CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, MAY 31, 2021: OVERPOPULATION

 25.  Climate Memo Mondays, 5-31-21

Karen Shragg, Essay and Book on Overpopulation and Essay on Growth

The following essay by Karen Shragg was published in 2020 and republished, slightly expanded, in Free Inquiry (June-July 2021), 14-15  (not yet available to copy 5-30.)   She has a book on the subject: Move Upstream: A Call to Solve Overpopulation and Change Our Stories.  Dick  5-30-21

 

October 13, 2020

THE MORAL IMPERATIVE OF BEING AN OVERPOPULATION ACTIVIST   (excerpt)

Morality which includes an equal treatment under just laws, equal job opportunity, equal access to healthy food, etc, are all threatened by the far-reaching tentacles of overpopulation. Simply put, when demand exceeds supply there is an immoral scramble for getting one’s fair share. . . .

What I am saying is that overpopulation itself is a roadblock to any kind of moral progress. Extending the moral arc of humanity, no matter how secular and scientific we become, is impossible in a world of nearly 8 billion growing by 80+ million a year. . . .

The scientists at the Global Footprint Network (www.globalfootprintnetwork.org) have already done the homework for us, and it doesn’t look good for the moral arc. I am making the argument that the moral arc will continue go down, and even crash as the population of our country and the world goes up.

If you accept my premise that scarcity, brought on by too much demand on a limited planet, is a petri dish for disorder and immorality, then opposing growth is our collective moral duty. My colleagues and I come from a place of wanting to prevent chaos and helping the biosphere. We have taken on the ever more treacherous mantle of screaming about overpopulation because we see the big picture. I have asked people why they work on this issue and they all say basically the same thing, they want to save the biosphere that supports us and the wildlife and open spaces they love.

 As 8 Billion Angels filmmaker and overpopulation activist Terry Spahr says,

“Global warming, food and water shortages, catastrophic storms, extinction of species, plant and animal habitat loss…. The list of environmental, social and economic catastrophes affecting our planet with greater frequency and severity goes on and on. If there was a simple root cause and a fundamental solution, wouldn’t you want to know?” The answer he goes on to say, is unsustainable human population. . . .

Unless we start working on this critically important issue as a moral imperative, then morality itself will be rendered irrelevant, for it will be flattened by the thundering feet of billions of desperate people.

BIO

BLOG

 

SHRAGG’S BOOK ON OVERPOPULATION.                                                               

MOVE UPSTREAM: A CALL TO SOLVE OVERPOPULATION

Our world is overpopulated. This fact lies outside of the typical activist's perspective and doesn't fit into society's dominant anthropocentric worldview. When it comes to our use of natural resources, we are taught to consider issues related to consumption such as energy efficiency and recycling. However, the number of people - and how fast that number is growing - is a more important factor. More people consume more resources, need more services, produce more waste, and create more world conflict as resources diminish.

Working on downstream issues, such as saving the environment, feeding the hungry, and ending homelessness, is noble but ineffective and inefficient without also working to solve the primary cause of these and other important issues. In Move Upstream: A Call to Solve Overpopulation, Karen Shragg challenges social and environmental activists to stop working downstream and take the problem of overpopulation seriously. She also provides compassionate ideas to solve the problem.

 

READ ABOUT NEGATIVE POPULATION GROWTH  https://npg.org/users/shragg.html

 

OMNI VEGETARIAN/VEGAN ACTION NEWSLETTER, MAY 27, 2021

 

OMNI

VEGETARIAN/VEGAN ACTION NEWSLETTER,

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

May 27, 2021

http://omnicenter.org/donate/

 

What’s at Stake: First, we advance with truth as our leader (motto of UAF).  Then we will be able to perform the urgently needed changes.

 

CONTENTS: Industrial Food, Pandemics, and Resistance

Philpott, “Diet for Disaster”

Jim Hightower on Sleazy Corporate Cartels and Covid-19

James Baillie on Gruesome Factory Farms, Anti-biotics, and Virus

Mark Bittman on Junk Food, Illness, and Climate

 

TEXTS on CORPORATE INDUSTRIAL FOOD

“Diet for Disaster by Tom Philpott”: 90% US have “metabolic dysfunction” from their ultraprocessed diets, which contrib. to the severity of the pandemic.  Solution: restrict junk food for kids; increase SNAP program subsidies for fresh fruit and vegs.    Mother Jones (Jan-Feb 2021).

 

The Jim Hightower Lowdown

Attention to FOOD in The Jim Hightower Lowdown (March-April, 2021).

10 brief reports devoted to “the overarching theme of ‘anti-theft’. . .how to help break the grip of the corporate cartels squeezing the vitality out of the land, family farmers, farm and processing workers, and eaters too.”

P. 5: The Lowdown awards Tyson Foods with its “Sleazy for 2020 Award.”  Tyson Inc. pocketed $2 billion while “Covid rampaged through Tyson’s factories.”

P. 6: The Family Farm Action Alliance, spreading “awareness that abusive corporate power undermines a resilient and just food system.

”Rev. of New book: The Food System: Concentration and Its Impacts.

Research on spread of plastic into farm soils: “three times as much…than in our oceans!”  Conclusion: our planetary “need is not more recycling of plastic, but less plastic.”

 

Pandemic beef

Mike Baillie - Avaaz via uark.onmicrosoft.com  5-26-21	8:37 AM (17 minutes ago)
to James

