” he said, but about Libya as a country with abundant natural resources and a regional strategic location. To prove the point, ElZaidi says that during his months as deputy foreign minister, he never received any serious offer of negotiation from the United States or France, the two powers that led the military intervention in Libya. In secret talks held in Europe, all they demanded was the departure of Qaddafi without “telling us what will happen after...we repeated the question over and over again in vain.”
In his view, the West has no interest in seeing Libya stable and governed by a patriotic government “even if elected by Libyans,” simply because Western interests in Libya are “conflicting” and will always be. ■
Canada Calling
Visitors to Israel Pavilion Greeted With Sounds of Bombings and Drones
By Candice Bodnaruk
LEFT: Folklorama protesters at the Israel Pavilion in Winnipeg. ABOVE: Runners and walkers register at the Run for Palestine fundraiser.
THE SOUNDS of Israeli drones over Gaza bewildered guests for four consecutive nights at the Israel Pavilion at Winnipeg’s Folklorama this past August. Along with the drone recording, organizers of the pavilion protest also played sounds of Israeli bombs dropping on Gaza. Demonstrations have been held annually at the Israel Pavilion since 2014, when they originally began to protest Israel’s war on Gaza, launched that year and lasting for 51 days.
This year around 75 people signed a letter to Manitoba Folk Arts Council executives asking that the pavilion not participate in the festival because of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Members of the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba, Independent Jewish Voices-Winnipeg, Peace Alliance Winnipeg and United Jewish People’s Order all signed the letter.
Folklorama organizers did consider the request and submitted the letter to their board of directors, but they eventually concluded that the Israel Pavilion had not breached its license agreement with the festival.
The Russian Pavilion has not been a part of Folklorama since 2022. Pavilion organizers said they did not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and did not feel it was appropriate for Russia to participate in the festival.
Candice Bodnaruk has been involved in Palestinian issues for the past 14 years through organizations such as the Canadian BDS Coalition and Peace Alliance Winnipeg. Her political action started with feminism and continued with the peace movement, first with the No War on Iraq Coalition in 2003 in Winnipeg.
In its letter of response, Folklorama’s President Kim Ly said, “Folklorama acknowledges the tragedy of ongoing conflicts around the world, both present day and throughout history, and we recognize the impact on us here at home.”
At the four-night protest, organizers also played music throughout the evening, including “My Name is Gaza,” “Free Palestine” and “Leve Palestina.” Sing 4 Humanity led participants in a Palestine-themed version of “What Side Are You On?” and people also joined in an ensemble reading of “If I Must Die” by the Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, who was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza last December 6.
WINNIPEG RUN FOR PALESTINE RAISES $17,000
More than 300 people of all ages gathered at an idyllic picnic spot in Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Park on Sept. 15 for the 3rd Annual Run for Palestine, taking part in either a 1-kilometer walk (which is just over half a mile) or a 5-kilometer (3 miles) run to raise funds for Islamic Relief Canada’s work in Gaza, specifically for Al-Shifa Hospital. Despite special protections for hospitals under international law, two devastating Israeli raids on Gaza’s largest hospital left it in ruins. Organizers created a display of baby and children’s clothes in remembrance of all the children killed in Gaza by Israel since Oct. 7. Run for Palestine featured a craft display by local artisans, while T-shirts and buttons were also for sale.
The Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba was the main sponsor of this year’s run; Independent Jewish Voices-Winnipeg was a partner in the run.
Founded in Toronto in 2009, Run for Palestine is a not-for-profit organization and has held events in London, Ottawa, Vancouver and Winnipeg. Since its founding, RFP has held more than 20 runs across Canada and raised over $500,000 to support Palestine. Winnipeg’s run collected $17,000. ■
www.Otherwords.org
Correio do Povo, Porto Alegre, Brazil
Cartoon Movement, Amsterdam, Netherlands
El Diario de Coahuila, San José, Costa Rica
Morning Herald, Sydney, Australia
Cartoon Movement, Leiden, Netherlands
ARAB AMERICAN ACTIVISM
Alternative Media and Debunking Israeli Lies
On Sept. 13, the American-Arab AntiDiscrimination Committee (ADC), as part of its four-day ArabCon convention in Dearborn, MI, held a panel titled, “Reporting Genocide: The Journalists’ Perspective.” Moderated by documentary filmmaker Valentina Pereda, the discussion featured Ryan Grim, co-founder of Drop Site News; Laila Al-Arian, executive producer of Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines; and Said Arikat, Washington bureau chief for the Jerusalembased newspaper Al-Quds
Arikat, who has 25 years of experience covering the State Department, argued that “the difference is very shallow between a Democratic administration and a Republican administration” regarding Middle East policy. Despite initial optimism that the incoming Biden White House would reverse course on its predecessor’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal unilaterally, the new administration was quick to disappoint. Arikat added that Biden administration officials abandoned commitments made on background. “They never fulfilled their promises to reopen the PLO office in Washington…they never reopened the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem.”
The primary difference between the two administrations in the press briefing room was the tone of State Department representatives, according to Arikat. After former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s unabashed “belligerence,” the Biden team’s willingness to at least discuss Palestine and a two-state solution was a welcome, albeit symbolic, shift. That all changed on Oct. 7. “After Oct. 7, it is pure hostility,” Arikat testified. “[Secretary of State] Antony Blinken articulates the Israeli position a lot better than Israel Katz, the Israeli foreign minister.”
Al-Arian emphasized the “egregious media malpractice” displayed by mainstream coverage over the past year, which she characterized as “inherent to the
practice of journalism, in which there is a Palestine exception.” She pointed to the media’s “regurgitation of Israeli talking points and propaganda, things like beheaded babies, that Hamas conducted a campaign of mass rape on Oct. 7, [and] an effort to brand Hamas as ISIS.” Al-Arian noted that the Western media’s uncritical reporting of Israeli claims has continued, no matter “how many times the Israeli military and government are proven to have lied.”
Although “it’s comical how bad the propaganda is,” Al-Arian contends that its legitimation by mainstream media “is actually shaping minds” in the West. Mentioning polls that show “many Americans think that more Israelis have been killed than Palestinians” and “don’t even know who’s occupying who,” Al-Arian blames their ignorance on mainstream journalists’ “allergy to covering any kind of contextual history of how we got to Oct. 7.”
“The history of American media is basically catering to the establishment,” Arikat added. “The corporate media serves the establishment in every which way… they’re part of this huge American imperial power that is the hegemon in the world today.” Specifically, “American media is
limited [in perspectives] because it chooses not to be there, it chooses not to be in the West Bank, not to be in the villages…they all go back to Tel Aviv,” Arikat continued. “How often do you see an American reporter in Jericho who lives there and observes what people suffer every day?”
Grim, from Drop Site News, highlighted the alternative media’s role in debunking disinformation that often goes unchallenged by corporate journalism. Over the past year, “so many of the Israeli propaganda narratives fell apart under pressure from alternative media,” which Grim credits for “digging deeper into the claims, the 40 [beheaded] babies, the systemic rape, and then finding that, actually there wasn’t anything there.” While “it’s impossible to prove a negative,” he points out that “you can often trace the rumor back to the source, and then show that that person actually was not even in the position that they said they were to be making that claim.”
The relatively recent emergence of alternative media prompted Grim to “wonder about the histories that are written of so many previous conflicts” where mainstream narratives went unchallenged.
