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Tuesday, October 31, 2023
[Salon] Brownfeld letter to the WaPo -
To the editor,
Washington Post.
The Post article, “Settler violence against Palestinians Surges in West Bank,” tells an important story. According to the United Nations, since Oct. 7, at least 121 Palestinians have been killed on the West Bank. The U.N. Has recorded 171 settler attacks against Palestinians. Almost half of these incidents involved Israeli forces accompanying and actively supporting Israeli settlers.
The Hamas terrorist attack against Israeli civilians was a horrible assault and is indefensible. But this should not cause us to ignore Israel’s behavior in the West Bank. It has occupied this territory in violation of international law for more than 50 years. Its three million Palestinian residents have no right to vote or legal rights. Their treatment has been characterized as “apartheid” by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Beyond this, their treatment is a violation of Jewish moral and ethical values.
President Biden continues to speak of a “two state solution.” Sadly, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu rejects this and speaks of annexing this territory. Some members of his right-wing coalition speak openly of removing its indigenous Palestinian residents. Massive U.S. aid to Israel means that U.S. taxpayers are helping to subsidize this enterprise.
Even Israel’s first Prime Minister recognized that Palestinians had legitimate grievances about their treatment. Not long after Israeli independence had been achieved, David Ben-Gurion told Zionist leader Nahum Goldmann, “Why should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: We had taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it’s true, but two thousand years ago, but what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that.”
Today, the majority of Palestinians in the West Bank want an independent state, which previous Israeli leaders had promised, and for which Yitzhak Rabin was murdered by a right-wing extremist. Yet, today’s Israeli government rejects such a concept. Israel calls itself a “Jewish state,” but there is nothing “Jewish” about mistreating people because they are of a different religion or ethnic group. Indeed, Zionism has, it seems, turned its back on the universal Jewish moral tradition which Jewish critics of Zionism such as Albert Einstein, Judah Magnes, Martin Buber and Hannah Arendt warned that it would.
That tradition still lives among those who seek a world in which Jews, Christians and Muslims can live in peace and mutual respect. The extremists of Hamas and Israel’s right-wing want a different kind of world. Let us hope that they will fail in their efforts.
Sincerely,
Allan C.Brownfeld,
Editor of ISSUES, the quarterly journal of the American
Council for Judaism. (www.ACJNA.org)
What's Not Being Said - TomDispatch.com
What's Not Being Said - TomDispatch.com
What's Not Being Said
What War Does to the Nations That Fight It
By Andrea Mazzarino
Reacting to the terrorist attacks by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed more than 1,400 Israelis, Americans have been remarkably focused on whether we should support Israel or the residents of Gaza. In either case, we act as if Israel's only possible decision was whether or not to launch a war against Gaza. In the country that waged a disastrous 20-year "global war on terror" in response to the 9/11 attacks, it seems strange that there's been so little discussion about what such a decision might mean in the long term. Going to war is just that -- one decision among many possibilities, including taking steps to strengthen and democratize the states where such armed militias may otherwise flourish.
As a co-founder of Brown University’s Costs of War Project, it's become a focus of mine to show just what's happened to us because our government, more than two decades after the 9/11 attacks, continues to fight a “war on terror” (whatever that may mean) in some 85 countries. Yes, that’s right: 85 countries! We've armed foreign militaries, flown our drones in a devastating fashion, run prisons (often in places with far laxer human-rights standards than ours), trained foreign militaries, and sometimes fought directly alongside them.
Water Wars: The Other Circular Economy | The Breakthrough Institute
Water Wars: The Other Circular Economy | The Breakthrough Institute: The Breakthrough Institute is an environmental research center based in Berkeley, California. Our research focuses on identifying and promoting…
[Salon] We Are Ruled By Sociopaths And Morons -
Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
We Are Ruled By Sociopaths And Morons by Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin Johnst
The response to the Gaza crisis from western leaders and media outlets and celebrities shows very clearly that we really are led by the least among us. The least wise. The least intelligent. The least compassionate. The least insightful. We are ruled by sociopaths and morons.
❖
You are being offered two narratives to choose from:
Palestinians in Gaza are evil orc-like savages who just want to murder Jews and must therefore be caged and killed.
Palestinians in Gaza are thinking human beings who are reacting to intolerable abuses inflicted upon them.
Which is more believable?
❖
We’re being told that Israel needs to wage a relentless bombing campaign which is killing civilians by the thousands in order to eliminate Hamas, because Hamas must be destroyed to achieve a lasting peace. Every part of this is transparently false.
Firstly the premise that Hamas must be eliminated to achieve peace is fallacious; peace can be achieved by eliminating the abuses and righting the wrongs which gave rise to Hamas in the first place. There’s no rational reason to believe Hamas would continue to exist in its current iteration or keep waging violent resistance if the theft and injustice from 1948 onward were rolled back, refugees had the right to return, apartheid abuses were ended, and people were no longer kept in a giant concentration camp where they are deprived of basic human needs.
Secondly the premise that you can bomb people into accepting an abusive status quo is self-evidently absurd. Even if Israel kills every single member of Hamas, there will be hundreds of thousands of survivors of this onslaught who see the depravity of Israel and refuse to accept it. You think all these orphaned boys and all these men who saw their loved ones ripped apart by military explosives are just going to be cool with the status quo from here on out? Of course not.
And Israel knows this, which is why its preferred solution is to kick all survivors of this onslaught out of Gaza and into refugee camps in the Sinai Peninsula. It knows that nothing it’s doing will actually work and it refuses to make the reparations that will work, so its only other option is the elimination of Gazans one way or the other. Ethnic cleansing and mass displacement is not “peace” by any stretch of the imagination, but it might allow Israel to keep its abusive status quo intact.
Those are Israel’s only real options for sustainable stability: either right all the wrongs which led to this, or go the opposite direction and inflict far more wrongs to answer the Palestinian question once and for all. It’s pretty clear watching all this that Israel has opted for the latter.