Gruesome factory farms are pumping animals full of powerful antibiotics, creating vicious new superbugs that could kill 10 million people a year by 2050. But if we push McDonald's to slash antibiotics, its sheer size could shift the global industry to more sustainable farming -- and help stop the superbugs. McDonald's is deciding right now… so let's push them to stop the next pandemic and help millions of desperate animals -- sign and share! SIGN NOW! Dear friends, Every year 70 billion animals are raised in gruesome factory farms -- pumped with powerful antibiotics to keep them alive and make them grow faster. It's a horror show for the environment and animal welfare -- but a paradise for pathogens to mutate, multiply and jump to humans. Already 700,000 people die from drug-resistant infections every year, and scientists say it could reach 10 million deaths a year by 2050. But we can help to change that. McDonald's is the world's largest beef purchaser -- and it's deciding new antibiotics policies right now. If we push McDonald's to ban them, it could then shift the whole industry towards more sustainable farming. Let's make it happen! There's almost nothing McDonald's cares about more than its public image -- so if millions of us raise our voices, we could push the meat giant to slash antibiotics and help stop the next superbug pandemic. Sign now and pass this on, fast:   Tell McDonald's: Ban beef antibiotics now! Factory farms are all about producing tons of fast, cheap meat -- but it means cattle are raised in toxic conditions, which wouldn't be possible without massive amounts of antibiotics. Already over 70% of the global supply in antibiotics is used on farm animals! The result is that pathogens can become resistant to treatment, creating vicious superbugs that are immune to even our most powerful antibiotics. Millions could die -- and that's exactly why scientists and public health experts are raising the alarm. To protect ourselves, we must not only reduce meat consumption, we also have to drastically cut the use of antibiotics on farms. This could also force farmers to raise cattle in better, healthier conditions. McDonald's is considering its antibiotics policy for beef right now, and if millions of us speak up, we could inspire the giant to lead the world. It's worked before. After massive public demand, McDonald's banned the use of antibiotics for its chickens in 2016, setting off a chain reaction throughout the industry. Now let's do it again! Add your voice and pass this on: Tell McDonald's: Ban beef antibiotics now! The Covid pandemic has shown again how interconnected and fragile our societies really are, creating a new appreciation for nature and the ecosystems that support all life on earth. The best time to prevent the next pandemic is right now -- but this is also a golden opportunity to continue our fight to reform food production, animal welfare, and the rights of factory farm workers. For the world we all dream of, let's make it happen! With fierce hope and endless determination, Mike, Marie, Anneke, Marta, Spyro, Luis, and the whole team at Avaaz More information: Coronavirus: Industrial animal farming has caused most new infectious diseases and risks more pandemics, experts warn (The Independent) The Link Between Antibiotic Resistance and Factory Farming (Sentient Media) McDonald's to curb antibiotic use in its beef supply (Reuters) New report calls for urgent action to avert antimicrobial resistance crisis (WHO)

 

Avaaz is a 65-million-person global campaign network that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people shape global decision-making. ("Avaaz" means "voice" or "song" in many languages.) Avaaz members live in every nation of the world; our team is spread across 18 countries on 6 continents and operates in 17 languages. Learn about some of Avaaz's biggest campaigns here, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

 

 

Mark Bittman.   Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal.   2021.  384pp.

The review I have read, by the eminent Bill McKibben, was published in The Nation magazine (5-31/6-7, 2021, 40-42):  “Junk: Mark Bittman’s History of Why We Eat Bad Food.”   McKibben ends his review by suggesting solutions to our broken food system with high praise for the GND.  “. . . change will only come with initiatives like the Green New Deal, which “’with carbon neutrality as a starting goal…would necessarily support…sustainable agriculture.’   In fact, by the end of the book, Bittman uses the food crisis much as Naomi Klein did the climate crisis in her landmark This Changes Everything:  as a lever for thoroughgoing change.”  --Dick

Publishers description:

"Epic and engrossing." —The New York Times Book Review

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author and pioneering journalist, an expansive look at how history has been shaped by humanity’s appetite for food, farmland, and the money behind it all—and how a better future is within reach.

The story of humankind is usually told as one of technological innovation and economic influence—of arrowheads and atomic bombs, settlers and stock markets. But behind it all, there is an even more fundamental driver: Food.

In Animal, Vegetable, Junk, trusted food authority Mark Bittman offers a panoramic view of how the frenzy for food has driven human history to some of its most catastrophic moments, from slavery and colonialism to famine and genocide—and to our current moment, wherein Big Food exacerbates climate change, plunders our planet, and sickens its people. Even still, Bittman refuses to concede that the battle is lost, pointing to activists, workers, and governments around the world who are choosing well-being over corporate greed and gluttony, and fighting to free society from Big Food’s grip.

Sweeping, impassioned, and ultimately full of hope, Animal, Vegetable, Junk reveals not only how food has shaped our past, but also how we can transform it to reclaim our future.

Mark Bittman

MARK BITTMAN is the author of more than thirty books, including the How to Cook Everything series and the #1 New York Times bestseller VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good. He was a food columnist, opinion columnist, and the lead magazine food writer at the New York Times, where he started writing in 1984 and remained for more than thirty years.   Bittman has starred in four television series, including Showtime's Emmy-winning Years of Living Dangerously. He is a longtime Today regular and has made hundreds of television, radio, and podcast appearances, including on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Real Time with Bill Maher, and CBS's The Dish; and on NPR's All Things Considered, Fresh Air, and Morning Edition.   Bittman has written for countless publications and spoken at dozens of universities and conferences; his 2007 TED talk "What's wrong with what we eat?" has almost five million views. He was a distinguished fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and a fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He has received six James Beard Awards, four IACP Awards, and numerous other honors.   Bittman is currently special advisor on food policy at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, where he teaches and hosts a lecture series. He is also the editor in chief of Heated. His most recent book is his history of food and humanity, Animal, Vegetable, Junk.

LEARN MORE

·         Reviews

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice  

"Epic and engrossing...a clear and compelling compendium of modern agriculture....[Bittman] has earned the right to damn the evident flaws of our system."—The New York Times Book Review  

“An expert’s vigorous argument for systemic food reform.”—Kirkus Reviews  

“Little in the present food world escapes [Bittman's] critical eye...[his] work is certain to increase controversy over the future of food.”—Booklist  

“The climate crisis, COVID-19, and the recent reckoning with systemic and institutional racism have all revealed the many cracks in our global food system. In this thorough and revealing book, Mark Bittman discusses how we got to this point when reform is so essential, and presents the solutions to improve how we grow, distribute, and consume our food. A must read for policymakers, activists, and concerned citizens looking to better understand our food system, and how we can fix it.”—Vice President Al Gore   

“Compelling and ambitious, Bittman's Animal, Vegetable, Junk is the authoritative text on the 1.8 million year history of the food system. We begin our journey with the first taming of fire to hunt and cook, witness the use of fire in indigenous swidden agriculture to prepare the ground, and finally arrive at the fanning of revolutionary fire of peasant farmers organizing against multinational agribusiness. Bittman leaves no stone unturned in the quest to understand how Big Food expropriated our land, water, and sustenance. Everyone who eats needs to read this book. The future of our species and our planet depends on it.”—Leah Penniman, founding co-director of Soul Fire Farm and author of Farming While Black   

“Eating well, as Mark Bittman has taught so many of us over the years, is as much about collective health as it is about elegant recipes. In his most radical and profound book to date, Bittman brings his trademark wit, precision, and user-friendliness to a sweeping history of sustenance. The result is a joyful and transformational read.”—Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything  

“A brilliant and insightful explanation of the food system. Bittman's writing is succinct and entertaining, and his recommendations are spot on.”—David A. Kessler, M.D., former FDA commissioner and author of The End of Overeating and Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs  

“It’s easy to be jealous of Mark Bittman. He knows how to cook everything, and he writes so clearly that you’ll feel you can too. Now, he brings his prodigious talents to a history of how we eat. Once again, he has trimmed the fat and delivered it all. From the origins of the human diet to the World Trade Organization, you’ll find how they’re all connected in a broken food system. And his analysis is so compelling, you’ll not only understand what’s wrong, but also how to start to make it better.”—Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved   

