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Sunday, August 31, 2025
Saturday, August 30, 2025
[Salon] Israel's death machine threatens Gaza, region, fundamentals of UN. How to stop it! - Guest Post From the desk of Helena Cobban, Pres., Just World Educational
[Salon] Israel's death machine threatens Gaza, region, fundamentals of UN. How to stop it! - micheletkearney@gmail.com - Gmail
Dear friends--
I hope this email finds you well, and strong enough to meet the vast challenges our world will face over the weeks ahead.
The U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza continues unabated. I call it the "U.S.-Israeli genocide" because the U.S. president could halt it at a moment's notice, if he chose to. But he has not done so. U.S. arms and other support still flow to Israel, at full tilt. Pres. Trump has abandoned all the moves he once made to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that would have freed the captives that both sides hold, and ended Israel's forcible destruction of Palestinian life and Palestinian society in Gaza.
That, though the Hamas negotiators in Qatar have stated clearly since August 18 that they accept the latest ceasefire plan endorsed by mediating states Qatar and Egypt, and though Israel itself has seen large and mounting protests calling for the ceasefire-for-hostages deal.
Meantime, the Israeli military has started its advance toward/into Gaza City (despite army leaders having expressed very grave doubts about the value of doing so.) And the deliberate cruelty that the Israeli government and military have inflicted on the Palestinian of Gaza has multiplied.
On Wednesday, the head of Save the Children International told the UN Security Council that,
“The Gaza Famine is here. An engineered famine. A predicted famine. A manmade famine. As we speak children in Gaza are systematically being starved to death. This is a deliberate policy. This is starvation as a method of war in its starkest terms.
"Save the Children’s clinics in Gaza are overwhelmed by need; every bench packed with malnourished children and their mothers. Yet our clinics are almost silent now. Children do not have the strength to speak or even cry out in agony...
"A few kilometres away stand ready a sea of supplies. Thousands upon thousands of truckloads of lifesaving items. All blocked. The Government of Israel could end this famine tonight if it chose to end its deliberate obstruction and let humanitarians do our job. Instead, there are reports of escalations in Israeli military activity in Gaza City, more attacks on hospitals, more killing.
"At our Child Friendly Spaces, children draw what we call ‘wishing clouds’ so that they can imagine a better future. In Gaza, children used to wish for school, or peace, or to see their friend again. Once the total siege began in March, children would increasingly tell us they wish for food, for bread. These past few weeks, more and more children have shared that they wish to be dead.
"One child wrote “I wish I was in in heaven where my mother is, in heaven there is love, there is food and water”.
Afterwards, 14 of the SC's 15 members issued a powerful statement that called for an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire. But the Council as a whole could take no action, because the one member not joining that statement was the United States, which as we know wields veto power in the SC.
* * *
As I noted in last week's newsletter, there have been numerous initiatives undertaken by citizen groups and by some governments that have sought to find ways to sidestep the veto power that Washington wields in the Security Council and to secure the despatch of some form of empowered, UN-backed "protection force" to Gaza.
I also linked there to the essay I published on Globalities.org on August 20, "Gaza, and the UN at 80," where I assessed some of those "protection" initiatives and made the following observations:
Any such protection force needs to operate within a clearly stated political horizon, otherwise it could end up being as dysfunctional as the originally-UN forces in Haiti.
This political horizon should include a complete rollback of Israel's presence in, and control over, Gaza, which has already been judged illegal by the International Court of Justice. Just establishing little UN-backed "pockets" inside Gaza is neither workable, nor sufficient.
The political horizon should also include a clear plan for reconciliation between the Palestinian factions.
If you have not yet read that essay, I urge you to do so. And I'd love to hear any comments you have on it.
Another great resource on this issue is the excellent essay that veteran human-rights leader Craig Mokhiber published on Mondoweiss, August 27. He does an excellent job both of explaining the complex UN mechanisms involved and of assessing/debunking the "Day After" plans that various (mainly Western) international actors have proposed for Gaza. The few issues I wish he had addressed in more detail included:
The need to tie any "UN protection force" deployment tightly to the concept of ending Israel's (quite illegal) 58-year occupation rule over Gaza;
The challenge of winning the full support that any robust "Uniting for Peace" plan needs, under UN rules, from the "State of Palestine"... given that this "State" is completely directed by the PLO/PA coterie in Ramallah which continues to act in close coordination with Israel to suppress resistance forces throughout the West Bank.