❖
The narrative managers are still struggling with the problem that when they announced that Palestinians had escaped from their concentration camp and killed a bunch of Israelis, an inconvenient number of people started asking “Wait, what were they doing in a concentration camp?”
❖
I find nothing less morally or philosophically interesting than pontificating on how the traumatized prisoners of a horrible concentration camp should have conducted themselves once they broke free of its confines. As far as I’m concerned everything that happened on October 7 was the result of generations of Israeli abuse, the British decisions which made it all possible, and the American backing which has kept it going.
Israeli policies created Hamas. I don’t mean this in the usual “Netanyahu boosted Hamas to sabotage peace and undermine its more moderate rivals” sense, I mean it in the “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable” sense. If you stomp out every possible peaceful avenue of resistance, naturally you’re going to see the rise of factions which favor violent resistance.
One of my most formative experiences in understanding this conflict happened in 2018 when I watched Israeli soldiers firing on protesters with sniper rifles and live ammo. B’Tselem explicitly denounced this as unlawful. There’s nothing that could possibly make such a thing okay, and it was a very clear illustration of the way Israel has cut Palestinians off from all the normal pathways toward peaceful resolution.
I said when all this started that I believe the Hamas attack will ultimately be a net negative for Palestinians, but that I can’t in good conscience “condemn Hamas” because nobody can articulate a positive direction that Palestinians should be taking. The fact that all peaceful avenues of resistance have been cut off is not the fault of the Palestinians, and it’s not the fault of Hamas. It’s the fault of the Israeli government.
Hamas is just what you get when you create an intolerably abusive apartheid state which keeps millions of people in a concentration camp whose inhabitants are cut off from basic human needs and make peaceful revolution impossible. Hamas isn’t the disease, it’s a symptom of the disease. The disease is an apartheid settler-colonialist project which cannot exist without endless violence, warfare and abuse.
❖
I refuse to be shamed and demonized for supporting peace by people who support the murder of thousands of children.
Italy's Belt and Road blues highlight hopes for India-Europe corridor - Nikkei Asia
Italy's Belt and Road blues highlight hopes for India-Europe corridor - Nikkei Asia: GENOA, Italy -- Ship-to-shore cranes tower high above choppy waters and colorful containers on the Ligurian coast of northern Italy. Sailors coming in
Monday, October 30, 2023
‘This war is prophetically significant’: why US evangelical Christians support Israel | Evangelical Christianity | The Guardian
‘This war is prophetically significant’: why US evangelical Christians support Israel | Evangelical Christianity | The Guardian: One strand of evangelical theology holds that the return of Jews to the region starts the clock ticking on a seven-year armageddon, after which Jesus Christ will return
Guest Post by Allan Brownfeld - THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN POLITICS, WHICH MANY OF THE FOUNDERS FEARED -
THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN POLITICS, WHICH MANY OF THE FOUNDERS FEARED
by
Allan C.Brownfeld
———————————————————————————————————————-
There can be little reason to doubt that American political life is in serious decline.
After I graduated from law school, I spent a number of years working in both the U.S.Senate and the House of Representatives. I worked with such Republicans as Charles Mathias of Maryland, Philip Crane of Illinois and served as assistant to the research director of the House Republican Conference. Board members of the conference included George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford, both of whom went on to become president. I also worked with one Democrat,Sen.Thomas Dodd of Connecticut, and was his representative on the Senate Internal Security subcommittee. In that capacity, during the Vietnam war, I wrote the U.S.Senate report on the New Left.
In those years, Republicans and Democrats did not view one another as “enemies,” as many do now. I do not remember those members of Congress with whom I worked thinking of those in the other party in hostile terms, as many do at the present time. Instead, they were busy building coalitions on a number of issues. They worked together and were on good terms. Think of Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill. Together, Republicans and Democrats won the Cold War and advanced civil rights and ended segregation.
The chaos in Congress at the present time is clear to all. After weeks without a Speaker, the House of Representatives has finally chosen a Speaker almost unknown to his colleagues, with very little congressional experience. Rep. Mike Johnson, it seems, was acceptable because he was unknown on Capitol Hill. During the roll call vote on the House floor, Rep. Kay Granger (R-Tex.), chair of the Appropriations Committee, rose and mistakenly voted for “Mike Rogers”—-the chairman of the Armed Services Committee—-before correcting herself to Mike Johnson. Rep.Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), in a statement congratulating the new speaker, called him “Jim Johnson.” Sen.Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told CNN that she would have to Google him.
In only his seventh year in Congress, Johnson is the least experienced Speaker in a century and a half. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank writes that, “…three weeks before the next deadline to avoid a government shutdown, Republicans have elected a no-name speaker with no experience and no agreement on a way forward.”
In a recent interview, former Republican Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger recalled that when he first came to the U.S., American politics was in serious decline. John F.Kennedy had been assassinated. A few years later, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were murdered. He recalls that, “We came out of all that. Ronald Reagan provided the leadership to bring us back…We need a new generation of leaders to bring both of the political parties together. There is a real danger in demonizing the other side. It is important to bring people together.”
The decline of Congress can be seen in the case of Rep. George Santos (R-NY) who appeared in court in late October pleading not guilty to 23 federal charges. The allegations include 10 new felony counts including money laundering and identity thefts related to his congressional races, coming after a guilty plea from Santos’s campaign treasurer for helping the lawmaker commit these alleged crimes.
“He should absolutely resign,” said former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA). Some politically endangered Republicans from Santos’s neighboring districts, tired of being tied to the embarrassing freshman, plan to force an expulsion vote for the full House. This, however, seems unlikely. During more than 230 years of congressional history, just five members of the House : three for disloyalty to the Union during the Civil War and two in the last 45 years after they had been convicted in federal court in felony corruption cases, have been removed.