“If you, like me, think and worry about what you eat and also about the planet that is actually providing sustenance to you—and the other 7 billion of us—you need to read this amazing book. You also, as Mr. Bittman suggests, need to become an eater and an advocate, and push for the policy change needed to give everyone access to the nutritious food necessary to survive and thrive.”—Ted Danson, actor and activist   

“This is the perfect book for this moment in time, and Mark is the perfect person to write it”—Alice Waters, chef, activist, and author  

“There is a saying: ‘Humans are what they eat.’ Yes, what isn’t our food connected to? Food is crucial for our survival, our health, our welfare, our land, our laws, our energy supplies, our water, and almost everything else. Mark Bittman’s thought-provoking, wide-ranging new book will open your eyes to the crisis facing our food system, and to the world impact of every bite that you eat.”—Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse

 

END VEGETARIAN/VEGAN ACTION NEWSLETTER        5-27-2021

WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, MAY 26, 2021, ISRAEL/PALESTINE, CULTURE OF WAR, MILITARY COMPLEX

 

23.  WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, May 26, 2021

OMNI ISRAEL-PALESTINE (West Bank, Gaza)  NEWSLETTERS  MAY 2021.  See Gaza newsletters.
#14  http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/05/omni-israel-palestinenewsletter-14-may.html
#15  http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/05/omni-israel-palestiniansnewsletter-15-may..html
#16  https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/05/omni-israel-palestine-newsletter-16-may.html

US Culture of War
5-5-1494 Columbus lands in Jamaica, settlers follow and the extermination of the indigenous Arawaks.
5-12-1623 English colonist settlers in Va. murdered 250 Powhatans, continuing war v. Powhatans since 1607 when Jamestown settlement founded.
5-26-1637 In night attack English colonist settlers killed 600 to 700 Pequots at Mystic, CT; surviving Pequots sold into slavery.
5-23-1838 Final removal of Native Americans from SE opening the land to settlers.
5-13-1846 US declared war on Mexico resulting in huge expansion of US territory.
5-1-1954 Tested hydrogen bomb.
5-16-1960 US/USSR summit breaks up when Soviets shoot down CIA spy plane over its territory that Pres. Eisenhower had denied.  Read David Talbot’s The Devil’s Chessboard.
8-1963 Despite US/USSR Limited Test Ban Treaty, US continued to use outer space for war-making.
5-4-1970 Ohio National Guard killed 4 Kent State Univ. students protesting the VN War.
5-1-2005 Downing Street Minutes revealed US plans to invade Iraq and to lie about it.
From World Beyond War’s Peace Almanac

MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX FRAUD and UNACCOUNTABILITY: Planes, Ships, Tanks
Conn Hallinan.  “Are You Serious Awards 2021.”  Dispatches From The Edge.” Jan 15, 2021. https://dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com/
Each year Foreign Policy In Focus columnist Conn Hallinan gives awards to individuals, companies and governments that make reading the news a daily adventure. These are the awards for the past year.   
The Golden Lemon Award goes to Lockheed Martin for its F-35 fifth generation stealth fighter, at $1.5 trillion the most expensive weapons system in history. The plane currently has 883 “design flaws,” including nine “category 1” flaws. The latter “may cause death, severe injury, or severe occupational illness” to pilots and “major damage” to weapons systems and combat readiness ( which sounds like those TV ads for drugs that may or may not treat your disease, but could also kill your first born and turn you into a ferret). 
But the company got right to work on those flaws, not by fixing them, mind you, but by reclassifying them as less serious. As for the rest of the problems, Lockheed Martin says it will fix them if it gets paid more. The company currently receives $2 billion a year to keep some 400 F-35s flying, a cost of $500 million a plane. It costs $28, 455 an hour to fly an F-35.
  US aircraft are following industrialist Norman Augustine’s prediction that war plane costs increase by a factor of 10 every decade. He predicted that by 2054 the Pentagon will be able to buy just one fighter plane.

 The Silver Lemon goes to the U.S. Navy for moth-balling four of its Littoral Combat ships after less than two decades in service. All 10 Littoral ships apparently have a “fundamentally flawed” propulsion system. The ships cost over $600 million apiece. There are plans to build six more.

 The Navy plans to build 82 ships overall in the next six years at a cost of $147 billion, including--at $940 million apiece-- 20 frigates to replace the Littoral Combat ships.

 The Bronze Lemon to the U.S. Army for spending $24 billion to replace its aging, 27-ton Bradley Fighting Vehicle with---ah, nothing? Not that it didn’t spend all that money. First there was the M2, but its armor was too thin. Then it built the Future Combat System, but it was too big and also had inadequate armor. Then they built the Ground Combat Vehicle, which was a monster and weighed three times more than the Bradleys.  Solution? Keep the old Bradleys.   MORE https://dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com/

 

 

OMNI

ISRAEL-PALESTINE NEWSLETTER #16, May 25,  2021.

FROM UPRISING TO CEASEFIRE MAY 2021

 

Compiled by Dick Bennett FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, and ECOLOGY

  (#1 Feb. 22, 2011; #2 Feb. 16, 2012; #3 March 1, 2012; #4 May 18, 2012; #5 August 13, 2012; #6 October 29, 2012; #7 Dec. 17, 2012; #8 March 29, 2013; #9 Oct. 21, 2013; #10 April 28, 2014; #11, July 1, 2015; #12, June 21, 2016; #13, August 13, 2016; #14 , May 15, 2021; #15, May 17, 2021)

http://omnicenter.org/donate/

 

CONTENTS: ISRAEL-PALESTINE NEWSLETTER #16

CURRENT EVENTS MAY 2021

Prashad, Israel Attacks Occupied Palestinian Territory OPT

Omar and Tlaib v. US Weapons to Israel, Common Dreams

AFSC and FCNL

Mondoweiss Coverage May 12-22

Abby Martin, Israeli Assault on Gaza

HISTORY

Bazian’s Book on Settler Colonial Occupation of Palestine

Israel Demolishes West Bank Village, The Guardian

BDS Movement 12 Years Old,   Anna Baltzer

J Street Perspective: Defend the 2-state solution, stop the demolitions, build peace.