Friends and relatives mourn over the body of Al ‐ Aqsa TV cameraman Muhammad al ‐Tanani, as he is prepared for burial in Gaza City after being killed by Israel, on Oct. 9, 2024.
Without alternative outlets, the discredited Israeli narratives of this conflict “would just be stated as facts in the history books,” Grim argued. “They say that journalism is the first draft of history, so the historians who are not able to go back and reinterview the people at the time just go into the archives, and they read the mainstream reporting.” Grim believes that this will not happen with this conflict, “because I think there is enough [alternative] reporting being done that they won’t just simply be able to get away with that kind of false narrative.”
Jack McGrath
WAGING
PEACE
How Disgruntled Arab and Muslim Americans Will Vote
“The 2024 Elections Amid the Gaza War” was the focus of the Arab Center Washington DC’s annual conference, held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on Sept. 26.
Speakers on the first panel noted that many Arab and Muslim Americans are thoroughly unimpressed by both the Republican and Democratic candidates for president. “We understand we are facing a dilemma,” Osama Abu Irshaid, executive director of American Muslims for Palestine, said. On the one hand, Donald Trump actively targeted Muslims and boosted Israel during his first term, and has stated his intent to crack down on those using their First Amendment rights to criticize Israel. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris has largely stood behind President Joe Biden’s policy in support of Israel.
Dalia Mogahed, a scholar at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, used data from a poll conducted just before Biden dropped out of the race to demonstrate how unenthusiastic Muslim Americans were about his campaign. While he won 65 percent of the Muslim vote in the key swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia in 2020, he was polling at only 12 percent in those states this year. “He did not suffer this type of loss in any other community—not even close,” she noted. Most respondents did not indicate
Activists pass out signs near the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, IL, encour‐aging people not to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, on Aug. 19, 2024.
their intent to shift support to Trump, with 22 percent of Muslims in the three states saying they would vote for him, compared to the 18 percent who voted for Trump in 2020. Thirty percent said they would vote third party, 17 percent stated they were undecided and 13 percent indicated they would not vote.
James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, shared a more recent poll of Arab Americans. (He noted that the majority Arab Americans are not Muslim, while the majority of American Muslims are not Arab.) Harris’ numbers are better than Biden’s, however she is still polling poorly among Arabs. While Democrats have held a two-to-one edge over Republicans among Arab voters since George W. Bush’s second term, the community is now divided along party lines. Zogby’s latest poll found that “former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are virtually tied at 42 percent to 41 percent, respectively…with 12 percent supporting third-party candidates.”
Harris’ problem extends beyond Arabs and Muslims, as two-thirds of young people and non-white voters are opposed to Israel’s actions in Gaza, Zogby said.
Zogby believes enthusiasm is the biggest issue facing campaigns vis-à-vis the Arab American community. “The binary choice
will be ‘do I vote or not vote at all,’” he said. Layla Elabed, campaign manager at Listen to Michigan, agreed. “The majority of our community is not going to go out and vote in November,” she predicted, based on what she has heard going door-to-door around Michigan. Arabs and Muslims not turning out could easily cost Harris the state. There are 250,000 Muslims in Michigan, and Biden won the state by just 150,000 votes in 2020, she noted. Zogby added that Harris “can kiss Michigan goodbye” if she does not speak out about Israel’s war on Lebanon, as many Arab voters in the state are refugees from prior Israeli wars on the country.
As for third-party candidates, Zogby believes only a small number of Arabs will end up exercising that option, despite some polls showing Green Party candidate Jill Stein winning a significant portion of the community’s votes. Abu Irshaid, meanwhile, predicted that Stein will perform well among Muslims. “She might not be a viable option or well known to the American public, but she is well known to the Muslim community,” he said.
While some have accused Muslims and Arabs of handing Trump the presidency by failing to support Harris, Abu Irshaid adamantly maintained that it is Harris who must be blamed for not earning their votes.
“It’s not a choice that we make, it’s a choice that the candidates themselves make,” he said. “We understand the consequences of a second Trump presidency, but we also have a moral compass.”
Elabed echoed this sentiment, arguing that Democrats should have seen this year’s “Uncommitted” campaign, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of Democratic primary voters refusing to vote for Biden due to his Gaza policy, as a warning sign. “We’ve always said the ‘Uncommitted’ vote was giving a gift to the Democratic Party, to tell them early on, ‘you do not have the support of your Democratic base in order to beat Trump in November,’” she said. While Harris has been slightly more sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians than Biden, Elabed said, “We don’t have a messaging problem, we have a funding bombs problem.”
Zogby, who has worked inside the Democratic Party for decades, argued that those angry about the Biden-Harris administration’s Israel policy should still vote for the Democratic nominee. Advocates for issues impacting Arab Americans will have much more access to power in a Harris administration, he maintained. “The Democratic coalition is the home where we’ve learned we have a receptive audience on everything from immigration to civil liberties,” he said. “Don’t tell me there’s no difference. There is a difference between the two parties, the two coalitions.”
Abu Irshaid was not convinced. “I don’t think that a Trump presidency is really that bad of a thing for America,” he said. “It might give a sense of purpose, a sense of mission to the Democrats.” He added, “When it comes to the Democratic Party, I think experience teaches us that we don’t get much from them because they take all of their constituents for granted. They instill fear about the other candidate, about the other party, but they don’t deliver.”
Dale Sprusansky
Would Israeli Polices Change If U.S. Asserted Pressure?
On Oct. 1, Georgetown University held an event on its Washington, DC campus to explore the role the U.S. is playing in Israel’s
ongoing war crimes.
Nathan Thrall, an author and analyst, said “impunity” is the word that best characterizes Israel’s violations of international law and human rights over the past year. This impunity has been largely fueled by unbridled U.S. military and diplomatic support for the country, he noted.
Israel “can continue this way precisely because of this strong shield that the U.S. provides,” he said. Without this “you would see Israel slide toward becoming an actual pariah state and they would start to have to recalculate…they would actually start to think ‘this has a price,’ because right now it has no price.”
Thrall sees this reality play out daily in Jerusalem, where he lives. “It is very easy to live your life as an Israeli Jew and not think about it [the genocide in Gaza] and not feel it,” he observed. “It’s right next to you, and you can ignore it very, very easily.” Israelis being shielded from the consequences of their government’s actions is “one of the keys to the longevity of this system of domination over Palestinians,” he added.
If the U.S. and the international community placed real costs on Israel for its treatment of Palestinians, Thrall believes the country would alter its policies out of pure selfishness. “People are going to act in their rational self-interest,” he said. “At the
end of the day, you’re going to say— whether you’re left wing or you’re right wing or whatever—’I want to be in FIFA, I want to be in the Olympics, I want to travel to Europe without a visa, I want to travel to the United States without a visa, I want to be able to operate a normal business, I don’t want to live in a pariah state, I don’t want to hide that I’m Israeli when I travel abroad.’ I think that when you get to that point, then there’s a rational interest, even if you’re very right wing, to say ‘I want to have a different reality and this is the price I have to pay.’”
Thrall described the Biden administration’s approach toward Israel over the past year as a “farce,” accusing them of constantly building false hope of an impending ceasefire while putting no real pressure on Israel. “They could have ended this war months ago by cutting off arms,” he asserted. “It is entirely in the U.S.’ power—and has been all along—to end this war. They are fully responsible, and they act as though they are bystanders who would like to give good advice to an ally about some conflict they have nothing to do with.”