In the years I worked in Congress, I don’t remember any members receiving death threats. The U.S. Capitol Police investigated about 7,500 cases of potential threats against members of Congress in 2022. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger says that, “This has resulted in a necessary expansion of not only our investigative capabilities but our protection responsibilities as well. While that work
Is ongoing, everyone continuing to decrease violent political rhetoric across the country is the best way to keep everyone safe.” Referring to the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol, he warns that this could happen again.
Our government, almost 250 years old, is the oldest form of government in the contemporary world. No other people today live under the same form of government which existed in their country 250 years ago. Only Americans. But, historically, we have seen that democratic societies have self-destructed. Consider Athens and Rome. More than 200 years ago, the British historian Alexander Tytler wrote: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury—-with the result that democracy collapses over a loose fiscal policy,always to be followed by a dictatorship.” In Tytler’s view, the average age of the world’s few democracies was around 200 years.
Thomas Jefferson thought it would be only a matter of time before the American system of government degenerated into an “elective despotism.” He warned that citizens should act now in order to make sure that “the wolf was kept out of the fold.”
As early as 1785, he wrote: “Mankind soon learn to make interested uses of every right and power which they possess, or may assume. The public money and public liberty, intended to have been deposited with the three branches of of magistracy, but found inadvertently to be in the hands of one only, will soon be discovered to be sources of wealth and dominion to those who hold them. They (the assembly) should look forward to a time, and that a distant one, when a corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price. Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic, and will be alike influenced by the same causes. The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.”
In a 2023 report, “Understanding Democratic decline in the United States,” the Brookings Institution declares that, “The United States is experiencing two major forms of democratic erosion in its governing institutions: election manipulation and executive overreach…Most obviously, after the 2020 election, the sitting president, despite admitting privately that he had lost, attempted to subvert the results and remain in office. But democratic erosion in the U.S. is not synonymous with Donald Trump. Since 2010, state legislatures have instituted laws intended to reduce voters’ access to the ballot, politicize election administration, and foreclose electoral competition via extreme gerrymandering. The U.S. has also seen substantial expansion of executive power and serious efforts to erode the independence of the civil service.”
According to the Brookings Institution report, “Against these pressures, the gridlocked and hyper partisan Congress is poorly equipped to provide unbiased oversight and accountability of the executive, and there are serious questions about the impartiality of the judiciary…Globally, it is increasingly rare for an authoritarian to come to power through a coup. Instead, democracies in decline usually experience slow but steady erosion….In the words of political scientists Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky, ‘The electoral road to breakdown is dangerously deceptive…People still vote. Elected autocrats maintain a veneer of democracy, while eviscerating its substance.’”
We have had serious problems in the past and we have overcome them. The first step in restoring the health of our democracy is to recognize the very real threat we now face. Fortunately, more and more Americans are coming to understand the challenges which now confront us.
Wall Street eyes big profits from Israel-Hamas war - Responsible Statecraft
Home - Responsible Statecraft
Wall Street eyes big profits from Israel-Hamas war
Analysts' comments raise questions about whether major banks are abiding by their own human rights policies.
Biden expected to name senior Interior official as department’s acting No. 2 | The Hill
Biden expected to name senior Interior official as department’s acting No. 2 | The Hill: President Biden will name a senior Interior department official as the department’s No. 2 official on an acting basis, a person familiar with the Biden administration’s plans told The Hill. The administration is expected to name Laura Daniel-Davis, Biden’s nominee for assistant secretary for land and minerals management, as acting deputy Interior secretary. She will…
(116) The Israel-Hamas War ft. Ron Unz | Restoring Order - EP 277 - YouTube
(116) The Israel-Hamas War ft. Ron Unz | Restoring Order - EP 277 - YouTube
1:07 / 1:20:00
The Israel-Hamas War ft. Ron Unz | Restoring Order - EP 277
Sunday, October 29, 2023
FDA Should Recall 'Adulterated' Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine: Robert Malone | The Epoch Times
FDA Should Recall 'Adulterated' Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine: Robert Malone | The Epoch Times: Pfizer's vaccine contains a DNA sequence that could cause problems.
Gmail - [Salon] An Open Letter from Columbia University and Barnard College Faculty in Defense of Robust Debate About the History and Meaning of the War in Israel/Gaza
Gmail - [Salon] An Open Letter from Columbia University and Barnard College Faculty in Defense of Robust Debate About the History and Meaning of the War in Israel/Gaza
An Open Letter from Columbia University and Barnard College Faculty in Defense of Robust Debate About the History and Meaning of the War in Israel/Gaza:
The most recent devastating violence in Israel and Gaza that began on October 7, 2023 has had very disturbing reverberations on our campus – for all of us, students, faculty, staff, and the larger Columbia community. We write now to express grave concerns about how some of our students are being viciously targeted with doxing, public shaming, surveillance by members of our community, including other students, and reprisals from employers. These egregious forms of harassment and efforts to chill otherwise protected speech on campus are unacceptable, and we implore every person in the Columbia University community - faculty, administrators, students, alums, public safety - to do more to protect all of our students while preserving Columbia University as a beacon for “fostering critical thinking and opening minds to different points of view,” as President Shafik wrote to the community in her October 18th message about upholding our collective values.
As scholars who are committed to robust inquiry about the most challenging matters of our time, we feel compelled to respond to those who label our students anti-Semitic if they express empathy for the lives and dignity of Palestinians, and/or if they signed on to a student-written statement that situated the military action begun on October 7th within the larger context of the occupation of Palestine by Israel. We have read that statement carefully, and it is worth pointing out that the arguments it makes echo those made by both governmental and non-governmental agencies and institutions at the highest level for a number of years.