On this latter point, it is possible that the Trump administration's newly announced ban on PLO/PA leaders' attendance at the UNGA session in New York might persuade the Ramallah coterie to change their allegiance and seek a coalition with the Palestinian resistance forces instead... But I have studied the history of PLO decision-making very closely for 50 years now. And I am not hopeful.
* * *
I note that Craig Mokhiber, along with Ali Abunimah, Susan Abulhawa, Miko Peled, Jeffrey Sachs, Medea Benjamin, Dr. Jill Stein, and a number of other excellent civil-society activists are going to be presenting at two webinars under the title "We Can End the Genocide" on September 5 and 7. Details (and sign-ups) are here.
Let's keep a close eye, meanwhile, on what the states that have actual voting power in the UNGA are doing. I note that Türkiye and several other NATO members recently announced bans on the trans-shipment of military goods from their countries to Israel. That was a good step-- and one that was pioneered back in July by the group of states known as the Hague Group. But it is still far from sufficient to end this escalating genocide in Gaza, and to restore to the United Nations the principled role it should be playing in international affairs.
* * *
It's also important to note that the zombie-like machine of death and destruction that is Israel's military has been carving its cruel path not just against the Palestinians of Gaza but also against:
the Palestinians of the West Bank,
numerous communities in Southern Syria and Lebanon-- and also
vital infrastructure projects in distant Yemen.
In Syria and Lebanon, the destructive (and expansionist) actions the Israeli military has undertaken over the past 15 months, and until today, have bust right through the disengagement forces the United Nations has maintained in those countries for many decades. In these countries, and in occupied Palestine, this Israeli government has made a mockery of the whole concept of the "rule of international law" on which the UN has been based since 1945. (As it did, too, with the completely unprovoked aggression it launched against Iran back in June.)
These actions, and the direct complicity in them of veto-wielder Washington, bring the international system to one of the greatest crisis-points it has seen since 1945.
At this year's landmark UN General Assembly, how will the other nations of the world respond?
News from Just World Ed
Our wonderful board had an online meeting this meeting. It felt so very good to be in (even "virtual") community with nearly all of this amazing group of activists and leaders. Just one of our number was unable to make it.
We took a number of good decisions:
We will resuscitate and update the project we undertook last year under the rubric "Understanding Hamas And Why That Matters." Board members made the points that the demonization of Hamas in Western-dominated discourse spaces continues to be harsh; that this movement still remains key to attaining a ceasefire in Gaza; that the work we did on this project last year-- including the book that we produced last September-- are still very valuable as tools of reasoned public education... but that it would be good to update some of our materials. Stay tuned!
We will continue our support for the powerful PalCast podcast project run by Dr. Yousef Aljamal and Tony Groves. See below for info on the latest ep.)
We will do more going forward to reach out to like-minded organizations about the possibility of conducting joint projects or doing cross-promotions of each other's projects.
Concretely, in the latter regard, we decided to co-sponsor the webinar that the JVP Health Advisory Council is presenting on September 7 on the theme of "Fast and Slow genocide: Gaza and the West Bank." This webinar will be presented in both English and Spanish. Click on the image to see more details.
We also decided to continue our deliberations online on a number of other proposals that we did not have time to decide on during the meeting.
PalCast Episode: The Final Evacuation
The latest episode of PalCast, titled “The Final Evacuation,” featured the powerful voice of Sara Awad, a writer and English literature student from Gaza City. Sara spoke from the heart of Gaza about the struggles her community endured. She shared her story of survival, the weight of evacuation orders, and the deep scars left by war.
During her conversation with Yousef and Tony, Sara described how her neighborhood received an evacuation order just an hour before the recording began. She explained how families were torn between staying in their homes despite the risk or leaving everything behind in search of safety. For many, the decision carried heavy financial and emotional costs, with transportation alone costing thousands of dollars. Sara’s own family chose to evacuate, highlighting the impossible choices faced by ordinary people living under siege.
She spoke about the devastation of the Nasser Hospital bombing, the destruction of Gaza’s universities, and the targeting of journalists... and described how her family sheltered relatives, endured hunger, and hid in basements during attacks. But she emphasized the resilience of Gazans, their hunger for education, and their refusal to be silenced. She said she uses her writing to document pain, resilience, and hope, reminding listeners that Palestinians are people with dreams and families, not just statistics.