Book by Chomsky and Pappe, On Palestine

Book by Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Islamophobia

   Book by Wajaht Ali, Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobic Network in America

Balfour Declaration

   Levine and Mossberg in Tikkun

   Two Articles in Washinton Report on Middle East Affairs

   Film by Independent Jewish Voices

Israeli Lobby

   Articles by Hanan Ashrawi and John Mearsheimer

   Interview of Grant Smith, author of Big Israel

 

 

TEXTS: ISRAEL-PALESTINE NEWSLETTER #16

CURRENT EVENTS

WAR INTENSIFIES AGAIN MAY 2021

 

Vijay Prashad.  Sleep now in the fire.  Mronline.org (5-22-21). Israel’s massive war machine attacks the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) with total disregard for international law. May 21, 2021 | Newswire

 

Published on  Tuesday, May 18, 2021  By  Common Dreams

Omar, Tlaib Lead Call to Stop 'Appalling' $735 Million US Weapons Sale to Israel Amid Gaza Carnage

The Minnesota Democrat warned the munitions sale "will undercut any attempts at brokering a ceasefire."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/05/18/omar-tlaib-lead-call-stop-appalling-735-million-us-weapons-sale-israel-amid-gazA

Jake Johnson, staff writer

Protesters gather to demonstrate against Israel outside the U.S. State Department on May 11, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is among the chorus of lawmakers and advocacy groups warning that U.S. President Joe Biden's effort to sell $735 million in munitions to the Israeli government is a "green light for continued escalation" in the occupied Gaza Strip, where the Netanyahu regime is carrying out a devastating air and artillery assault that has killed more than 200 people.

"It would be appalling for the Biden administration to go through with $735 million in precision-guided weaponry to Netanyahu without any strings attached in the wake of escalating violence and attacks on civilians," Omar (D-Minn.), the Congressional Progressive Caucus whip, said in a statement Monday.

"By supplying weapons that could be used to commit war crimes, the U.S. government is taking the risk of further fueling attacks against civilians and seeing more people killed or injured by U.S.-made weapons."
—Philippe Nassif, Amnesty International

If the proposed sale of Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions goes through, Omar warned, the deal "will undercut any attempts at brokering a cease-fire," a solution Biden said he supports in a Monday call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"We should be standing unequivocally and consistently on the side of human rights—holding all state and non-state actors accountable for their crimes and using every tool at our disposal to end the violence and bring about peace," Omar said. "We should be affirming the right of all people, regardless of their faith, to have self-determination and equal rights. That includes both Israelis and Palestinians because, yes, Palestinian lives matter."

The Biden administration first notified Congress of the proposed $735 million weapons sale on May 5, just days before the latest Israeli bombardment of Gaza began. Continued:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/05/18/omar-tlaib-lead-call-stop-appalling-735-million-us-weapons-sale-israel-amid-gaza

 

American Friends Service Committee and Friends Committee for National Legislation Standing with Gaza May 22, 2021     Dear James, We are heartened that a cease-fire has been declared nearly two weeks after Israel launched new attacks on Gaza. Since May 10, more than 240 Palestinians have been killed in the bombings, and tens of thousands have fled their homes. Rocket fire from Gaza has killed 12 people in Israel.  Thank you to all who took action this week urging Congress to stop a $735 million weapons sale to Israel and support a sustained cease-fire. Now we must focus on addressing the longstanding injustices that continue to impair prospects for all people to live in safety in peace—including ending the blockade on Gaza and the occupation. Here are five ways we can stand with Palestinians in Gaza today.   Here are this week's picks to inform and support your activism:    The Gaza cease-fire is no excuse for the world to look away: “Until the suffocating blockade ends and we see accountability for the war crimes committed against the people of Gaza, our freedom will remain incomplete,” writes AFSC’s Jehad Abusalim, who is from Gaza and whose family continues to live there today. (Washington Post).   Here’s why members of the Pillsbury family are boycotting their own brand: The great grandson of the founder of the Pillsbury Company explains why he refuses to buy Pillsbury products from General Mills, which operates in an Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territory. (NowThis News)

 

 

MONDOWEISS COVERAGE, Selections May 12 to 22, 2021  

Joint statement by Palestinians in North America on Nakba ...

https://mondoweiss.net › Activism

May 12, 2021 — DC: Tuesday, 11 May 2021 at 13:00 PDT Intersection of 22nd St. and C St. NW ... Mondoweiss covers the full picture of the struggle for justice in ...

MAY 18 GENERAL STRIKE
'We are united as a people': Palestinians celebrate a historic ...https://mondoweiss.net › News3 days ago — On May 18, Palestinians in Bethlehem joined millions across the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, Israel, and surrounding regions in the historic ...
Unity at last – Mondoweiss https://mondoweiss.net › Opinion  17 hours ago — The Palestinian people's inalienable rights are enshrined in international and humanitarian law and ... For the first time in many years, we see the Palestinian people united, from Jerusalem Al Quds, to Gaza, ... May 19, 2021.

Mondoweiss dave@mondoweiss.net   
Mondoweiss – News & Opinion About Palestine, Israel & the ...

https://mondoweiss.net

By Ted Snider May 22, 2021. Israeli provocation inside the Al-Aqsa mosque made the recent fighting in Gaza a war of choice for Israeli leaders. US approval ...   
Activism – Mondoweiss

https://mondoweiss.net › activism  

By Ragini Shah May 22, 2021. The City of Cambridge, Massachusetts has the chance to take action against Israeli oppression at its City Council meeting on ...

‘We are united as a people’: Inside Palestine's 'Strike for Dignity' - Intifada Diary: Haifa - Manifesto of Dignity and Hope - Democrats rise up, and collapse, on arms sales to Israel - Maddow has mentioned Gaza 6 times in 10 years

Inbox

Mondoweiss <dave@mondoweiss.net> 5-19-21	7:30 AM (1 hour ago)
to me

 

Intifada Diary, Haifa, Palestine Yoav Haifawi continues his reporting from the uprising in Haifa, where the resistance is drawing from all sectors of the Palestinian community, as the Israeli government brings in the Shin Bet to help smash the protests. READ MORE Does Hamas truly want to eradicate Israel? (No) The media routinely state that Hamas wants to eradicate Israel. Some of the mystery about Hamas's goals is surely because the organization is treated as a pariah. U.S. diplomats are prohibited from talking to it openly, the U.S. government calls it a terrorist organization, and the New York Times and other mainstream U.S. media outlets rarely if ever try to interview its leaders or listen to its supporters. READ MORE Democrats rise up against White House sale of missiles to Israel -- then collapse Don't look now, but mainstream Democrats are defying Israel over the Gaza attack. Chuck Schumer calls for a cease fire, joining 30 other Senators, and Gregory Meeks, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called for a hold on a $735 million sale of missiles and bombs to Israel that the White House approved May 5 -- till he backed down today. But liberal Zionist J Street group is for all military aid continuing to flow to Israel. READ MORE Rachel Maddow has mentioned Gaza on her show just 6 times over the past decade Over the course of a decade Rachel Maddow has had over 2,000 shows and has mentioned Gaza just five times. While others at her network have been speaking out, the MSNBC star remains silent. READ MORE Statement of solidarity with Palestinians from mentors of Gaza writers We are mentors for the We Are Not Numbers youth storytelling project. We work with Palestinian writers 18 to 30 years of age whose stories have been rendered largely invisible by the world. And we support the general strike by Palestinians on May 18. READ MORE 'We are united as a people': Palestinians celebrate a historic strike, urge supporters to 'keep momentum going' On May 18, Palestinians in Bethlehem joined millions across the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, Israel, and surrounding regions in the historic "Strike for Dignity", which called for an end to Israel’s “campaign of violence and ethnic cleansing against our people.” READ MORE Live blog: Palestinians stage general strike across historic Palestine Palestinians are staging the first general strike across all of historic Palestine since 1936 to protest Israeli strikes in Gaza and aggression in Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the death toll in Gaza is up to 213 as Israeli attacks continue. READ MORE