The student statement begins with language that should satisfy any measure of decency: “The loss of a human life is a deeply painful and heartbreaking experience for loved ones, regardless of one's affiliation. We extend our heartfelt condolences to the individuals and communities at Columbia University affected by the tragic losses experienced by both Palestinians and Israelis.” The statement then turns to the claim that peace and safety for all the peoples of Israel and Palestine will remain elusive unless and until the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory ends and accountability for that illegal occupation is achieved. This is not a radical or essentially controversial position – indeed, it is the position taken by many committees of the United Nations, the UN General Assembly, and respected human rights organizations. The statement also describes the Israeli treatment of Palestinians as a form of “apartheid”, and while this term is viewed as controversial in some quarters, major human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have concluded that the occupation of Palestine and the treatment of Palestinians within Israel amount to a form of apartheid, a crime against humanity with definitions provided in the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (“Apartheid Convention”) and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Indeed, Desmond Tutu, noted South African civil rights leader who was the first Black archbishop of Cape Town, concluded in 2014 that: “[Palestinians’] humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government.” And President Jimmy Carter has expressed the view that Israel's treatment of Palestinians "perpetrates even worse instances of apartness, or apartheid, than we witnessed even in South Africa."
In our view, the student statement aims to recontextualize the events of October 7, 2023, pointing out that military operations and state violence did not begin that day, but rather it represented a military response by a people who had endured crushing and unrelenting state violence from an occupying power over many years. One could regard the events of October 7th as just one salvo in an ongoing war between an occupying state and the people it occupies, or as an occupied people exercising a right to resist violent and illegal occupation, something anticipated by international humanitarian law in the Second Geneva Protocol. In either case armed resistance by an occupied people must conform to the laws of war, which include a prohibition against the intentional targeting of civilians. The statement reflects and endorses this legal framework, including a condemnation of the killing of civilians.
The statement concludes with a demand that Columbia University reverse a decision to create curricular and research programs in Israel, a demand also made by over 100 Columbia faculty last year, and that the university cease issuing statements that favor the suffering and death of Israelis or Jews over the suffering and death of Palestinians, and/or that fail to recognize how challenging this time has been for all students, not just some.
It is worth noting that not all of us agree with every one of the claims made in the students’ statement, but we do agree that making such claims cannot and should not be considered anti-Semitic. Their merits are being debated by governmental and non-governmental agencies at the highest level, and constitute a terrain of completely legitimate political and legal debate.
We are appalled that trucks broadcasting students’ names and images are circling the campus, identifying them individually as “Columbia’s Leading Anti-Semites”, and that some students have had offers of employment withdrawn by employers that sought to punish them for signing the student statement, or for being merely affiliated with student groups associated with the statement. In the absence of university action, students and faculty have undertaken the burden of blocking the images and identifying information broadcast on the doxxing trucks. It is worth noting that most of the students targeted by this doxing campaign are Arab, Muslim, Palestinian, or South Asian.
One of the core responsibilities of a world-class university is to interrogate the underlying facts of both settled propositions and those that are ardently disputed. As faculty we are committed to the project of holding discomfort and working across difference with our students. These core academic values and purposes are profoundly undermined when our students are vilified for voicing perspectives that, while legitimately debated in other institutional settings, expose them to severe forms of harassment and intimidation at Columbia.
We ask Columbia University's leadership, our faculty colleagues, Columbia alumni, potential employers of Columbia students, and all who share a commitment to the notion of a just society to join us in condemning, in the strongest of terms, the vicious targeting of our students with doxing, public shaming, surveillance by members of our community, including other students, and reprisals from employers.
Sincerely,
Katherine Franke
James L. Dohr Professor of Law
Rashid Khalidi
Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies
Gray Tuttle
Luce Professor of Modern Tibet, EALAC, Columbia
Jack Halberstam,
The David Feinson Professor of the Humanities, Columbia
James Schamus
Professor of Professional Practice, School of the Arts, Columbia
Alexander Alberro
Professor, Department of Art History, Barnard College
Premilla Nadasen
Ann Whitney Olin Professor of History, Barnard College
Ralph Ghoche
Assistant Professor, Architecture, Barnard College
Karen Seeley, Lecturer
Anthropology, Columbia
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
University Professor, Columbia
Mae Ngai
Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies, Professor of History, Columbia
Michael Harris
Professor of Mathematics, Columbia
Marianne Hirsch
William Peterfield Tretn Professor Emerita, English and Comparative Literature, Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender, Columbia
Mahmood Mamdani
Herbert Lehman Professor of Government, Columbia
Neferti Tadiar
Professor, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Barnard College
Bruno Bosteels
Professor, Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Columbia
Nico Baumbach
Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, School of the Arts, Columbia
Susan Bernofsky
Professor of Writing, Columbia School of the Arts, Columbia
Victoria de Grazia
Moore Collegiate Professor Emerita, Department of History, Columbia
Shelly Silver
Professor, Visual Arts, School of the Arts, Columbia
Frank Guridy
Dr. Kenneth and Kareitha Forde Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Columbia
Zainab Bahrani
Edith Porada Professor Art History and Archaeology, Columbia
Susan S. Witte
Professor, School of Social Work, Columbia
Karen Van Dyck
Kimon A. Doukas Professor of Modern Greek Literature, Columbia
Najam Haider
Professor of Religion, Barnard College