This episode of PalCast offered an unfiltered glimpse into life in Gaza during one of its darkest times. Sara’s testimony stood as both a record of suffering and a call for solidarity. “The Final Evacuation” can now be accessed on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Three other intriguing resources
I don't have time to comment much on these but I think you might find them informative:
An analysis from Anatol Lieven on why "A European reassurance force' in Ukraine is a fantasy." In this essay, Lieven makes the very astute point that such a force, "would make it impossible for the British and Europeans to take an independent stance towards Israel’s war on the Palestinians; and this issue is visibly starting to tear our societies and political systems apart, in a way that the war in Ukraine, however bad, can never do..."
The digest of an amazing download of (apparently genuine) emails hacked from the inbox of former Israeli PM Ehud Barak. The emails trace many strands of the rich relationship that Barak had with the late Jeffry Epstein, especially concerning the efforts they undertook to secure funding for a couple of extremely intrusive, U.S.-Israeli mass-surveillance ventures. Yes, Peter Thiel, Britain's Prince Andrew, and several other interesting folks feature in these emails...
Announcements from Chinese media about the summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, due to open tomorrow in Tianjin, and China's Sept. 3 commemoration of 80 years since V-Day in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Russian Pres. Putin will be at both gatherings. The V-Day commemoration will see 25 other foreign heads of government attending, to mark not just the victory on V-Day itself but the more than 35 million casualties the Chinese people suffered in the war they waged against Japanese occupation, 1931-45.
You stay well. End the genocide and the US-Israeli occupation in Gaza!
Palestine Deep Dive on X: "EXPOSED: The UN’s Hidden Power to Launch Military Action in Gaza Watch: https://t.co/tKnvL8oIkw Former UN speechwriter @MarkSeddon1962 urges member states at the United Nations General Assembly to invoke the Uniting for Peace resolution and establish a protective international https://t.co/iXih2C5VEw" / X
Friday, August 29, 2025
Thursday, August 28, 2025
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Fr. Bob's Homily - 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time - Franciscan Friars of the Atonement - Guest Post
Fr. Bob's Homily - 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time - Franciscan Friars of the Atonement
me 11 | Issue 35
No Time to Read? Listen to Fr. Bob's Audio Reflection. Listen Now.
A young man named Chris once wrote a letter to a priest. He told the priest he could use the letter any way he wished. In the letter, he described how he was one of the top swimmers in Canada. Life was good. But one day, his friends talked him into experimenting with drugs.
Sadly, Chris got hooked. Soon, his mental, physical and spiritual health declined. To make matters worse, he was in debt to drug dealers. He became frightened and lonely, until one day he went home and wrote a note to his parents. He explained that he was planning to take his own life – and he apologized for it.
“I am sorry to cause you this much pain,” the note read. “But if I had stayed alive, I would have caused you even more grief.” As he prepared to take his own life, something happened. He stopped and picked up the phone, calling a crisis center. He hadn’t known it then, but his mother had been praying for him.
A few days later, he entered a rehabilitation program. He regained his physical and mental health. He picked up the Bible, reading it each day. More and more, he began to find peace and joy. He placed all his trust in God. Chris ended the letter explaining how his life has changed, and how he now teaches in a Catholic school.
“God has blessed me greatly. I am still trying to learn how to open myself up, more and more, to the love and mercy of God.”
Chris’ story proves Jesus’ point in today’s Gospel. The door to the Kingdom is ever so narrow. In his case, it was extremely narrow. But that did not stop Chris from trying to enter. He struggled and struggled until he fit through the gates. If only we all had the courage to battle and overcome the way Chris did.
I once heard it said that there are three types of Christians:
First, there are tugboat Christians. The ones who follow Jesus not only in sunny weather, but also stormy weather; when the tides serve them and when the tides oppose them. They are the ones who today’s reading encourages us to be.
Then there are sailboat Christians. They follow Christ when the tide serves them. But when the winds rage, they are blown off course. They tend to go in the direction they are blown. They go to Mass with friends and family, but left on their own, they do not go. They are the ones who follow through the wide door.