Thrall fears Washington will now freely follow Israel into a war with Iran. “If you listen to U.S. officials themselves, they say for years Israel’s goal has been to drag us into a war with Iran, and now that appears closer than ever,” he said.
Amos Hochstein (l), senior adviser to President Joe Biden, meets with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (r) in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Sept. 16, 2024. Hochstein is a veteran of the Israeli military.
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said “Israel’s design from the getgo [after Oct. 7] was to expand this war to take on Iran ‘once and for all’….I don’t think Israeli leaders made any secret about this.” They “have repeatedly insisted that all of this is about Iran.”
As to why Washington so willingly acquiesces to Israeli desires even when they conflict with the U.S. national interest, Whitson pointed to the influence of the Israel lobby. “If you start with the premise that with respect to Israel, our government decisionmakers are captive to massive donations—to both political parties—that reward them if they continue to supply Israel with all the weapons to fight their wars, including U.S. troops to fight their wars…then it makes sense,” she said.
Dale Sprusansky
Freedom’s Battleground is the Boycott
Boycotts are a non-violent tactic used internationally and throughout history to register protest. Indeed, the American Revolution was birthed by the boycott of British goods in response to the Townshend Act, which raised taxes on everyday items.
To date, 38 U.S. states have passed legislation penalizing the boycotting of Israeli products, services and companies—including those operating on land in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories. This has happened despite the Supreme Court ruling unanimously in 1982 that boycotts to bring about political, economic and social change are protected by the First Amendment as a form of free speech.
How can those who care about freedom and human rights resist and reverse this accelerating attack on free political expression? What boycotts have been successful? Which are ongoing? And how can we get involved to end our own society’s support for the ongoing genocide and other violations of human rights against Palestinians? These were the topics of the Voices From the Holy Land Online Film Salon on Sept. 15.
At the heart of the Palestinian resistance struggle is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Panelist Olivia
Katbi, the North America coordinator for BDS explained, “The BDS Movement is a Palestinian-led global movement that adopts non-violent tactics to pressure Israel into complying with international law and respecting Palestinian human rights. Launched in 2005, it was inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement as well as the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. It’s led by the largest coalition of Palestinian civil society groups, which includes Palestinian trade unions, other professional syndicates, student groups, feminist organizations, cultural institutions, academic associations, among others, in a coalition called the BDS National Committee.”
Opponents of BDS fear boycotts because they can be successful. Katbi offered, “One BDS campaign, a consumer boycott, targeted Pillsbury because some products were made in a factory in an illegal settlement. We won that campaign. They stopped making those products.” There are many variations to this tactic. “In a cultural boycott, performers will cancel a concert, or athletes can refuse to play Israeli national teams. In an academic boycott, a college or university will cut ties with Israeli universities.”
Panelist Adrienne Pine, coordinator of the International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine, talked of the importance of local actions. “Our coalition thinks strategically about the supply chains that
are directly enabling the genocide. For example, almost 100 percent of the munitions used in the current genocide in Gaza trace back to a company called Day & Zimmerman, headquartered in Philadelphia. We located the production sites, however, in various points across the United States.” Discovering such details can lead to local action. “For example, the No Harbor for Genocide campaign focused on the Valero Energy Corporation, which has a Department of Defense contract to supply JP-8 jet fuel that is used by Israel’s Air Force. We confirmed the ongoing delivery of military fuel from Corpus Christi, Texas, to the port of Ashkelon in Israel.”
Panelist Merrie Najimy centered her remarks on the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), a purported civil rights group that actively works to police how schools approach lessons about Israel and Palestine. Najimy, who is with the Institute for the Understanding of Anti-Palestinian Racism, said, “We are alerting teachers and school boards to the fact that ADL misrepresents itself as an education organization. Its real aim is to silence discord and debate and the teaching about Israel and Palestine in our schools.” The ADL’s K-12 curriculum includes teaching materials like “No Place for Hate,” which actually gives cover to their political mission of supporting the Israeli government unconditionally. The ADL
Students at City College in New York City call for a boycott of Israel, on April 26, 2024.
conflates anti-Semitism with legally protected free speech as a means of suppressing Palestinian humanity, history, culture and rights.
Katbi concluded that there are many aspects to the Palestinian struggle. Each profession, civic institution and social gathering can choose tools that are most powerful for its constituency. For example, many religious congregations are discussing how to become Apartheid-Free congregations.
“The American Friends Service Committee provides a large list of divestment targets,” she noted. “Our goal for the BDS movement is not to boycott everything with ties to Israel, to end every penny of investment. It is to select a few high-priority targets and actually win those campaigns.”
“We must act preemptively,” said Pine. “We want to be ready to push back against Zionist propaganda and silencing. We want to fight collectively, to work in coalition and always be taking the lead from those who are most impacted.”
An edited recording of this salon can be viewed at <www.voicesfromtheholyland. org/featured-videos>. The event was cosponsored by Nonviolence International.
Steven Sellers Lapham
Anera’s Annual Dinner Theme: “Life Through Community”
Anera hosted its annual dinner fundraiser at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, DC, on Oct. 4. For 56 years, Anera has provided humanitarian relief to Palestinians living in refugee camps, as well as long-term development aid. The dinner was attended by 520 guests and raised more than $3 million to support Anera’s vital humanitarian and development initiatives in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Jordan. The event was not just a fundraiser—it was a confirmation that there is a powerful global community that is working for meaningful change.
Hala Taha, host of the popular Young and Profiting (YAP) Podcast and CEO of YAP Media, served as a skillful MC. Anera’s president and CEO Sean Carroll, chairman of the board Joe Saba and Palestine country director Sandra Rasheed spoke to attendees. They visited the Nur Shams Refugee
Camp in the Tulkarm Governorate of the West Bank in September and saw “complete and utter destruction” in the camp, with streets razed and electricity, water and sewage networks, a kindergarten, a community hall and a youth center, along with many stores and private cars, destroyed by countless Israeli incursions.
Human rights attorney and Rutgers professor Noura Erakat praised Anera’s staff and described how they have become family to each other. She noted their daily commitment and resilience, especially those toiling on the ground in Palestine and Lebanon, often working through personal tragedy to deliver life-saving aid. Erakat admitted it’s been a grueling year for everyone. She also reminded attendees, “Palestinians don’t need to be saved. We just need your support so we can save ourselves.”
Political commentator Mehdi Hasan acknowledged the dedication of Anera’s team and the outpouring of support from nearly 70,000 new donors in 141 countries, raising funds at marathons, cultural events and college campuses.
World Central Kitchen’s José Andrés sent a video message from North Carolina where he was providing food and water to people affected by Hurricane Helene. He praised his partner Anera and urged the organization to “keep moving forward.” He
marveled, “When the worst things happen, always the best of humanity shows up.” Palestine country director Rasheed highlighted Anera’s logistical achievements, while dealing with ever-changing Israeli regulations and challenges. Anera has coordinated with 80 organizations to provide millions of meals, medical treatments and essential supplies. Expressing deep appreciation for her team, Rasheed honored the dedication of Anera’s 35-person core staff in Palestine, especially those in Gaza who work in tents and share moments of grief and solidarity.