Avinoam Shalem
Riggio Professor, Arts of Islam, Art History and Archaeology, Columbia
Christia Mercer
Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy, Columbia
Catherine Fennell
Associate Professor, Anthropology, Columbia
Kadambari Baxi
Professor of Professional Practice, Barnard + Columbia Architecture
Reinhold Martin
Professor of Architecture, GSAPP, Columbia
Sheldon Pollock
Raghunathan Professor Emeritus, Arts and Sciences, Columbia
Robert Gooding-Williams
M. Moran Weston/Black Alumni Council Professor of African American Studies and Professor of Philosophy and of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Columbia
Partha Chatterjee
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and MESAAS, Columbia
Mana Kia
Associate Professor, MESAAS, Columbia
Katharina Pistor
Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law, Columbia Law School
Martha Howell
Miriam Champion Professor of History, Emerita, Columbia University Arts and Sciences
Elizabeth Hutchinson
Associate Professor of Art History, Barnard College
Madeleine Dobie
Professor of French & Comparative Literature, Columbia
Natasha Lightfoot
Associate Professor, History, Columbia
Brian Boyd
Senior Lecturer in Anthropology & Co-Director of the Center for Palestine Studies, Columbia
David Scott
Department of Anthropology, Columbia
Bette Gordon
Professor, School of the Arts/Film
Lila Abu-Lughod
Anthropology, Columbia
Yannik Thiem
Department of Religion, Columbia
Debbie Becher
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Barnard College
Nadia Abu El-Haj
Anthropology, Barnard College
Barbara J. Fields
William R. Shepherd Professor of History, Columbia
Shayoni Mitr
Senior Lecturer, Department of Theatre, Barnard College
Josh Whitford
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Columbia
Celia Naylor
Professor, Africana Studies and History Departments, Barnard College
Teresa Sharpe
Senior Lecturer, Sociology, Columbia
Gauri Viswanathan
Class of 1933 Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia
Pablo Piccato
Professor of History, Columbia
Hannah Chazin
Assistant Professor, Anthropology, Columbia
Nara Milanich
Professor, History, Barnard College
Manijeh Moradian
Assistant Professor, WGSS, Barnard College
Adam Reich
Associate Professor, Columbia Sociology
Gregory Mann
Professor, History, Columbia
Mary McLeod
Professor of Architecture, Columbia
Joseph Slaughter
Associate Professor, English and Comparative Literature, Columbia
Jennifer Wenzel
Professor, English & Comparative Literature and MESAAS, Columbia
Lydia H. Liu
Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities, Columbia
Hiba Bou Akar
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia
Jean Howard
George Delacorte Professor in the Humanities, Emerita, Columbia
Sarah Haley
Associate Professor of Gender Studies and History, Columbia
Richard Peña
Professor of Film and Media Studies, Columbia
D. Max Moerman
Professor, Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures, Barnard College
Stathis Gourgouris
Professor of Classics, English, Comparative Literature & Society, Columbia
Bruce Robbins
English and Comparative Literature, Columbia
Anupama Rao
History, Barnard College
Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi
Assistant Professor, Architecture, Barnard College
Jonathan Crary
Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory, Art History, Columbia
Rebecca Jordan-Young, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Barnard College
Gregory M. Pflugfelder
Associate Professor of Japanese History, Columbia
Tey Meadow
Associate Professor of Sociology, Columbia
Ashraf Ahmed
Associate Professor, Columbia Law School
Seth J. Prins
Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Sociomedical Sciences
Elizabeth Bernstein
Professor and Chair, WGSS and Professor of Sociology, Barnard College
--
The Miracle of Kindness: What I learned from the Palestinians
The Miracle of Kindness: What I learned from the Palestinians: Covering US foreign policy, economic realities, and civil liberties in American society.
Netanyahu declares a Holy War of Annihilation on Civilians of Gaza, Citing the Bible
Netanyahu declares a Holy War of Annihilation on Civilians of Gaza, Citing the Bible: Netanyahu declares a Holy War of Annihilation on Civilians of Gaza, Citing the Bible
Hungary to veto 12th EU sanctions package if Russian gas, oil targeted | Al Mayadeen English
Hungary to veto 12th EU sanctions package if Russian gas, oil targeted | Al Mayadeen English: According to the Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, any restrictions on those who have done good to Hungary by "saving the lives of Hungarians will be opposed.
Saturday, October 28, 2023
The United States Faces a Fossil Fuel Dilemma
The United States Faces a Fossil Fuel Dilemma: When you see a sleek new Tesla in a parking lot or hear an announcement of a utility committing to solar or that work is proceeding with converting steel-making from coal to electricity, you might …
Friday, October 27, 2023
Guest Post by Allan Brownfeld - REMEMBERING HOW ZIONIST TERRORISM DISPLACED PALESTINIANS AND CREATED CONTEMPORARY ISRAEL ail
REMEMBERING HOW ZIONIST TERRORISM DISPLACED PALESTINIANS AND CREATED CONTEMPORARY ISRAEL
By
ALLAN C. BROWNFELD
—————————————————————————————————————————-
In recent days, much attention has been focused on the Hamas assault upon Israeli civilians and Israel’s response. All too often, when terrorism in the Middle East is discussed, it is that perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalist groups unwilling to achieve some form of reconciliation with Israel. Often under-reported is Zionist Terrorism, which has a long but less well-known history.
To understand contemporary Israel, it is useful to understand the long history of terrorism and what many scholars have called “ethnic cleansing” which have produced many of the dilemmas which now confront us.
The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 by an ultra-Orthodox religious zealot, Yigal Amir, brought the world of Israel’s religious extremists under public scrutiny. The assassin was not a lone psychotic gunman, but a young man nurtured within Israel’s far-right religious institutions. After the murder he was hailed as a hero, not only in Israel but also by kindred spirits in the United States.
In their study of the Rabin assassination, “Murder In The Name of God,” Professors Michael Karpin and Ina Friedman note that Yigal Amir believes, “…there is only only one guideline for fixing the borders of the Land of Israel: the Divine Promise made to the Patriarch Abraham: ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the River of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates’ (Genesis 15:17). Today these borders embrace most of the Middle East, from Egypt to Iraq…zealots read this passage as God’s Will, and God’s Will must be obeyed, whatever the cost. No mortal has the right to settle for borders any narrower than these. Thus, negotiating a peace settlement with Israel’s neighbors is unthinkable.”