Finally, there are raft Christians. In short, they are Christians in name, but not in deed. They do not follow Jesus, even when the wind and tides serve them. If they do happen to drift in Christ’s direction, it is only because they are pushed or pulled by someone else.
So, my friends, we must reflect: Are we tugboat Christians, sailboat Christians, or raft Christians? Do we follow Jesus in good times and bad? Do we walk with Him through not only the wide door, but the narrow door? Only you can answer these questions.
And yet, these questions call us to see our lives as part of something greater. As we celebrate the Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year, themed “Pilgrims of Hope,” we’re reminded that, like Chris, we are all on a journey. Though the path may be steep or narrow, we walk with purpose and hope, trusting that Christ walks with us. And through Him, the narrow door is never truly closed.
Jesus invites us to face these questions with the same courage Chris had when he faced his problems. If we do face them as he did, rest assured, we will always receive the help God offers.
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A. Headshot
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
[Salon] The Western media are failing Gaza - Arab Digest.org Guest Post
The Western media are failing Gaza
Summary: Francis Ghilès pays tribute to the Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al Sharif, who was assassinated by the Israel Defence Force after he posted a powerful statement on journalism. He argues that the deliberate targeting of journalists in Gaza, combined with Israel's ban on international reporters, reveals a hypocritical stance by Western governments and media who are subservient to the US and fail to hold Israel accountable for the devastating human and physical cost of the conflict.
“I lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as I see it without distortion…I will not leave Gaza except for the sky…I will not leave Gaza even if I am killed.” The Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al Sharif posted what must rank as one of the most noble definitions of journalism on his X account on August 6, 2025. Just four days later, he was assassinated by the Israel Defence Force inside a tent for journalists outside the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
As a former Financial Times journalist and regular contributor to the BBC World Service, I share Anas Al Sharif’s view, though I have never faced anything like the conditions in Gaza.
278 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza in 22 months of war – or about 13 journalists every month – according to a tally by Shireen.ps, a monitoring website named after Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot and killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in 2022. Just yesterday another five journalists were among 20 people killed in an Israeli attack on Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza: Al Jazeera photographer Mohammad Salama; Hussam al-Masri, who worked as a photojournalist for the Reuters news agency; Mariam Abu Daqqa, who worked as a journalist with several media outlets, including The Independent Arabic and The Associated Press news agency; and journalist Moaz Abu Taha. Palestinian correspondent Hassan Douhan, a journalist and academic who worked as a correspondent for Al-Hayat al-Jadida publication, was also killed in a separate incident in Khan Younis later Monday, bringing the death toll of journalists to six.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), however, only 21 Palestinian journalists have been ‘murdered’ during the last two years. This yawning discrepancy is down to CPJ’s 'methodology' which is based on their own unpublished research and not subject to peer review. The result is that while over 75% of journalists deaths in Haiti, for example, are categorised by the CPJ as ‘murder’, when it comes to Palestine the CPJ categorises just 13% the same way. The rest are found to have died as a result of a ‘dangerous assignment’, in ‘crossfire’ or not counted at all. Unfortunately, the CPJ - which is funded mainly by US philanthropic institutions like the Bloomberg endowment - is just another once highly regarded mainstream western media source that has been revealed to be more than happy to throw the rule book out the window when it comes to reporting the genocide in Palestine.
As has become customary, the Israel Defence Force claimed responsibility for the killing of Anas on the basis that he was a ‘terrorist’. The Israeli outlet +972 Magazine explains how this strategy works:
The Israeli military has operated a special unit called the “Legitimization Cell,” tasked with gathering intelligence from Gaza that can bolster Israel’s image in the international media, according to three intelligence sources who spoke to +972 Magazine and Local Call and confirmed the unit’s existence.
Established after October 7, the unit sought information on Hamas’ use of schools and hospitals for military purposes, and on failed rocket launches by armed Palestinian groups that harmed civilians in the enclave. It has also been assigned to identify Gaza-based journalists it could portray as undercover Hamas operatives, in an effort to blunt growing global outrage over Israel’s killing of reporters... According to the sources, the Legitimization Cell’s motivation was not security, but public relations. Driven by anger that Gaza-based reporters were “smearing [Israel’s] name in front of the world,” its members were eager to find a journalist they could link to Hamas and mark as a target, one source said.