 

 Return to al-Wahda street - Palestinians celebrate ceasefire; Israel attacks Al Aqsa worshipers, again - Haifa Intifada Diary - Illusion of Israeli coexistence - Ed Markey and Palestine - Exterminate All the Brutes: a critique    5-22-21

Coexistence in Israel's 'mixed cities' was always an illusion

Over the past three decades, Israel’s main effort to “Judaize” the “mixed cities” inside Israel has been waged through a war of attrition. This has included moving religious settlers into Palestinian communities, as well as using tourism and archeological preservation to take over land. The coexistence model in Israel's “mixed cities” was always an illusion, and one that the recent protests finally served to smash.

GAZA

Physicians in Gaza recount airstrikes on clinics, medical staff

Israeli attacks on Gaza decimated the health sector, which included destroying doctors' ability to confront COVID-19.

Israel's air strikes targeted entire families in Gaza -- but U.S. media won't pursue the story

Amira Hass's charge in Haaretz that Israeli military, as part of its air assault on Gaza, “is wiping out entire Palestinian families on purpose," cries out for followup by American journalists. So far, no mainstream U.S. media outlet has followed up on her report. Their failure is journalistic malpractice.

Exterminate All the Brutes: a critique

Raoul Peck’s “Exterminate All the Brutes” is an awe-inspiring cultural, literary, historical, political and geographic smorgasbord. But to what end?

U.S. policy has perpetuated the crisis and atrocities in Gaza

The United States has played a vital role in the decades-long catastrophe that has engulfed Palestine. U.S. leaders must now confront their country’s and, in many cases, their own personal complicity in this catastrophe.

Return to al-Wahda street: Palestinians in Gaza mourn lives and dreams lost in latest Israeli offensive

On Friday morning, as the dust settled and a sense of calm blanketed the streets of Gaza City, which just hours prior were filled with thousands of people celebrating the ceasefire, Mahmoud al-Qawlaq mustered the courage to return to his neighborhood. “When I stand here and look at what’s in front of me, all I see is loss,” al-Qawlaq tells Mondoweiss. “The loss of my family members, my loved ones, my home, and the loss of my dreams.”

 

Abby Martin On The Israeli Onslaught And Gaza's Fight For Freedom

By Mnar Muhawesh Adley, MintPress News. Popular Resistance (5-22-21).  Despite publicly urging caution, restraint and calling for a ceasefire, the United States government continues to aid Israel, this week approving $375 million worth of arms sales to the Jewish state, even as it uses U.S.-made weaponry to attack civilian buildings and other infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. Hospitals, health clinics and homes have been destroyed, with reports confirming the deaths of at least 63 children in Gaza alone. Three pregnant women have also been killed. As of Wednesday morning, the death toll stands at 276. -more-

 

 

 

HISTORY—MAINLY 2017

OCCUPATION CONTINUES

 

BOOK ON SETTLER COLONIALISM

Eastwind Books of Berkeley, The Ethnic Studies Library at UC Berkeley, and The Center for Race and Gender at UC Berkeley present

In Palestine It Is Something Colonial  BY Dr. Hatem Bazian

Professor Hatem Bazian (UC Berkeley) provides a decolonial analysis of the most pressing struggle in the world in an extensive study of the occupation of Palestine.

The book’s subtitle is taken directly from the letter of Theoder Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, to Great Britain’s Minister of Colonies Cecil Rhodes, that sought support for the Zionist settler colonial project in Palestine.

In 1902, Herzl wrote to Rhodes stating: “You are being invited to help make history. It doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen but Jews… How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial.”

Palestine is the last settler colonial project to be commissioned in the late 19th early 20th centuries and still unfolding as we enter into the 21st Century with no end in sight.

In centering Palestine’s modern history around settler-colonial discourses, Hatem Bazian offers a theoretical basis for understanding Palestine while avoiding the pitfalls of the internationally supported “peace process” that, on the one hand, affirms settler-colonial rights and, on the other hand, problematizes the colonialized and dispenses with the ramifications of the colonial project.

Dr. Hatem Bazian is a lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies, Editor-in-Chief of the Islamophobia Studies Journal and Director of the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project Center for Race and Gender at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Bazian is a co-founder of Zaytuna College, the first accredited Muslim Liberal Arts College in America, the National Chair of American Muslims for Palestine, Board Member of Islamic Scholarship Fund, and Board Member of the Muslim Legal Fund of America. To learn more about Dr. Bazian, visit http://www.hatembazian.com.

 

Israeli forces leave 41 children homeless after razing Palestinian village, UN says.  Demolitions used as a ‘key means’ to ‘coerce Palestinians to leave their homes’

The belongings of 73 people who were forcibly displaced by Israeli forces stand in the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank. Photograph: United Nations

Oliver Holmes in Jerusalem

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/05/israeli-forces-leave-41-children-homeless-after-razing-palestinian-village-un-says

Thu 5 Nov 2020 00.00 EST

Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank have razed a Palestinian village, leaving 73 people – including 41 children – homeless, in the largest forced displacement incident for years, according to the United Nations.

Excavators escorted by military vehicles were filmed approaching Khirbet Humsa and proceeding to flatten or smash up tents, shacks, animal shelters, toilets and solar panels.

“These are some of the most vulnerable communities in the West Bank,” said Yvonne Helle, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory.

Three-quarters of the community lost their shelters during Tuesday’s operation, she said, making it the largest forced displacement incident in more than four years. However, by the number of destroyed structures, 76, the raid was the largest demolition in the past decade, she added.

On Wednesday, families from the village were seen rifling through their wrecked belongings in the wind, with some of the first rain of the year arriving the same day. The UN published a photo of a bed and a cot in the open desert.   The village is one of several Bedouin and sheepherding communities in the Jordan Valley area that is located within Israeli-declared army training “firing zones”, and despite being within the Palestinian Territories, people there often face demolitions for a building without Israeli permission.

“Palestinians can almost never obtain such permits,” said Helle. “Demolitions are a key means of creating an environment designed to coerce Palestinians to leave their homes,” she said, accusing Israel of “grave breaches” of international law.