In his poignant speech, Carroll paid tribute to Anera’s fallen colleague Mousa Shawa, 41, killed while wearing his Anera vest by an Israeli airstrike, along with his 6year-old son in Al Zawayda, Deir al-Balah, on March 8, 2024 Shawa started working for Anera as a driver and custodian 15 years ago and rose to the role of logistics and support coordinator, getting aid to people who needed it most, Carroll said. “Nowhere in Gaza is safe and safe spaces in Lebanon are shrinking.” He emphasized the persistence of grief fatigue among Anera’s staff, who continue to deliver aid under harrowing conditions, and underscored the need for ongoing support from donors to sustain these vital efforts. He zeroed in on the stark reality that Israel is restricting Palestinians’ access to aid and committing a plausible genocide. While Anera has managed to deliver more than 1,000 truckloads of aid into Gaza, this falls far short of the need.
Despite the challenges, Carroll affirmed Anera’s commitment to not only providing emergency relief but also advocating for long-term change and support for Palestinians’ aspirations. “Part of Anera’s work,” said Carroll, “even if not our main mandate, ends up being about showing the world that Palestinians’ aspirations are as valid as anyone else’s.” Carroll concluded by vowing to counter the narrative that Palestinian lives are not worth saving. He requested a minute of silence to honor all those lost in the conflicts and reiterated the importance of Anera’s role in delivering hope and advocating for peace in the Middle East. —Delinda C. Hanley
Anera’s president and CEO Sean Carroll pays tribute to Anera’s fallen colleague in Gaza, Mousa Shawa.
Middle East Books and More teamed up with activists for another popular sidewalk sale on Sept. 28, to raise funds for Haya Washington, a humanitarian nonprofit that aids displaced Palestinians in Gaza. Browsing shoppers paused to discuss the growing catastrophes in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon—and took
In Memoriam
Continued from page 17
of what remained of her home. Her logic made no sense to me. I pleaded with her to leave. She ignored me and instead kept sending me photos of what she had salvaged from the rubble, an old photo, a small olive tree, a birth certificate. My last message to her, hours before she was killed, was a promise that when the war is over, I will do everything in my power to compensate her for all of this. That the whole family would meet in Egypt, or Türkiye, and that we will shower her with gifts and boundless family love. I finished with, “let’s start planning now. Whatever you want. You just say it. Awaiting your instructions....” She never saw the message.
a copy of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs home to learn more. Haya Washington is distributing bread, milk, clean water and food to Palestinians who are repeatedly displaced during Israel’s incessant attacks. Middle East Books and More is temporarily displaced ourselves, and operating from a small
Even when her name, as yet another casualty of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, was mentioned in local Palestinian news, I refused to believe it. I continued to call. “Please pick up, Soma, please pick up,” I pleaded with her.
Only when a video emerged of white body bags arriving at Nasser Hospital in the back of an ambulance did I think that maybe my sister was indeed gone.
Some of the bags had the names of the others mentioned in the social media posts. Each bag was pulled out separately and placed on the ground. A group of mourners, bereaved men, women and children would rush to hug the body, screaming the same shouts of agony and despair that accompanied this ongoing genocide from the first day.
Then, another bag, with the name
popup alongside our bookstore, as it undergoes an expansion and renovation. Visitors from around the world are showing they are willing to pack our popup to buy keffiyehs, olive oil, pottery, books and more to show solidarity with a cause that is vital to us all.
—Delinda C. Hanley
“Soma Mohammed Mohammed Baroud” written across the thick white plastic. Her colleagues carried her body and gently laid it on the ground. They were about to zip the bag open to verify her identity. I looked the other way.
I refuse to see her but in the way that she wanted to be seen, a strong person, a manifestation of love, kindness and wisdom, whose “little finger is worth more than a thousand men.”
But why do I continue to check my messages with the hope that she will text me to tell me that the whole thing was a major, cruel misunderstanding and that she is OK?
My sister Soma was buried under a small mound of dirt, somewhere in Khan Younis.
No more messages from her. ■
Middle East Books Review
All books featured in this section are available from Middle East Books and More, the nation’s preeminent bookstore on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. www.MiddleEastBooks.com • (202) 939-6050 ext. 1101
Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic
By Ilan Pappé, Oneworld
Publications, 2024, hardcover, 608 pp. MEB $40
Reviewed by
Walter L. Hixson
Near the top of any reputable list of the most significant academic voices on the IsraelPalestine issue in the past generation is the exiled Israeli historian, Ilan Pappé. In a series of insightful studies, perhaps most notably The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, the prolific Pappé has repeatedly advanced the conversation through his bold and critical analyses.
Pappé is at it again, with his focus now turned with good effect to analyzing the history of the Israel lobby. Often crudely dismissed by Zionist apologists as a polemicist, Pappé, as this book underscores, is a skilled and tireless historian and scholar, albeit one with a functioning moral compass.
Among the many impressive assets of this study is that it analyzes the Israel lobby’s purpose and actions, as the title conveys, “on both sides of the Atlantic.” The book thus centers on the history of Zionist advocacy in Great Britain and the United States. It is extensively researched, especially in its command of relevant secondary sources. Following a Preface, there are 11 chapters essentially alternating between Great Britain and the United States and an Afterword with preliminary analysis of
Walter L. Hixson, distinguished professor of history emeritus, is the author of numerous studies, including Architects of Repression: How Israel and Its Lobby Put Racism, Violence and Injustice at the Center of US Middle East Policy, published by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in 2021.
Israel’s post-Oct. 7, 2023, campaign of slaughter in Gaza.
Defining the Israel lobby has always been a tricky business. Pappé opts for an expansive definition of the lobby as a massive advocacy network that labors around the clock to promote the Zionist project and delegitimize its critics. It has evolved from its 19th century roots to the point that: “In 2024, Israel will not allow any show of solidarity with the Palestinians in Britain or the U.S….to escape its radar, and will do all it can [to delegitimize] every person who condemns its ethical violations…It will brand these activities as anti-Semitic and tantamount to Holocaust denial.”
The first half of the book analyzes the formative years of the lobby. The story begins in the mid-19th century when “an evangelical Christian eschatological vision” conjoined with efforts by European Jews to combat the virulent anti-Semitism that prevailed across the continent, but especially in Eastern Europe. In the 20th century the focus shifted to promotion of the settler colonization of Palestine—in material terms as well as in growing efforts to legitimate the removal of Palestinians and their replace-
ment with a Zionist homeland.
What Pappé finds most intriguing, however, is the 21st century lobby, which distinguishes Israeli settler colonialism and propaganda from other settler societies such as the United States and Australia. No other state that is as well ensconced economically, militarily and politically as the modern state of Israel has felt the need to mount such a pervasive and relentless lobbying campaign as that of the Zionist state and its supporters on both sides of the Atlantic.
As I argued in Architects of Repression, the intensity of the modern-day Israel lobby flows from the challenges of justifying a repressive settler state in the postwar era of decolonization and human rights advocacy. Pappé makes this point as well, but he also emphasizes the significance of “the failure to complete the settler-colonial project because native Palestinians have not been eliminated.” As a result, “Their survival and insistence on their rights mean that Zionists need to actively erase and deny the past in order to brush over the ethical and moral problems associated with the founding of the state of Israel.”
In addition to its mission to justify Zionism and delegitimize critics, Pappé makes the important but often overlooked point that the Israel lobby has grown so powerful that it covets “power for the sake of power.” When a lobby becomes as potent as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), dominating the U.S. Congress and mainstream political culture, it takes on a life of its own and will relentlessly strive to retain its power and influence against all challenges.