Among those activists Amir held in high esteem was Baruch Gipoldstein, a follower of Meir Kahane. Among the ideologues Amir and Goldstein especially admired was Noam Livnat of the Od Yosef Chai (Joseph Still Lives) religious school in Nablus. The school’s patron, Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, repeatedly expressed a doctrine of racism,declaring that, “Jewish blood and Gentile blood are not the same.” He lauded Baruch Goldstein for massacring Arabs in Hebron. Ginsburg explained that he differentiated between the murder of a Gentile and that of a Jew because the Torah places a “light prohibition” on the former and a “grave” one on the latter.
Zionist terrorism is hardly a recent phenomenon. The history of pre-Israel Palestine gives ample evidence of the terrorist mindset that produced acts of violence which took the lives of fellow Jews, Arabs and others who involved themselves in the political debates over the creation of Israel.
Consider some of the examples:
*In 1933,Chaim Arlosoroff, a young Labor Party politician seemingly destined to be the first prime minister of the future Jewish state, was shot dead while walking on the Tel Aviv beach. His murder came at the height of a campaign of personal denunciation conducted by a group of right-wing Zionists known as B’rith Habirionim (“Covenant of. terrorists”). Arlosoroff angered the extreme right because of his attempts to negotiate with Nazi Germany freedom for German Jews to leave with their money provided they used it to buy German goods. The murder blackened the image of the Revisionist movement, causing it widely to be seen as fascist and terrorist.
*During the darkest days of the Second World War, when Great Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany, Lehi (Israel’s Freedom Fighters) launched in 1940 by Abraham Stern, fought the British. When all other Jewish groups in Palestine declared a cease-fire with the British and prayed that the Allied forces would survive the 1940-2 Nazi offensive, Lehi forces planted bombs in British installations and killed British soldiers. Their leaders even sent messages of support to the Nazis and offered their cooperation in the future Nazi world order.
*In November 1944, Lehi members murdered in Cairo Lord Moyne, a member of the British war cabinet who served as state minister for the Middle East. Lord Moyne, a close friend of Winston Churchill, was killed because he was thought to be responsible for blocking the entrance to Palestine of Jewish refugees.
*in July 1946 members of the Zionist terror group Irgun blew up Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, which served as the headquarters of the British administration in Palestine. More than 80 civilians were killed, including many Jews.
*in April 1948, the Irgun and Lehi launched an attack on the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin. Situated in the hills on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Deir Yassin was of no immediate threat to the Zionist forces. Its residents were considered passive, and its leaders had agreed with those of an adjacent Jewish neighborhood, Givat Shaul, that each side would prevent its own people from attacking the other. It was the Muslim Sabbath when the attack by the Irgun and Lehi, with the reluctant acquiescence of the mainstream Jewish defense organization, the Haganah, took place. All the inhabitants of the village were ordered out into a square, where they were lined up against the wall and shot. More than one hundred civilians were killed. News of the massacre spread rapidly and helped prompt a panic flight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes.
Most of the victims of the Deir Yassin massacre were women, children and older people. The men of the village were absent because they worked in Jerusalem. Irgun leader Menachem Begin issued this euphoric message to his troops after the attack: “Accept my congratulations on this splendid act of conquest…As in Deir Yassin, so everywhere, we will attack and smite the enemy. God, God, Thou hast chosen us for conquest.”
David Shipler, Jerusalem bureau chief for the New York Times from 1979 to 1984, reports that, “The Jewish fighters who planned the attack on Deir Yassin also had a larger purpose, apparently. A Jerusalem woman and her son, who gave some of the men coffee in the pre-dawn hours before their mission, recall the guerrillas’ talking excitedly of the prospect of terrifying Arabs far beyond the village of Deir Yassin so that they would run away. Perhaps this explains why the Jewish guerrillas did not bury the Arabs they had killed, but left their bodies to be seen, and why they paraded surviving prisoners, blindfolded and with hands bound, in the backs of trucks through the streets of Jerusalem, a scene still remembered with a shudder by Jews who saw it.”
*There were other massacres of Arabs. One occurred on October 29, 1956, the eve of Israel’s Suez campaign, when the army ordered all Israeli Arab villages near the Jordanian border to be placed under a wartime curfew that was to run from 5 p.m. to 6 a.m. the next day. Any Arab on the streets would be shot. No arrests were to be made. But the order was given to Israeli border police units only at 3:30 p.m., without time to communicate it to the Arabs affected, many of whom were at work in their fields. In Kfar Kassem, Israeli border troops took up positions at various points and slaughtered villagers as they came home, unaware that a curfew had been imposed. The troops fired into one truck carrying fourteen women and four men. Villagers were hauled out of trucks, lined up and shot. In all, forty-seven Arabs, all of them Israeli citizens, were killed during the early hours of the curfew at Kfar Kassem. Lance Corporal Shalom Ofer, deputy squad leader, ordered that all women and children be shot repeatedly until none remained alive.
In his book “Ten Myths About Palestine,” Israeli historian Ilan Pappe discusses the myth that, “The Palestinians Voluntarily Left Their Homeland in 1948.” He notes that, “The Zionist leadership and ideologues could not envision a successful implementation of their project without getting rid of the native population, either through agreement or by force. More recently, after years of denial, Zionist historians such as Anita Shapira have accepted that their heroes, the leaders of the Zionist movement, seriously contemplated transferring the Palestinians.”
In a letter to his son Amos in October 1937, David Ben-Gurion wrote that it might be necessary to remove the Palestinians “by force.” In 1937, he told the Zionist Assembly: “In many parts of the country it will not be possible to settle without transferring the Arab fellahin,” which he hoped would be done by the British. But with or without the British, Ben-Gurion articulated clearly the place of expulsion in the future of the Zionist project. He wrote: “With compulsory transfer we would have a vast area for settlement…I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it.”
Ilan Pappe notes that, “What is clear is that the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians can in no way be justified as a ‘punishment’ for rejecting a U.N.peace plan that was devised without any consultation with the Palestinians themselves…While Arab governments and Palestinian leaders were willing to participate in a new and more reasonable U.N.peace initiative, the Israeli leadership turned a blind eye when in September 1948 Jewish terrorists assassinated the United Nations peace mediator, Count Bernadotte.”