Nearly 700 structures have been demolished across the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2020 so far, she said, more than any year since 2016, leaving 869 Palestinians homeless. . . .

The country’s hardline prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he intends to annex large swathes of occupied Palestinian territories, including the Jordan Valley, although the plan was temporarily “suspended” as part of a deal with the United Arab Emirates.

 

BDS Turns 12!  7-5-`17 Anna Baltzer, Director of Organizing & Advocacy via uark.onmicrosoft.com  10:58 AM (8 hours ago)

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Boycott,_Divestment_...

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel ...

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS ... - Facebook

https://www.facebook.com › videos › the-danger-of-neutr...

 

1:22

Anna Baltzer from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights explains in this TEDx talk. On the importance of ...

Dec 18, 2017

ISRAEL V. BDS MOVEMENT: SILENCING PALESTINIAN POV Sue Skidmore  8-1-17 10:35 AM (41 minutes ago) to me, Carl Greetings!  I hope that you all are doing well and continuing to speak out for truth and justice!  ~Sue Tell Congress: Do not criminalize free speech https://act.credoaction.com/sign/S720?sp_ref=323429380.4.1822    JUST ARRIVED TODAY 7-31-17  Washington Post Publishes OpEd Critical of Pro-Israel Law which squelches Free Speech & makes us felons. This article: "SHOCKER: Washington Post Publishes OpEd Critical of Pro-Israel Law Which Shuts Down BDS" by 21WIRE posted by Coyote Prime on his blog: Running Cause I Can't Fly https://coyoteprime-runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.com/2017/07/shocker-washington-post-publishes-oped.html  Thomas L. Are Blogspot Can't Do Both at the Same Time Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chair of the Joint Chief of Staff under Ronald Reagan, wrote about the consequences of Jewish power over the U.S. policy towards Israel: I have never seen a president - I don’t care who he is – stand up to the Israelis. It just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. If the American people understood what a grip those people have on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens don’t have any idea what goes on.[1] Screenwriter and film director, Oliver Stone appearing on the Stephen Colbert Late Show said, “Israel interfered in the U.S. election more than Russia. Why don’t you ask me about that?” That was too rich for the American audience. CBS deleted it. Israel cannot be disparaged on national television. Nor can Israel be disparaged in a person to person basis.  As far as Israel... consider this quote from Ariel Sharon:  The BBC announcer reported on an Israeli cabinet meeting: Shimon Peres had been pressuring Ariel Sharon to respect American calls for a ceasefire, lest the Americans turn against Israel. According to the BBC, a furious Sharon turned toward Peres, saying: “Every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.” Apparently, that is what MOST PEOPLE OF JEWISH LINEAGE EXPECT.  HENCE, THAT IS WHY ANYTIME I TRY TO DISCUSS THESE ISSUES ABOUT ISRAEL, THE MOSSAD AND 9-11, THE USS LIBERTY…I AM TOLD THAT IT IS ANTI-SEMITIC AND OTHER OVERTLY AGRESSSIVE REMARKS TO SHUT ME UP.  NOW WE HAVE A GROUP OF 43 SENATORS- 29 Republicans & 14 Democrats—that want to implement a bill into law which would criminally “Outlaw Support for Boycott Campaign Against Israel”.  “The Criminalization of Political Speech and activism against Israel has become one of the gravest threats to free speech in the West.”   U.S. Lawmakers Seek to Criminally Outlaw Support for Boycott Campaign Against Israel Glenn Greenwald/Ryan Grim July 19 2017, 11:30 a.m. The criminalization of political speech and activism against Israel has become one of the gravest threats to free speech in the West. In France, activists have been arrested and prosecuted for wearing T-shirts advocating a boycott of Israel. The U.K. has enacted a series of measures designed to outlaw such activism. On U.S. campuses, punishment of pro-Palestinian students for expressing criticisms of Israel is so commonplace that the Center for Constitutional Rights refers to it as “the Palestine Exception” to free speech.   But now, a group of 43 senators — 29 Republicans and 14 Democrats — wants to implement a law that would make it a felony for Americans to support the international boycott against Israel, which was launched in protest of that country’s decades-old occupation of Palestine. The two primary sponsors of the bill are Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland and Republican Rob Portman of Ohio. Perhaps the most shocking aspect is the punishment: Anyone guilty of violating the prohibitions will face a minimum civil penalty of $250,000 and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison.   Not only this grave oppressive law to prevent us from any dissent against Israel, but in the past there have been false flags on American soil or against Americans on purpose and to the detriment of the American People that are beneficial to Israel.   MORE

 

 

J STREET  PERSPECTIVE 2017 

Stop Demolitions, Build Peace Defend Israel from attack, advocate two-state solution, oppose settlements and annexations, stand with Palestinian communities in WB, BUILD PEACE Zoe Goldblum, J Street U info@jstreet.org  11-12-17 ) Dick -- At J Street U, we’re leading the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement in launching a new campaign to help defend the two-state solution and oppose creeping annexation by the settlement movement by standing with vulnerable Palestinian communities in the West Bank. Our campaign is called “Stop Demolitions, Build Peace.” And we need you to join us to help make it a success. With the Netanyahu government tacking hard to the right while the Trump administration largely stays silent, it’s no secret that the prospects for a two-state solution are in serious jeopardy. The far-right is trying to pave the way for Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank -- by expanding settlements, and by demolishing and evicting the Palestinian communities that stand in their way. By destroying communities and potentially leaving thousands of people homeless, these demolitions violate our core values. By severely undermining the possibility of creating a viable independent Palestinian state, they threaten Israel’s future as a secure, democratic homeland for the Jewish people. By entrenching the occupation, they erode the basic principles on which Israel was built. What’s happening in the West Bank demands the world’s attention. Under the Obama administration, we could hope for US diplomatic leadership to help oppose these kinds of destructive Israeli government actions. But while we can still urge the Trump administration to act, we can’t rely on them. Now, it’s on all of us in the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement to step up and raise the alarm about this issue -- and to rally our communal leaders and our Members of Congress to push back in order to help these communities and defend the two-state solution. One-click signup: Join the thousands of Americans and Israelis standing up to fight demolitions and defend the two-state solution with the Stop Demolitions, Build Peace campaign. This year, each of J Street U’s six regions across the country will partner directly with a West Bank Palestinian community facing the threat of demolition. On campuses across the country, we’ll take actions to support these communities by raising awareness about the threats they face and showing our Jewish community leaders and elected officials that stopping demolitions is key to supporting a better future for Israelis and Palestinians and building peace. We’ll convene calls and conversations with members of these communities and with activists working to oppose occupation and creeping annexation on the ground. And we’ll be joined in this effort by Israeli partners who share our goals and values. The threats facing these communities are very real -- and the Israeli government’s policies of creeping annexation will be hard to stop. But we’ve seen that when we speak out and stand up for what’s right, and work together with both Israelis and Palestinians, we can make an impact. Over the past year, J Street U and J Street have taken action to defend the Palestinian village of Susya when it faced imminent demolitions and evictions. Thanks in part to our efforts, major voices from Congress and the American Jewish community called on the Israeli government not to demolish the village. Susya’s leaders let us know how grateful they were to us for speaking out and helping them in their battle to keep their homes and their community intact. Last month, J Street’s Congressional and Leadership delegation to Israel and the Palestinian territory brought leaders of our movement and members of Congress to see the community and meet some of its residents. Click below to watch a short video about the impact of American engagement on what’s happening on the ground in the West Bank. Today, Susya still stands -- but remains under imminent threat. Later this week, the Israeli government is due to tell the High Court whether it has decided to move forward with Susya’s demolition. Now more than ever, Susya and the many communities like it in the West Bank need our attention and support. Their future is inextricably bound up with the future of Israel and with our hopes for peace and a two-state solution. J Street U is excited to fight this year for that more peaceful future. We’re ready to show our communities and our elected officials that they cannot stay silent about what’s happening in the West Bank -- not when so much is at stake. Thanks, Zoe Goldblum President of the J Street U National Board