As Pappé illustrates, both Parliament and Congress know what Israel and its lobby demand, and they regularly and readily toe the line. However, he adds, “In the age of the internet and alternative media, civil society cannot be controlled anymore.” Moreover, many younger Jews in Europe, the United States and Israel itself are turning away from the blindly pro-Zionist stance of their parents and grandparents.
The fate of Israel-Palestine will come down to whether the reality of an apartheid state or the mendacity of Zionist advocacy will prevail in global hearts and minds. Deeply troubling, however, as Pappé explains in the Conclusion, is the growing
specter that a far-right authoritarian theocratic Jewish state will prevail and ultimately take rights way from Israeli Jews as well as Palestinians, who would suffer even greater indignities—if that’s even imaginable— under such a regime.
As Pappé concludes, “We need to believe in humanity and the power of justice to carve a different way forward, however tough the odds are.”
What Does Israel Fear From Palestine?
By Raja Shehadeh,
Other Press, 2024, paperback, 128 pp. MEB $15.99
Reviewed by Matthew
Vickers
What Does Israel Fear From Palestine? is an eloquent and intimate reflection on Israel and Palestine’s dual histories, directly reckoning with the tormented past and our uncertain times. Raja Shehadeh yet again combines his powers as a writer and human rights activist, creating a graceful but emotionally challenging document that captures a historical movement and invites readers to contemplate its urgency and meaning.
Divided into two parts, the book begins with a decisively simple question: Why, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of formal apartheid in South Africa, didn’t Israelis see inspiration to end their decades-long occupation and subjugation of the Palestinian people?
Shehadeh’s Israeli friends provide an ominous answer that haunts the rest of the book. “Israelis,” he writes, “didn’t see their situation as being any way akin to apartheid and so did not think that it needed a similar resolution.” In denying the Palestinian Nakba and framing the events of 1948 as a war of “independence,” Israel created a national myth that not only fails to conform to reality but affirms the displacement and erasure of another nation, Shehadeh argues. In Israel, the commemoration of Nakba Day remains criminalized, and many in the country deny or downplay the historical re-
Matthew Vickers is an undergraduate student at Occidental College, where he is majoring in diplomacy and world affairs. He was an intern at the Washington Report this summer.
ality of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine. In some Israeli circles, the Nakba is acknowledged—but seen as something to be celebrated and continued. Take for instance the Oct. 8, 2023, tweet of Knesset member Ariel Kallner: “Right now, one goal: Nakba!”
The book features discourses on the history of the occupation, the failure of Oslo, the divisions within Palestinian politics, and, perhaps most importantly, the rise of the Israeli far right and settler movement and their increasing hegemonic sway over the country’s politics. Shehadeh connects all these themes to Nakba denialism, delivering a compelling argument in defense of Palestinian dignity and life.
As a supporter of a peaceful resolution, Shehadeh’s reminiscences of Oslo are particularly gloomy. The culture of peace, as promised by the Oslo moment, was never truly on the table due to Israel’s refusal to recognize Palestinian statehood, accept the right of return for refugees, or acknowledge the suffering its policies inflicted on the Palestinian people. Shehadeh captures the contradictions of the “peace process” by citing the address of Dr. Haidar Abdel-Shafi, head of the Palestinian delegation at the 1991 Madrid Conference. While AbdelShafi spoke of the promise of co-existence and mutual reconciliation, he also spoke about how Palestinians have been “victimized by the myth of a land without a people and described with impunity as the invisible Palestinians.” This truth was denied by then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who dismissed Abdel-Shafi’s address as “twisting history and perversion of fact.”
In the second section of the book, written
amid the Israeli genocidal invasion of Gaza after Oct. 7, Shehadeh confronts the earthshattering “global shift” concerning Palestinian freedom and the temperature of Israeli society. Noting that sharp divisions permeated Israel prior to October 2023, evidenced by massive protests against judicial reform, the author contends that Israel now, at least temporarily, stands united against a common enemy: the Palestinian nation. Shehadeh affirms the few international trends in favor of Palestinians, such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) decisions and legal action against settlers, yet argues that the physical destruction of Palestinian lives coupled with the irrecoverable loss of cultural sites and educational institutions renders such minimal actions almost pitiful.
With Shehadeh’s own family having been displaced from Jaffa in 1948 and his life spent lawyering on behalf of Palestinian rights, his prose feels deeply personal yet calmly analytical, affirming his influential status within Palestinian writing circles. Despite ending on an anguished and inconclusive note, Shehadeh finishes his testament with an uplifting coda: “And yet, looking back at the history of the region, it is only after great upheavals that hopeful consequences follow.” Shehadeh’s final words are reminiscent of German philosopher Walter Benjamin’s words, written in a similarly despairing and destructive time: “Only for the sake of the hopeless ones have we been given hope.”
Visualizing Palestine: A Chronicle of Colonialism and the Struggle for Liberation
Edited by Aline Batarseh, Jessica Anderson and Yosra El Gazzar, Haymarket Books, 2024, hardcover, 392 pp. MEB $50
Reviewed by Ida Audeh
If you’ve ever wondered how to convey the lived experience of Palestinians under Israeli rule to people for whom words like “colonialism” and “apartheid” remain abstractions, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the work of Visualizing Palestine (VP), which just
Ida Audeh is senior editor of the Washington Report
published a subset of their infographics in a book titled Visualizing Palestine: A Chronicle of Colonialism and the Struggle for Liberation. This gem of a resource collects more than 200 infographics created by the VP team that tell the story of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli colonization in terms that non-political people can intuitively grasp. In these infographics, “the anatomy of occupation is laid bare,” to quote Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy.
The editors describe their purpose in the Introduction: “We create visual stories to nourish education, advocacy, organizing and collective action for Palestinian liberation,” with the ultimate aim of countering harmful narratives that “sustain systemic oppression.” Their process is collaborative, and they draw on the skills of researchers, artists, organizers, lawyers, communications specialists, translators and so many others.
The book consists of 12 chapters, each of which describes a dimension of the Palestinian experience since the creation of Israel as a settler colonial regime (for example, “Ongoing Nakba,” “Political Prisoners,” “Navigating Apartheid”). Each chapter begins with a short introduction that walks readers through the infographics in the chapter that, taken together, tell a story.
Take for example the chapter “Political Prisoners.” The introduction cites figures from the prisoner support group Addameer that 40 percent of the adult male population of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip have been incarcerated at one time or another. That’s an astonishing and probably little-known fact and helps explain why Palestinian society fervently rallies around political prisoners. The first infographic in the chapter, “A Guide to Administrative Detention,” brilliantly explains the typical process endured by detainees held under administrative detention who are neither charged nor tried, pawns in a system designed to convict them or hold them indefinitely.
“Hunger Strike” puts this type of protest in an international context and explains the physical impact of hunger on the body and makes linkages to non-Palestinians who have resorted to this form of protest— Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Laila Soueif of Egypt (mother of political prisoner
Alaa Abd El-Fattah), groups of Guantanamo and South African detainees, Irish Republican Army prisoner Bobby Sands and Tiananmen Square activists—to call attention to their political causes.
Infographics that describe ongoing Israeli goals (for example, the obsession with keeping Jerusalem 70 percent Jewish) do a brilliant job of identifying the legal edifice Israel constructed to make all sorts of repressive measures not only “legal” but even inevitable and necessary in order to maintain Jewish demographic superiority. Other infographics tell a story with a clear beginning and ending; one example is the successful BDS campaign against French multinational company Veolia, which was pressured to end its investment in Jerusalem’s Light Rail project, which connects the city to illegal settlements.