After he was murdered pro-Israeli advocates on social media published old photos of Anas with former Hamas leader Yahia Sinwar in an attempt to buttress the allegations. Reuters ran a report titled: “Israel kills Al Jazeera journalist it says was Hamas leader”. They chose that headline despite the fact al-Sharif used to work for them – he was part of a Reuters team that won a 2024 Pulitzer Prize.
Palestinian Authority media also played a key role in Anas’ assassination: in the months leading up to his murder English and Arabic language media accounts loyal to the PA repeatedly regurgitated the Israeli claims that he was a terrorist which is remarkable when one considers that Al Jazeera has done more than any other news network in terms of covering the plight of the Palestinians.
Britain’s ‘public service broadcaster’ is keeping the public in the dark about UK support for Israel’s assault on Gaza [photo credit: Declassified.org]
Veteran BBC journalist John Simpson has called for Gaza to be opened up to international media, stating on his X account that “the world needs honest, unbiased witnesses reporting to help people make up their minds about the major issues of our time. This has so far been impossible in Gaza.” This is a racist statement that ignores the hundreds of Palestinian journalists in Gaza who have been covering the conflict since it began (hundreds of whom the Israelis murdered) while implying they are not honest. The BBC could have easily hired Palestinian journalists in Gaza to bring us the news, like Al Jazeera has done. Instead, like the CPJ, it chose instead to systematically eviscerate its own reputation by manufacturing consent for the genocide.
According to the Costs of War Project at Brown University, more journalists have been killed in Gaza than in the US Civil War, World War I, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia, and the US wars in Afghanistan combined. While most Western media outlets publicly criticise and campaign for journalists harassed or imprisoned by adversaries like Russia, China, or Iran, they are largely silent when it comes to Israel.
The “grave concern” expressed by Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesperson about “the repeated targeting of journalists in Gaza” rings hollow, as do similar statements from most of his European peers. Whimpering at Netanyahu after growling at Putin does not make the British prime minister a world-class statesman. Until recently, Western European states have hidden behind the pretense that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute self-defence. However, it's doubtful they truly believe this as the right to resist an occupation by force is specifically endorsed under international law and they have never seriously protested Israel’s decision to ban international journalists from entering Gaza—a rare instance in modern history where reporters have been denied access to an active war zone. The burden of bearing witness has fallen almost entirely on Palestinian reporters.
The democratic values that Western media and political leaders claim to cherish are further eroded when we consider that the government of Israel can “genuinely say that its policies reflect the will of most Israelis. The carnage in Gaza is not the work of authoritarians or demagogues but bears the imprimatur of democracy” wrote Robert A. Pape in Foreign Affairs. The true Palestinian death toll could exceed 186,000, according to an extensive analysis published in the British medical journal The Lancet. Israel’s war on Gaza has led to the death of between 5% and 10% of the pre-war population of about 2.2 million. Of the 40 campaigns that used air power to inflict harm on civilians that Pape described in his 1996 book, Bombing to Win, only five resulted in civilian deaths greater than 1% of the population: four in and around World War II and the Soviet attack on Afghanistan from 1979 to 1988.
The primary purpose of banning international journalists appears to be hiding the stunning physical and human devastation the Palestinians have suffered. More people are beginning to understand that Europe’s complicity in preventing the true consequences of the war from reaching a wider public is destroying the very moral foundations on which European countries, let alone the European Union, are built.
The Israelis are undermining their own security because their advancements in technical intelligence, cyber-attacks, pager-detonations, and mass civilian carnage will be adopted by others. This points to a regression to older forms of tribalism. “Eradicating terrorists” has been a favoured rhetoric of numerous Western leaders, a rhetoric that has killed millions and left untold human and physical destruction in its wake.
Members can leave comments about this newsletter on the Arab Digest website.
Monday, August 25, 2025
Sunday, August 24, 2025
“Does God Punish Us?” BISHOP BARRON’S SUNDAY SERMON
Sunday Sermon
Friends, I want to focus this week on the second reading, which is from the marvelous Letter to the Hebrews. It addresses a very important and very controversial topic—namely, the divine punishment. You would be hard-pressed to say that this is not a motif in the Bible. That’s simply not the case; in fact, it’s a rather major motif. How do we make sense of this theme of divine punishment without falling back into a terrible view of God as an arbitrary, capricious tyrant? This little passage from Hebrews gives us the interpretive key.