 

ON PALESTINE by CHOMSKY AND PAPPE
BOOK REVIEW: On Palestine by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe (Haymarket Books) 2015.  Rev. by Griffin.

If, like many sane and independent-thinking Americans, you are tired of the hardline, pro-Israeli propaganda fed to us by Big Media, may I be so bold as to point you to a slim volume I just finished reading on the subject by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe simply titled On Palestine.

With the help from human-rights activist Frank Barat, who says in the introduction that “(t)he Palestine question is emblematic of what is wrong with the world” and that Palestine is “a social issue that all movements fighting for social justice need to embrace,” linguist and foreign-policy critic Chomsky and Israeli author and historian Pappe point out the obvious: the Israel is a settler-colonial society that is incrementally trying to push out or completely eliminate the Palestinian people (innocent women and children included) in hopes of creating their goal of a Greater Israel. And all this with complicity from the U.S. and the West.

Says Pappe: “There is no chance of getting out of the deadlock in Palestine without tearing apart the façade of a fake peace process and the two-state solution.” This needs to be addressed at the grassroots, he writes, with the people of a future Palestine where they come together to discuss how to “live together within a framework where all enjoy full rights, equality and partnership.”

In part one, Chomsky and Pappe, guided by Barat, go from the past and the Zionist struggle to the present and to the future of Palestine and its historic struggles, particularly after 1948 and the war in 1967. Barat and Pappe then address the issues inside Israel, while Barat and Chomsky tackle how the issues play out inside the United States.

“The idea of a Jewish state is an anomaly,” says Chomsky. “It’s not something that’s happened somewhere in the world.” He adds: “If you live in Israel, and you are an Israeli citizen, you are not a Jew. So the Jewish state concept is a complete anomaly.”

Pappe adds on to this line of thinking, noting how Israel has “immunized” itself from overt criticism, compared, say to South Africa under apartheid, because “if you demonstrate against Israel, you demonstrate against the Jewish state and therefore you demonstrate against Judaism.” He says that the parameters of the conversation need to be changed and for Israel, like South Africa, to be made into a pariah state, with change coming from within.

Later, Pappe notes the disappointment in Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine over the lack of any significant international reaction to the carnage and destruction of the Israeli assaults on those lands and people.

And while, as I noted earlier, the attacks on Gaza and the West Bank are accepted as Israel responding to Hamas missile attacks on the Jewish state, “(t)his Israeli narrative is totally rejected in the world of cyber-activism and alternative media (including Red Dirt Report). There it seems the condemnation of the Israeli action as a war crime is widespread and consensual.” 

There is no getting around Israel's brutal, bloody policy against the Palestinians and how outrageous these war crimes have been. And yet, as the authors note, little is being said on behalf of the Palestinian people who have been kept in what is essentially an open-air prison, in the case of the Gaza Strip.

The book ends with Chomsky's powerful speech at the United Nations, noting the horror and brutality of Operations Cast Lead and Protective Edge and the awful direction Israel is heading to. 

On Palestine is an eye-opening and hard-hitting book and we here at Red Dirt Report highly encourage all students of current events and history alike to read it from cover-to-cover.

Ilan Pappe The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

,. Oneworld $27.50 (313p) ISBN 978-1851684670

https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1851684670  

In his latest work, renowned Israeli author and academic Pappe (A History of Modern Palestine ) does not mince words, doing Jimmy Carter one better (or worse, depending on one's point of view) by accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, beginning in the 1948 war for independence and continuing through the present. Focusing primarily on Plan D (Dalet , in Hebrew), conceived on March 10, 1948, Pappe demonstrates how ethnic cleansing was not a circumstance of war, but rather a deliberate goal of combat for early Israeli military units organized by David Ben-Gurion, whom Pappe labels the “architect of ethnic cleansing.” The forced expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians between 1948 and 1949, Pappe argues, was part of a long-standing Zionist plan to manufacture an ethnically pure Jewish state. Framing his argument with accepted international and U.N. definitions of ethnic cleansing, Pappe follows with an excruciatingly detailed account of Israeli military involvement in the demolition and depopulation of hundreds of villages, and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Arab inhabitants. An accessible, learned resource, this volume provides important insights into the historical antecedents of today's conflict, but its conclusions will not be easy for everyone to stomach: Pappe argues that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine continues today, and calls for the unconditional return of all Palestinian refugees and an end to the Israeli occupation. Without question, Pappe's account will provoke ire from many readers; importantly, it will spark discussion as well. (Jan.)

Islamophobia
Wajahat Ali: Pro-Israel Organizations, Donors and Islamophobia: Findings From Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America

https://www.wrmea.org/2017-may/pro-israel-organizations-donors-and-islamophobia-findings-from-fear-inc.-the-roots-of-the-islamophobia-network-in-america.html

 

Grant Smith:  Wajahat Ali is a journalist, writer, lawyer, and an award-winning playwright.  But of major interest to us is a fascinating report that he wrote along with his team while they were at the Center for American Progress back in 2011.  We’ve asked him to come and talk about a seminal report about the overlap between some Israel lobby organizations and donors that promote or otherwise distribute Islamophobia in America.  Please welcome Wajahat Ali.

Wajahat Ali:. . . . 

 …in 2011-I was once a young man-I was the lead author and researcher of the investigative report Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America that was published by the Washington, DC think tank Center for American Progress.  