The new Israeli government in 1948 adopted Plan D, which included clear reference to the methods to be employed in the process of “cleansing” the population: “Destruction of villages (setting fire to, blowing up, and planting mines in the debris), especially those population centers which are difficult to control continuously…Mounting search and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the village and conducting a search inside it. In the event of resistance, the armed force must be destroyed and the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state.”
In Ilan Pappe’s view, “The crime committed by the leadership of the Zionist movement, which became the government of Israel, was that of ethnic cleansing. This is not mere rhetoric but an indictment with far-reaching political, legal, and moral implications. The definition of the crime was clarified in the aftermath of the 1990s civil war in the Balkans: ethnic cleansing is any action by one ethnic group meant to drive out another ethnic group with the purpose of transforming a mixed ethnic region into a pure one. Such an action amounts to ethnic cleansing regardless of the means employed to obtain it—-from persuasion and threats to expulsion and mass killings…Israel is exclusively culpable for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem, for which it bears the legal as well as the moral responsibility.”
In his book “What Is Modern Israel?,” Professor Yakov Rabkin of the University of Montreal points out that, “From its very beginnings, the Zionist movement sought to colonize with Europeans a territory in Western Asia inhabited by a variety of ethnic and confessional groups. The first Jewish immigrants, at the end of the 19th century, settled on the land in a random and disparate manner, employing Arab workers on their farms. Unlike them, those who migrated to Palestine in the early 20th century practiced a concentrated form of colonization: they set up exclusively Jewish settlements, which entailed the displacement of local populations. The accent placed on the establishment of ethnically homogenous settlements could not but have created resistance. The two slogans adopted by the Zionist pioneers clearly illustrated their intentions: ‘conquest through labor’ and ‘separation.’ In other words, the Zionist movement adopted a policy of separate development that remains in force up to the present, and explains in large measure the perpetuation of the conflict with the Palestinians and the isolation of the state of Israel in the region.”
While Israel continues to present itself as a Western-style democracy, the facts are quite different. In his book “Coming To Palestine,” Sheldon Richman points out that, “The first law enacted by the Israeli Knesset was the Law Of Return, part of the Basic Law, the closest thing Israel has to a constitution. Under the Law of Return, a Diaspora Jew, no matter where he was born or where he lives may ‘return’ to Israel as a full Israeli national. But an Arab (or other non-Jew) born in Palestine but who fled or was driven out, may not. The criterion is simple: one is a Jew, the other is not.”
Richman shows that, “Unlike other countries, Israel distinguishes nationality from citizenship. Non-Jews can be citizens of Israel. But they cannot be nationals. Only Jews can be nationals. And in Israel, many rights proceed from nationality rather than citizenship…Author Roselle Tekiner has commented, ‘Israel is the only nation in the world to grant privileges to some foreigners that are denied to some native-born citizens.’”
Even as Israel came under attack from Hamas, the Netanyahu government was establishing new Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which it has occupied in violation of international law for more than fifty years,and which it now speaks of annexing. And the militant Jewish settlers, have been engaging in violent acts against the indigenous Palestinian population in an effort to remove them from their homes and villages. President Biden, who has shown strong support for Israel, sharply criticized the violent acts of settlers against Palestinians. The recent settlers, the Washington Post noted, “are a more aggressive movement under Benjamin Netanyahu.”
Since the outbreak of war with Hamas,at least 100 West Bank Palestinians have been killed. The Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din reports that settlers attacked Palestinians in the West Bank on 100 different occasions in at least 62 locations betweeen October 7 and 22. According to the United Nations, 12% of Palestinian herding communities had fled their homes as of September,primarily due to settlers attacking them and preventing them from accessing their land. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that IDF soldiers rarely act to defend Palestinians and sometimes participate in settler attacks.
Sadly, the terrorism and ethnic cleansing, which Jewish critics argue is a violation of Jewish moral and ethical values, which has characterized Israeli policy since 1948, seems to be accelerating at the present time. The right-wing Netanyahu government appears to welcome these developments, which even friends of Israel throughout the world believe threaten the country’s future.
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Guest Post by Mbrenner- THE FINAL SCENE -
[Salon] [Mbrenner] THE FINAL SCENE - micheletkearney@gmail.com - Gmail: THE FINAL SCENE
THE FINAL SCENE
America – its vassal train in tow – in committing moral suicide in Palestine. The political consequences will be profound, and as enduring as the complete discrediting of the country’s standing as a positive presence in world affairs. Encouragement of, and participation in the murderous Israel assault on Gazans has been accompanied by a torrent of lies and deceptions which discredit anything we shall do or say. The reference points for this harsh judgment are not the mythic image of “the city on the Hill;” the last, best hope of mankind; the indispensable nation for achieving global peace and stability: the Providential people born in a state of Original Virtue destined to lead the world down the path of Enlightenment. None of those idealistic standards. No, we are debased when measured against the prosaic standards of human decency, of responsible statecraft, of a decent respect for the opinions of humankind.
Some might say, rightly, that America has behaved in similarly atrocious ways in the past – and that it always restored its sense of self-respect and effectiveness abroad. Decimation of the native population; the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the wanton killing and destruction in Vietnam, and – more recently – the horrendous consequences of our interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. The last two mentioned being highlighted by the razing of Falluja (twice), Mosul and Raqqa that can be seen as the template for what we and the Israelis are now doing in Gaza. The practical difference – as opposed to the moral one – is the unique attention focused on events there. After all, this is the Holy Land for the three Abrahamic religions, the main protagonist is the Jewish state of Israel founded in the wake of the Holocaust, the conflict’s powerful resonance with large communities of co-religionists in Western capitals. It is a Passion Play with rival scripts. Ours will not become
Moreover, it is occurring at a time when the tectonic plates of the political world are shifting, when the old constellations of power and of influence are being successfully challenged, when America has responded to feelings of self-doubt as the ordained global guide and overseer by compulsive, futile displays of muscle flexing. Anxiety and self-doubt masked by false bravado is the hallmark sentiment among the country’s political elites. That is a poor starting point for a reengagement with reality. Americans are too attached to their exalted self-image, too narcissistic – collectively and individually, too lacking in self-awareness, too leaderless to make that wrenching adaptation.