Saturday, August 23, 2025
[Salon] Letter from Emine Erdogan to Melania Trump on humanitarian crisis in Gaza: 'Indeed, it is time' - Guest post
Letter from Emine Erdogan to Melania Trump on humanitarian crisis in Gaza: 'Indeed, it is time'
ANKARA
Turkish first lady Emine Erdogan on Saturday sent a letter to US first lady Melania Trump, urging her to extend the compassion she showed for the war in Ukraine to the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
In her letter, Erdogan greeted Trump with sincere love and respect, recalling their meeting at the White House in Washington six years ago. She said the warm conversation and gracious hospitality she experienced during their time together remain vivid in her memory.
Referring to a recent letter Trump sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the war in Ukraine, Erdogan said the sentiments expressed in that letter reflected a conscience deeply attuned to global issues.
‘Your compassion for orphaned children in Ukraine is an initiative that instills hope in people's hearts’
Erdogan praised Trump’s stance, writing: “As you stated in your letter, every child has the universal and undeniable right to grow up in a loving and safe environment. This right is not exclusive to any region, ethnicity, religion, or ideology. Supporting the oppressed who are denied this right is a fundamental responsibility toward the human family.”
“In this context, especially as the spouse of a leader, your compassion for the lives lost, families torn apart, and children left orphaned under the devastating effects of the war in Ukraine is an initiative that instills hope in hearts,” she wrote.
Erdogan emphasized that Trump’s request to bring back the joyful smiles of Ukrainian children who have been forced into silent laughter is “very meaningful.”
“I believe that you will demonstrate this important sensitivity, which you have shown for the 648 Ukrainian children who lost their lives in the war, even more strongly for Gaza, where 62,000 innocent civilians, including 18,000 children, were brutally murdered within two years,” she said.
‘Who would have thought we’d one day use the term ‘unknown soldier’ for children?’
Highlighting the unprecedented violence in Gaza, Erdogan cited the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which described Gaza as a hell on earth above ground and a graveyard for children below.
“Would it ever have occurred to us,” she asked, “that one day the term ‘unknown soldier’-- once used for fallen soldiers whose identities could not be confirmed-- would be used for children?”
“Today, the words 'unknown baby' written on the shrouds of thousands of Gazan children who have no one left behind them and whose names cannot even be identified are leaving irreparable wounds on our consciences,” Erdogan said.
“These children, driven into deep psychological ruin and having completely forgotten how to smile, scream into microphones that they want to die, carrying the exhaustion of a war they cannot cope with in their innocent hearts. In Gaza, history records that the hair of these tiny, orphaned children has turned gray from the indescribable pain and fear they have endured,” she added.
Erdogan emphasized that the silenced laughter of children was not unique to Ukraine, adding: “Sending a letter to Israeli Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu calling for an end to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza would carry immense significance.”
“At a time when the world is experiencing a collective awakening and the recognition of Palestine is turning into a global will, I believe that a call from you on behalf of Gaza will also fulfill a historic responsibility to the Palestinian people,” Erdogan said.
ACP Statement on Allianz - Association Of Catholic Priests Guest Post
ACP Statement on Allianz - Association Of Catholic Priests
ACP Statement on Allianz
August 21 2025
21 August 2025
Association of Catholic Priests
Now that an impressive, possibly comprehensive, list of reputable and credible agencies is lining up to use the difficult word ‘genocide’ to describe what’s happening in Gaza, a new clarity has exposed the frightening possibility of an absolutely catastrophic ending to a tragedy that, despite Israel attempting to block media coverage, the truth is to be seen in the images of dying children on the television screens of the world.
Like an infection, the Gaza reality is now seeping outside itself and engaging the concerns – social, economic, moral – of those caught in the slipstream of that calamity. Like Allianz, the financial services company headquartered in Munich, Germany, the world’s largest insurance company and the largest financial services company in Europe.
Questions are now being asked of Allianz, arising out of its listing in a report published in June this year on the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the UN of companies and corporations, it is alleged, help to sustain and pay for Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories.
Little wonder that the GAA in whose commercial concerns Allianz has been and continues to be deeply embedded is already under the microscope of public examination. Already a petition for GAA members is being published on Change.org and has created a huge focus on the Allianz-GAA relationship and a demand that it be ended.