Social justice activists will find powerful infographics to use to convey the intersectionality of liberation struggles. For example, Israel’s Pegasus spyware, tested on Palestinians under occupation, is used by repressive governments in Mexico, Spain and elsewhere to keep unruly citizens under constant surveillance. By highlighting Israel’s global reach, especially with surveillance software, the infographic gives activists a tool to identify allies who have reasons for opposing Israel that go beyond solidarity with Palestinians.
Because the Palestinian liberation struggle is ongoing, it is not surprising that some images might seem dated or incomplete. For infographics on the genocide in Gaza, still horrifyingly ongoing, that is unavoidable; the editors had to set an arbitrary
cutoff date for additions to the manuscript. Similarly, images that depict home demolitions and random killings in the West Bank are hard to keep current, because the pace has increased during the war in Gaza. Nevertheless, they provide useful snapshots of war crimes that will presumably be periodically updated.
The back section of the book describes some of the interactive projects that VP is working on and the rigorous process the team adopts when developing an infographic, which is as intellectually rigorous as writing a political brief. The range and richness of these projects is impressive and warrant exploration (and for that readers will have to go to <visualizingpalestine.org>).
One project, “Who’s Complicit?” offers information about companies that contribute to the violation of Palestinian human rights, which can be used to build campaigns to hold companies accountable.
Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters
Edited by Helena Cobban and Rami G. Khouri, OR Books, 2024, paperback, 244 pp. MEB $19.95
Reviewed by Steve France
“Do you condemn Hamas?”
That bald challenge is constantly raised when someone questions Israel’s genocide against the 2.3 million people of Gaza. The query has succeeded in shutting up many Americans. Even noted expert on Palestine and Hamas, Helena Cobban, says, “Those of us who refused to play that game [of blanket condemnation] just kept quiet for a long time.”
Heaven help anyone else.
Faced with such a question, even knowledgeable critics of Israel may suddenly realize how little they know about the Islamic Resistance Movement, whose acronym is Hamas. You could confess ignorance of a major Palestinian group and look like a lightweight; dodge the question and look weak and/or devious; condemn Hamas and effectively deny the Palestinian right to resist Israel’s force with force; or blindly defend a notorious “Islamist terrorist organization” that President Joe Biden, among others, calls “pure evil.”
Cobban and her colleagues at Just World Educational, a non-profit that informs the public on global issues, decided last spring “to challenge head-on the reluctance of so many North Americans—including many [who are] purportedly proPalestinian—to even start to discuss Hamas.” In May, they launched “Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters,” a public education campaign based on webinar conversations with highly informed scholars and journalists.
The campaign resulted in a potent little book under the same title that presents lightly edited texts of each conversation, along with helpful appendices. In less than 150 pages (excluding the appendix) it proves Cobban’s point that “now it’s time to talk about Hamas as…a very important strand in the Palestinian national movement.” The book repeatedly denies any intention of trying to build support for Hamas, but the conversations offer a comprehensive picture—with a wealth of supporting detail—of Hamas as a very solid, multifaceted, pragmatic, principled and popular liberation organization.
One understands why Israel considers the total eradication of Hamas to be an existential necessity—and why Zionists are intent on keeping Americans disinformed and afraid to even learn about the group. In his conversation with Cobban, Dr. Jeroen Gunning of King’s College London, ticks off the benefits to oppressors of reducing a legitimate resistance group to one dimension, terrorism: It strips violent resis-
Steve France is an activist, writer and
Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative by Isabella Hammad, Grove Press, 2024, paperback, 96 pp. MEB $18
Nine days before Oct. 7, 2023, award-winning author Isabella Hammad (The Parisian and Enter Ghost) delivered the Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia University. The text of Hammad’s seminal speech and her afterword, written in the early weeks of 2024, together make up a searing appraisal of the war on Palestine during what seems a turning point in the narrative of human history. Profound and moving, Hammad writes from within the moment, shedding light on the Palestinian struggle for freedom. Having received rave reviews across the board, Recognizing the Stranger is a brilliant melding of literary and cultural analysis from one of the best Palestinian writers in the diaspora.
Gaza Faces History by Enzo Traverso, translated by Willard Wood, Other Press, 2024, paperback, 128 pp. MEB $15.99
The destruction of Gaza is reminiscent of the golden age of colonialism, when the West perpetrated genocides in Asia and Africa in the name of its civilizing mission. The Oct. 7 attack was terrifying, but it must be analyzed and not just condemned. And we must do so by summoning all the critical tools of historical research. Enzo Traverso goes to the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by calling history into question and offers a critical interpretation that overturns the one-sided perspective from which we have become accustomed to observing what is happening in Gaza. Should the war in Gaza end in a second Nakba, Israel’s legitimacy will be permanently compromised. In that case, neither American weapons nor Western media, nor the distorted and outraged memory of the Holocaust will be able to redeem the Jewish state.
There Are Rivers in the Sky: A Novel by Elif Shafak, Knopf, 2024, hardcover, 464 pp. MEB $30
In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, his only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his interest: Nineveh and Its Remains. Meanwhile, in 2014 Türkiye, Narin, a 10-yearold Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time. Finally, in 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything. A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend fate: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.
tance of historical and political context, as if it “comes out of nowhere,” and delegitimizes as misguided or a “terrorist lover” those who considers the relevant context.
The result is to discredit any proposed political solution to a conflict, leaving state violence as the sole solution. So, any political overture by Hamas must be a disingenuous trick. Meanwhile, no matter how much terror Israel inflicts on Palestinians, the terror label only applies to “non-state actors.”
Moreover, the label lumps national liberation movements in with international fundamentalist groups like ISIS or alQaeda, which seek to impose their narrow and extreme ideologies on anyone and everyone, with no connection to a particular national struggle. But as Dr. Khaled Hroub of Cambridge and Northwestern Universities explains, Hamas consists of Palestinians seeking the liberation of Palestinians, and it accepts and works with secular groups, with people of other religions and with followers of other streams of Islam, such as Shi’is. In internal deliberations Hamas adheres to elaborate democratic processes. Hroub notes that it comfortably and successfully participated in the free and fair parliamentary elections of 2006, and has tried hard to build unity, even with its arch-rival, Fatah. Understanding Hamas explains that the group has never imposed Sharia law in Gaza and has curbed the power of fundamentalist Salafist groups. It supports women’s education and professional and government employment and actively opposes such traditions as child marriage and honor killings.
Emerging in the 1980s from the regional Muslim Brotherhood movement, the group focused on meeting Palestinians’ religious and social needs and stayed out of politics until it joined the First Intifada and named itself Hamas. In fact, Israel provided assistance to the group in its early years to undercut Yasser Arafat’s Fatah party. Hamas first engaged in terror bombings in Israel in direct response to the notorious—and unpunished—1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre of 29 Palestinian men and boys at prayer in Hebron. Fatah then helped Israel crack down on Hamas.
Now, as Palestinians reel in anguish from Israel’s genocidal reaction to Oct. 7, 2023, support for Hamas has grown stronger. Yet American activists still shy away from Hamas as an embarrassment. We ask ourselves how the world can allow the genocide, but with our silence we allow the world to believe that Hamas is all about terror, not liberation, and must at least be sidelined. That stance, in effect, strips the Palestinians of their right to fight for their freedom.