Instead, we are about to see an epic act to prove that reality is only what the United States wills it to be: the girding of loins for war on Iran. It will end badly – very badly. Leaving a diminished, aggrieved but unrepentant America.
The little bells are tinkling. Bow down
They are bringing the sacrament to a dying God
Michael Brenner
mbren@pitt.edu
ArabDigest.org guest post - Europe’s response to the Israel-Gaza war
Europe’s response to the Israel-Gaza war
Summary: Europe and the EU’s response to the Gaza war displays deep splits and layers of contradictions that are reinforcing the conviction among non-western populations and their leaders that a racist double-standard is at play.
We thank Kelly Petillo for today’s newsletter. Kelly is a Middle East and North Africa specialist with the European Council on Foreign Relations and a contributor to AD podcasts. You can find her podcast “Syria’s forgotten refugees” here.
If February 2022 marked Europe’s moment of newfound unity, the aftermath of 7 October 2023 is set to be remembered as one of the most divisive times for the European Union.
Europe’s initial response to the horrors that unfolded in Israel on 7 October has been described by EU diplomats as a “cacophony”. Shortly after the attack by Hamas, EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen stated that Israel has a right to defend itself without reservations and travelled to Israel with EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola to meet with Israeli president Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Meanwhile, EU Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi publicly declared that EU aid to the Palestinian authority would stop.
These statements resulted in accusations of “double human standards” by the Palestinian Authority and caused outrage amount Arab states representatives in Brussels.
Many EU representatives were furious. High-level officials from the EU Commission and Parliament, member states like Spain (which currently holds the EU presidency) and Ireland, and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell publicly pushed back against those initial EU positions, emphasising that Israel needs to respect international norms and that EU aid would continue. On 17 October members of the European Parliament filed a letter asking for Olivér Várhelyi to resign. Circa 800 EU staff members have voiced their concerns over von der Leyen’s position.
Protestors against Von der Leyen's greenlight for genocide in Gaza occupy the European Commission building in Dublin, 19 October [photo credit: @paulmurphy_TD]
According to von der Leyen’s critics, she went too far in expressing unconditioned support to Israel, which should be contained within the language of international humanitarian law, and failed to acknowledge the Palestinian right to self-determination. The EU Commission President is also seen as overstepping her position since she has no official mandate to speak on behalf of the Union on foreign policy matters. Von der Leyen reportedly undertook her visit to Israel without prior consultation of, and agreement by, the Council of EU foreign ministers which is responsible to formulate the Union’s foreign policy. Such criticism also comes against the backdrop of divisions that emerged last month following allegations that von der Leyen’s commission secured the Tunisia migration pact without consulting EU member states.
It took the EU eight days to agree on a joint statement. This was more in line with the EU’s traditional position on the Israel-Palestine conflict as it included language on the need for Israel to balance its right to defend itself under the contours of international humanitarian law, as well as the need to sustain humanitarian aid to Palestine. Two days later Charles Michel chaired an emergency meeting to further consolidate the EU position.
As the criticism towards the Commission mounts, von der Leyen announced the EU will triple its humanitarian aid to Gaza, bringing the total to €75 million. Still, and as human rights groups and UN experts warn about war crimes on both sides, she continues to vocalise her support to Israel.
As EU officials held vigils in Brussels to remember the Israeli victims of the 7 October attacks and buildings across the EU were draped in the Israeli flag, all over the world, including in Europe and the UK, people took to the streets to protest against both Hamas and Israel’s actions. As the war continues, Europe also grapples with exacerbated challenges around antisemitism and disinformation.
Arguably no other issue has the ability to reveal the deepest weaknesses underpinning the EU more than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is deeply rooted in the national histories of EU member states and exposes existing differences in values among them. Anyone who has been involved in EU policy discussions on Israel and Palestine has likely personally witnessed at least one animated exchange among officials, MEPs and party members. For Europeans, questioning Israel’s actions (both before and after 7 October) means shaking the post-World War II consensus which led to the formation of the United Nations and the EU itself, thus putting into question the multilateral systems Europe relies upon.
While it is too early to talk about the consequences of the Israel-Gaza war for Europe, one thing is already clear: our inability to express solidarity with the Palestinians in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Israel, following perceptions of double standards after the start of the Ukraine war, deeply eroded trust among non-Western populations and leaders, many of whom widely support the Palestinian issue.
This is set to become a long war. So far, divisions have prevented European Union from securing a ceasefire or any degree of humanitarian relief for the Palestinians in Gaza. Many European voters who feel for civilians in Gaza are growing to completely distrust their leaders. The people of Gaza, too, and all Palestinians, are losing their hope in the EU. And if European leaders do not step up their engagement, a regional war might unfold. Other leaders like Putin might even take advantage of Europe’s internal stasis to deliver a peace that is not in line with Europe’s terms, one that reflects the worldview that strongmen who disregard international norms are the only ones who can deliver. People will not forget how Europe responded at the start of the war but it is not too late to play a positive role on emerging dynamics.
Thursday, October 26, 2023
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This Is What It Was Like to Be Indifferent to Nazi Genocide -
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/10/26/this-is-what-it-was-like-to-be-indifferent-to-nazi-genocide/
Finian Cunningham, October 26, 2023
This Is What It Was Like to Be Indifferent to Nazi Genocide
The hypocrisy of the Western media is reflective of the unscrupulous political agenda of their governments.
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Wednesday, October 25, 2023
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