A similar demand is likely to emerge when the long and close commercial relationship of Allianz and the Catholic Church in Ireland becomes clear. For decades, Allianz has been the trusted friend of the Catholic Church – even to the extent of enjoying representation on the Allianz Board – with Catholic Church properties in Ireland including places of worship, schools, cars, etc almost all being insured by Allianz as a matter of course.
Coincidentally this Sunday, Archbishop Eamon Martin, the accepted leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, together with his fellow bishops are leading a ‘Day of Prayer and Reflection for Gaza’ in the parishes and dioceses of Ireland and Archbishop Martin has issued a pastoral letter in which he calls for ‘a renewed commitment by the international community for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East’.
In the light of that ‘Reflection’ and because the present sense of outrage in the Irish Catholic Church at what’s happening in Gaza will be increased exponentially by the revelation of the Irish Catholic Church’s connection with Allianz and Allianz’s connection with the state of Israel, we ask that the response of the Irish Catholic Church should be immediate and far-reaching in cutting our links with Allianz.
Nothing less is acceptable as Irish Catholics will now be conscious of the Allianz connection – albeit by extension – and of our connection with the plight of the children we see on our television screens.
The ACP also encourages all Catholic religious Congregations and dioceses to exercise high levels of due diligence in carefully scrutinizing their investment portfolios to determine if any part of their investments is helping to sustain the appalling human rights abuse being inflicted on the Palestinian people.
www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie
(661) Prof. John Mearsheimer : Trump and Russian Security Needs. - YouTube
(661) Prof. John Mearsheimer : Trump and Russian Security Needs. - YouTube
On 21 August 2025, I spoke with Judge Napolitano on “Judging Freedom” about what is happening on the Ukraine front after the Alaska meeting on August 15 and President Trump’s meeting with European leaders at the White House on August 18. It is quite clear that we now have a bit more clarification on what each side’s demands are and what President Trump is thinking. But the fact is both side’s demands were clear — at least to me — before these meetings and it is hard to see how their demands have changed since the meetings. The positions of the two sides are so far apart that all the talk in the West about how to end this war — get the Russians to abandon every one of their demands — seems detached from reality. Yet Western elites keep saying the same things over and over, even though their policy prescriptions make no sense given Russia’s demands, Trump’s views on Ukraine and Russia, and the situation on the battlefield. Meanwhile, the war goes on, which is another way of saying the destruction of Ukraine goes on. Talk about an unnecessary catastrophe.
Friday, August 22, 2025
Jeffrey Sachs: Open Letter to Israel Foreign Minister Sa’ar
Jeffrey Sachs: Open Letter to Israel Foreign Minister Sa’ar
Jeffrey Sachs: Open Letter to Israel Foreign Minister Sa’ar
August 12, 2025 common dreams, israel, jeffrey sachs, original, palestine, scheerpost
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Photo by Flickr
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
H.E. Gideon Sa’ar
Foreign Minister
Government of Israel
August 9, 2025
Dear Mr. Minister,
I write to you following your speech at the United Nations Security Council on August 5. I attended the session but did not have the chance to speak with you following the session. I want to share my reflections on your speech.
In your speech your failed to recognize why almost the entire world, including many Jews such as myself, are aghast at your government’s behavior. In the view of most of the world, with which I concur, Israel is engaged in mass murder and starvation; you would not have known it from your speech. You failed to acknowledge that Israel has caused the deaths to date of some 18,500 Palestinian children, whose names were recently listed by The Washington Post. You blamed all the mass murder of civilians by Israeli forces on Hamas, even as the world watches video clips every day of Israeli forces killing starving civilians in cold blood as they approach food distribution points. You lamented the starvation of 20 hostages but failed to mention Israel’s starvation of 2 million Palestinians. You failed to mention that your own prime minister worked actively over the years to fund Hamas, as The Times of Israel has documented.
Whether your oversights are the result of obtuseness or prevarication, they would be a tragedy for Israel alone were it not for the fact that you attempted to rope me and millions of other Jews into your government’s crimes against humanity. You declared at the U.N. session that Israel is “The sovereign state of the Jewish people.” This is false. Israel is the sovereign state of its citizens. I am a Jew, and a citizen of the United States. Israel is not my state and never will be.