So, Cobban and co-editor Rami G. Khouri conclude by calling on “governments and publics worldwide [to] end their demonization of Hamas and its allies [and to] respect the right of the Palestinian people to be free of military occupation, to determine their own future and to be able to build their own national governance institutions.”
The No-State Solution: A Jewish Manifesto
By Daniel Boyarin, Yale University Press, 2023, hardcover, 200 pp. MEB $30
Reviewed by Allan C. Brownfeld
Israel claims to be the “homeland” of all Jews, and Zionists argue that Jews living elsewhere are “in exile.” Other Jews, however, argue that Judaism is a religion of universal values, not a nationality.
In The No-State Solution, Daniel Boyarin, professor emeritus of Talmudic Culture at the University of California, Berkeley, calls for a form of Jewish existence that is not situated in a nation-state but still upholds Jewish nationalism. By differentiating between a Jewish “nation” and a Jewish “state,” he challenges both those who see no need for a Jewish national identity and those who insist on a territorial home.
“In place of the nation-state, the no-state solution I offer is a diasporist vision for the future,” Boyarin explains, calling it a “commitment to the welfare of the people and their culture among whom one lives.” He invokes the slogan of the Jewish Bund (the Yiddish socialist mass movement in preWorld War II Central and Eastern Europe): “There, where I live, is my homeland.”
Boyarin thus offers a vision for a positive Jewish future, which does not involve depriving Palestinians of their homes or their
rights. He envisions a meaningful Judaism in the places where Jews live, not a fixation on an alleged “Jewish homeland” in Israel. “If we want the Jews to continue as a meaningful entity, a diasporic nation with a culture and the capacity to care deeply and struggle for the oppressed of other nations as well (especially for the nation we have oppressed, the Palestinians) we have to make it so,” he writes. “If we will it, it is no fairy tale.”
Boyarin describes the The No-State Solution as the result of a lifetime spent grappling with the concept of a Jewish homeland. “After literally decades of obsessive thought about ‘the Jewish Question,’ I seem to have gotten myself into an aporia, a dead end of thinking with no way out,” he writes. “One way of describing this impasse would be that two of my most ardent political commitments—to full justice for Palestinians and to a vibrant, creative Jewish national culture—seem directly to contradict one another….The nation-state is well on the way to being a racist, fascist state. Given the choice between racism and ‘my culture,’ ‘my nation,’ I have no choice but to choose justice, but the loss would be unsupportable. There is too much that I love, value, treasure and enjoy to become indifferent to the fate of the Jewish people.”
In the view of David Ben-Gurion and other early Zionists, writes Boyarin, “All Jews who didn’t join the Zionist project were waste products…For [former Israeli Minister of Internal Affairs] Natan Sharansky and many other Jewish voices, all Jews who do not join the territorialist nationalist project of the state of Israel are simply ‘un-Jews,’
whatever their commitment to Jewish learning and practice….Ben-Gurion explicitly wrote in a letter that it was better that half the Jews of Europe die in the Nazi genocide if the other half would come to Palestine rather than have them all survive and remain outside of the Jewish state.”
Boyarin argues that this conflicts with the vision of early Zionists. “None of the early progenitors of the Zionist idea, from Leon Pinsker to Ahad Ha’am to Theodor Herzl envisioned a Jewish state, but rather a Jewish autonomous national region within a state composed of other nations as well,” he says. “The idea…was to provide a model multi-national state, not a nation-state and certainly not a negation of the diaspora.”
Boyarin’s assessment of Zionism is indeed persuasive. But his formulation of Judaism as a combination of religion and nation is much less so. Indeed, until the creation of Israel, most Jewish Americans did not consider their identity to be anything but religious. They felt that they were American by nationality and Jews by religion, just as other Americans were Protestant, Catholic or Muslim.
Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish denomination in the U.S., opposed Zionism from its beginning. In 1897, the Central Conference of American Rabbis adopted a resolution disapproving of any attempt to establish a Jewish state. In 1904, the American Israelite newspaper declared, “There is not one solitary prominent native Jewish American who is an advocate of Zionism.” Only after the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust did support grow for the creation of Israel.
Boyarin understands how Zionism has corrupted Judaism and turned its back on traditional Jewish moral and ethical values. His “no-state solution” may not provide us with the answer to Judaism’s future course, but it is an important contribution to a debate which is now growing.
Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism.
A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Ilan Pappé, Oneworld Publications, 2024, paperback, 160 pp. MEB $16.95
The devastation of Oct. 7, 2023, and the horrors that followed astounded the world. But the Israel-Palestine conflict didn’t start on Oct 7. It didn’t start in 1967 either, when Israel occupied the West Bank, or in 1948 when the state of Israel was declared. It started in 1882, when the first Zionist settlers arrived in what was then Ottoman Palestine. Ilan Pappé untangles the history of two peoples, now sharing one land. Going back to the founding fathers of Zionism, Pappé expertly takes us through the twists and turns of international policy toward Israel-Palestine, Palestinian resistance to occupation and the changes taking place in Israel itself. While many of Pappé’s prior books are long and dense (albeit deeply valuable), A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict joins his Ten Myths About Israel as a short and valuable resource for novices and experts alike.
Night of Power: The Betrayal of the Middle East by Robert Fisk, Fourth Estate, 2024, hardcover, 672 pp. MEB $40
The final work from foreign correspondent Robert Fisk, Night of Power picks up the story in the Middle East where his internationally bestselling The Great War for Civilization left off, starting with the aftermath of the Iraq invasion. From the Arab uprisings and the Syrian civil war to Israel’s conflicts with Palestine and Lebanon, Fisk condemns the West’s hypocrisy and interference while revealing the horrific truth of life on the ground. Unafraid to criticize authority and unpick complex truths, he creates a compelling narrative of passionate and engaging journalism, historical analysis and eyewitness reporting. With a Postscript by his widow Nelofer Pazira-Fisk and a foreword by Patrick Cockburn, Night of Power delivers an essential and prophetic account of the last 20 years, which exposes the inescapable consequences of colonial oppression and violence in the Middle East.
Wars of Ambition: The United States, Iran and the Struggle for the Middle East by Afshon Ostovar, Oxford University Press, 2024, hardcover, 360 pp. MEB
$29.99
When President George W. Bush took office in January 2001, America’s influence in the Middle East was relatively strong, and adversarial states were largely marginalized and contained. The Sept. 11 attacks upended all of this and prompted the Bush administration’s plan to remake the Middle East through a war in Iraq. The vast disruption the war caused created an opportunity for Iran to advance its own ambitions. The resulting clash over the future regional order not only intensified the Iraq war, it reverberated across the region. In Wars of Ambition, Afshon Ostovar explores the evolution of the long and metastasizing conflict as it unfolded over a span of more than two decades. Not just a sweeping account of the interaction between America’s Middle East policies and ambitious regional countries on the receiving end, it also provides a powerful analysis of conflicting visions of the future that transcend regional politics. With Iran’s rise and its revisionist campaign running in concert with those of Russia and China, the contest for the Middle East has become a microcosm of a larger geopolitical battle between those aiming to preserve the American-led global order and those seeking to overturn it.
Other People’s Mail
Compiled by Dale Sprusansky
ISRAEL REJECTS A PALESTINIAN STATE
To Orillia Matters, Oct. 16, 2024
As I write, the Israel Defense Forces has declared all of northern Gaza a “military zone” forbidden to civilians and demanded the 400,000 remaining residents flee their homes, including all patients and staff inside the last functioning hospital—a certain death sentence for some of the patients. They have already bombed the last functioning bakery in the north.