Your language about Jews in your speech betrayed the gulf between us. You referred to Judaism as a nationality. This is indeed the Zionist construct, but it runs counter to 2,000 years of Jewish belief and Jewish life. It is an idea that I and millions of other Jews reject. Judaism for me and for countless others outside of Israel is a life of ethics, culture, tradition, law, and belief that has nothing to do with nationality. For 2,000 years, Jews lived in all parts of the world in countless nations.
The great Rabbinic sages of the Babylonian Talmud in fact explicitly proscribed a mass return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, telling the Jewish people to live in their own homelands (Ketubot 111a). Sadly, the Zionists undertook massive campaigns including financial subsidies and scare tactics to induce Jewish communities to leave their own homelands, languages, local cultures, and relations with their fellow inhabitants to draw them to Israel. I have traveled throughout the world visiting nearly empty synagogues and vacated Jewish communities, with only a few elderly Jews remaining, and where these few remaining Jews insisted that their communities once lived in peace and harmony with the non-Jewish majorities. Zionism has weakened or put an end to countless vibrant communities of our co-religionists around the world.
It is an ironic fact that when Zionists convinced the British Government in 1917 to issue the Balfour Declaration, the one Jew in the Cabinet, Sir Edwin Montagu, strenuously objected, stating that he was a British citizen who happened to be Jewish, not the member of a Jewish nation: “I assert that there is not a Jewish nation. The members of my family, for instance, who have been in this country for generations, have no sort or kind of community of view or of desire with any Jewish family in any other country beyond the fact that they profess to a greater or less degree the same religion.”
In this context, it’s also worth recalling that the Balfour Declaration states clearly and unequivocally that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” Zionism has failed that test.
Your government is committed to the permanent occupation of all of Palestine and stands in violent, unrelenting opposition to a sovereign State of Palestine. The founding platform of Likud in 1977 hides nothing in this regard, declaring openly that “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” To accomplish this, Israel demonizes the Palestinian people and crushes them physically, through mass starvation, murder, ethnic cleansing, administrative detention, torture, land seizures, and other forms of brutal repression. You yourself shamefully declared that “all Palestinian factions” support terrorism.
Your counterpart at the U.N. Security Council session, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour, declared just the opposite. He stated clearly: “The solution is ending this illegal occupation and ending this disastrous conflict; it is the realization of the independence and sovereignty of the Palestinian state, not its destruction; it is the fulfillment of our rights, not their continued denial; it is respect for international law, not its trampling; it is the implementation of the two-state solution, not a one state reality with Palestinians condemned to genocide, ethnic cleansing, or apartheid.”
Israel stands against almost the entire world in its endeavor to block the two-state solution. Already, 147 countries recognize the State of Palestine, and many more will soon do so. One-hundred and seventy U.N. member states recently voted in support of the right of the Palestinian people to political self-determination, with only six opposed (Argentina, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Paraguay, United States).
Your presentation utterly neglected the powerful “New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State solution,” issued by the world community at the High-Level International Conference on Implementing the Two-State Solution held on July 29, 2025, just one week before your own speech at the U.N. Security Council. Saudi Arabia and France co-chaired that high-level conference. Arab and Islamic nations all over the world called for peace and normalization of relations with Israel when Israel abides by international law and decency in line with the two-state solution. Your government rejects peace, because it aims for domination over all of Palestine instead.
Israel holds on to its extremist position by a slenderest of threads, backed (until now) by the United States but by no other major power. We also should acknowledge a major reason for the U,S. backing until now: Christian Evangelical Protestants who believe that the gathering of the Jews in Israel is the prelude to the damnation or conversion of the Jews, and the end of the world. Those are your government’s allies. As for overall American public opinion, disapproval of Israel’s actions now stands at 60%, with only 32% approving.
Mr. Minister, the global revulsion you cited is against the actions of your government, not against Jews. Israel is threatened from within by zealotry and extremism that in turn bring worldwide disapprobation of Israel by Jews and non-Jews alike. The great threat to Israel’s survival is not the Arab nations, the Palestinians, or Iran, but the policies of Israel’s extremist government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, Bezalel Smotrich, and Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The two-state solution is the path—and the only path—to Israel’s survival. You may believe that nuclear weapons and the U.S. government are your salvation, but brute power will be evanescent if Israel’s grave injustice toward the Palestinian people continues. The Jewish Prophets taught again and again that unjust states do not long survive.
Sincerely yours,
Jeffrey D. Sachs
New York City
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