Israel continues to severely restrict delivery of food and critical humanitarian supplies into Gaza, with no food whatsoever entering the north since the start of October, enforcing literal starvation on the entire civilian population, a war crime in order to drive them off their land.
Western medical workers returning from Gaza report that everyone there is sick— the direct result of Israel’s yearlong, and illegal collective punishment of the entire population.
A minute’s work with the internet determines that the current Hamas charter of 2017 states the “conflict is with the Zionist project, not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine.”
By contrast, Israel’s governing Likud party’s founding document begins:
“The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the [Mediter-
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ranean] Sea and the Jordan [River] there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”
As recently as July 17 of this year, according to Al Jazeera, “Israel’s parliament has passed a resolution that overwhelmingly rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
Owen Ford, Orillia, ON
ISRAEL IS NOT A DEMOCRACY
To the New Hampshire Union Leader, Oct. 16, 2024
In an editorial by The Boston Globe on Oct. 3 titled, “A strong Israeli defense against Iran benefits U.S. interests,” the editors refer to Israel as a democracy.
To justify the boundless financial and military support (given without any accountability that it is used for defense) they assert that Israel is the only democracy in the region. Webster has many definitions of what constitutes a democracy including “political, social or economic equality: the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges” and “a situation in which everyone is treated equally and has the right to participate equally.”
Clearly this is not remotely the case in Israel where Palestinians are either living under an apartheid occupation or, if living in Israel proper, are treated as second class citizens.
Many of the settlers who are living on land stolen from the Palestinians are Americans. Were I, a Jewish American, to move to Israel, I would have more rights and freedom than people who have been living on this land for generations. That is not a democracy in action and it is deeply disrespectful to Arab Americans, Palestinians and anyone who is paying even just a little
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attention to what has been going on in that region.
Anne Romney, Portsmouth, NH
THE LOBBY PUSHES U.S. LEADERS TO ENABLE ISRAEL
To the Pagosa Daily Post, Oct. 4, 2024
Former President Jimmy Carter has celebrated his 100th birthday.
I admire his lifelong support for humanitarian causes. Carter is a rare American statesman who spoke out against Israel’s practice of apartheid.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently did the same in his address to the United Nations.
Carter authored a 2006 book titled, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. In the book, he contends that Israel’s construction of illegal settlements in the occupied territories is a primary obstacle to peace in the Middle East.
When Carter was asked why many Americans are not aware that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid, he explained that there are powerful political forces in our country which prevent any objective evaluation of what is taking place, and that legislators could risk their seats in Congress by speaking out.
This is indeed what happened to the Democratic Party’s progressive “Squad” members—Rep. Cori Bush, a left wing representative from Missouri, and New York’s Jamaal Bowman—who were both defeated in their Democratic primaries. This was largely due to their harsh criticism of Israel which resulted in massive opposition funding organized by the pro-Israel group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Palestinians do not possess the power to humanize their people in the eyes of the American public. An art show in Milwaukee that was to display images of Palestinian suffering was cancelled because a major donor threatened to cut off the organization’s funding.
Notably, Palestinian Americans were afforded no speaking roles at the Democratic or Republican National Conventions. Israel is the largest recipient of cumulative U.S. foreign aid since its founding. If most members of Congress are not capable of offering strong criticism of Israel regardless of its actions, how will Israel ever be forced to adopt more humane practices toward the Palestinians?
Terry Hansen, Milwaukee, WI
BIDEN REFUSES TO HOLD ISRAEL ACCOUNTABLE
To the Los Angeles Times, Oct. 7, 2024
The idea that the U.S. holds limited sway over Israel’s march into Lebanon is a lie. Even before Oct. 7, 2023, the U.S. had the ability to rein in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. With a single executive order, President Joe Biden could withhold military and financial aid to Israel. President Dwight D. Eisenhower threatened to do this when Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt in 1956.
The Biden administration merely refuses to do anything to stop Netanyahu’s march toward an all-out war in the Middle East.
John Zavesky, Riverside, CA
U.S. CONTINUES TO SEND ARMS IN ABSENCE OF CEASEFIRE
To the Portland Press Herald, Oct. 18, 2024
When the most powerful armed nation in the world grants another nation a blank check regarding military action, and delivers its most powerful weapons to that nation, what should the world expect? The world should expect just what is being delivered—a terrible, devastating war on three fronts, Gaza, the West Bank and now Lebanon.
According to the World Health Organization, in Lebanon alone—even before the Israeli ground invasion—one million people
have been displaced by Israeli airstrikes. And what do leaders in the United States weakly implore? They urge a ceasefire or—the most recent bland nudge from U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin—the suggestion that Israel “pivot” to a ceasefire position. Urging and wishing and pivoting mean nothing.
I would suggest that the combatants on both sides refuse to carry out the orders of their leaders. I would suggest a general strike in that quarter in honor of all those under the rubble or now running for their lives.
I would suggest that we in the United States not support sending any more arms to Israel. I think in some quarters this is considered sedition. In other quarters, it might be considered common sense.
Nicole d’Entremont, Peaks Island, ME
THE WORLD CAN’T LET ISRAEL DESTROY LEBANON
To The Cornell Daily Sun, Oct. 7, 2024 Whenever I attend a protest or a rally, it has always been because my heart led me there. When I watch a video of a sevenyear-old child bleeding from the ear, hair white, covered in rubble, mumbling “where is my mommy?” I think about my own seven-year-old brother and wonder what kind of world I want him to grow up in.
So, when a columnist claims that anyone rallying for Lebanon must be doing so because they are in support of Hezbollah or because of their “thinly disguised anti-Semitism and hate for Israel,” it annoys me. While I find that accusation to be an overused trope, and in many ways ahistorical, my annoyance stems more from the increasing normalization of ignorance in journalism. We must rally for Lebanon.
The war on Gaza continues to set new (devastating) precedents for modern warfare. According to CNN, over the course of Sept. 24 and 25, Israel pummeled southern Lebanon with 2,000 munitions and 3,000 airstrikes. Perhaps we must congratulate Israel for conducting the number of airstrikes in two days in Lebanon that the U.S. typically dropped in Afghanistan over the course of one year.
Whenever Israel attacks, it permits itself to forgo all rules of modern warfare: principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack. Israeli leadership uses 2,000-pound bombs in capital cities despite it being unlawful. That country really is its own role-model, spreading terror, displacement and death in the Middle East. On July 19, for the first time since the Israeli occupation began in 1967, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) released a ruling accusing Israel of practicing apartheid in the Palestinian occupied territories. This means Israel has officially been found, by international law, to be a state that practices illegal separation, differentiation of treatment and systemic discrimination.
As an international community, is this not enough to condemn Israel, the same way our university leadership has condemned other nations in the past? Fellow Cornellians, the contradictions are clear. Let us rally for Lebanon because we stand in solidarity with the over 1,000 civilians killed and one million displaced whose lives were forever changed by an illegal occupying state.
Kingsley Onyedikachi Aaron-Onuigbo, Ithaca, NY ■
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After weeks of Israeli airstrikes, the Lebanese people shop, drive, exercise and cope, alongside hundreds of thousands displaced to the center of Beirut and to the city’s corniche beachfront promenade, pictured above on Oct. 15, 2024. Israeli strikes have displaced an estimated 1.4 million people, and Israeli evacuation orders now cover one‐third of the country.