Don’t worry.  I won't do the entire 138-page report, but for those of you who have not read it, in two minutes I will summarize everything for you.  What this report was, was an investigative report that exposed how at that time seven major funders had given over $43 million over a period of 10 years after 9/11 to a small—key, small—very interconnected, I would say incestuous group of individuals and organizations responsible for mainstreaming fear, bigotry and hate against Muslims and Islam in America.

Now, for purposes of this conversation, what is Islamophobia? Great question.  We defined it, as it manifested itself in America, as the following: an exaggerated fear, hatred and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination—this is the key—the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from America’s social, political and civic life.

. Continued:   https://www.wrmea.org/2017-may/pro-israel-organizations-donors-and-islamophobia-findings-from-fear-inc.-the-roots-of-the-islamophobia-network-in-america.html

 

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

www.tikkun.org/nextgen/balfour-declaration Mark LeVine and Mathias Mossberg.  Tikkun, 2017. On Balfour’s 100th Anniversary, Time for a New Definition of Sovereignty, Independence and the Nation-State. November 2nd marks the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the letter from Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Lord Arthur James Balfour to British Jewish leader Walter Rothschild in which the British Government promised Jews a “national home” in Palestine should they win the war, while offering only to safeguard the “civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities.”  Most “non-Jews”--i.e., Palestinian Arabs--joined by key members of Palestine’s existing Arab Jewish population and some Diaspora Jewish figures, understood that Balfour's promise would lead to permanent hostility between the two emerging nationalist communities. Some local Jewish leaders even put forward an alternative to the Balfour Declaration, declaring that peace in the Holy Land would only be possible if “both sides... develop their national homes in the same land, which is destined to be one state.” It's tragic but fitting that on the Balfour Declaration's centenary the most right-wing government in Israel's history is pushing to annex large swaths of the West Bank to Jerusalem, permanently foreclosing the possibility of a second state being created on the territory of Palestine/Israel, and returning the conflict to its roots as a zero-sum territorial struggle between Jews and Palestinians. Of course, Palestinians are not unique in being on the losing end of the Post-World War I nation-state order. Catalans and Kurds are only the most recent and newsworthy examples of how states established on territories with more than one ethnonational community—never mind established after the conquest and occupation of territories with large indigenous populations—have failed to provide equal political, economic and social rights to all inhabitants….

ALSO ON BALFOUR, SEE 2 ARTICLES IN WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS  (NOV.-DEC. 2017).

Ramzy Baroud, “The Balfour Declaration Destroyed Palestine, Not the Palestinian People” and Allan Brownfeld, “The Balfour Declaration at 100: Remembering Its Prophetic Jewish Critics.”

FILM ON THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
Van Gosse, a co-chair of H-PAD, says that the 24-minute film on the centenary of the Balfour Declaration made by Independent Jewish Voices has been highly recommended by scholars in the US and UK who work on issues related to Palestine.  Historians for Peace and Democracy. 
Tom Hayes: Challenges and Changes in 25 Years Working on Israel-Palestine Issue and Advice for Independent Filmmakers.
https://www.wrmea.org/2017-may/challenges-and-changes-in-25-years-working-on-israel-palestine-issue-and-advice-for-independent-filmmakers.html

…Tom Hayes:  The spectrum of mendacious mechanisms we encapsulate in the term Israel lobby are, in fact, an attack on the foundations of the United States by a foreign interest.  Its aim is to keep our eyes closed, our mouths shut, and our wallets wide open. . . . .

I was nine years old when my mother read me Cry, the Beloved Country.  I was 39 when Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa.  That book may not have had any more impact than a grain of sand on the struggle against South African apartheid, but a grain of sand on the move can start an avalanche.  If enough of us grains of sand shake our asses loose, we could bury the Israel lobby. [APPLAUSE] We can clear the road to Palestinian freedom and self-determination. 

https://www.wrmea.org/2017-may/challenges-and-changes-in-25-years-working-on-israel-palestine-issue-and-advice-for-independent-filmmakers.html

 

ISRAEL LOBBY

The following 2 papers by Hanan Ashrawi and John Mearsheimer were delivered to The Israel Lobby and American Policy conference March 24, 2017 at the National Press Club.  The 3^rd is an interview of Grant Smith at the conference, author of Big Israel.

Hanan Ashrawi: The Israel Lobby and the ‘Peace Process’ From a Palestinian Perspective.  Hanan Ashrawi Posted on April 2, 2017

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2017/04/02/hanan-ashrawi-the-israel-lobby-and-the-peace-process-from-a-palestinian-perspective/

The Israel Lobby and American Policy conference was solely sponsored by the American Educational Trust, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep). This is a rush transcript

...Hanan Ashrawi: Thank you very much. Thank you. This is indeed heartwarming and humbling. I thank you all for coming. Thank you, Delinda, for your invitation. Thank you, Grant. Thank you, John for picking me up also and all the people who made this possible. I’m delighted to be here with you. I’m delighted to be part of this occasion, this endeavor which in many ways is extremely timely. It does respond to a sense of urgency really. I need to intervene and to say policy and discourse. And it’s wonderful to hear all these not just distinguished people but very profound and persuasive people and courageous people, really, who are speaking truth to power and who are standing up for justice. I don’t want to waste too much time because I have a lot to say. So you have to let me know ahead of time.

As you know this is a very significant occasion because we’re talking about 100, 70, 50, and zero. A hundred years since the Balfour Declaration. I do hope that the Brits will not celebrate it even though Theresa May invited Netanyahu to celebrate with her. This is a colonial legacy par excellence. Seventy years since the partition plan that did partition Palestine and created the State of Israel, at that time on 55 percent of Palestine. Fifty years since the occupation of 1967. And zero time for the two-state solution.

I’m asked to talk about the Israel lobby and the peace process. I will focus on the peace process because you all know that the Israel lobby is never absent. Whenever anything happens related to Palestine, it is there. And when it comes to the peace process, they have always been a shaping force – intertwining, interweaving, intervening their presence and at the same time maintaining their – I don’t want to say control but their influence every step of the way. They play the major role in shaping and influencing U.S. policy particularly the peace process. Since its inception, there’s a sense of ownership that the peace process is owned by the Israeli lobby in many ways because they’re looking out for the interest of Israel all the time.

There are various components of the lobby.     (Continued:

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2017/04/02/hanan-ashrawi-the-israel-lobby-and-the-peace-process-from-a-palestinian-perspective/ )

 

John Mearsheimer: What Has Changed Since Publication of The Israel Lobby and What the New Administration Can Do Differently.    Posted on March 31, 2017

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2017/03/31/john-mearsheimer-what-has-changed-since-publication-of-the-israel-lobby-and-what-the-new-administration-can-do-differently/

Delivered to The Israel Lobby and American Policy conference March 24, 2017 at the National Press Club

The Israel Lobby and American Policy conference was solely sponsored by the American Educational Trust, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep). This is a rush transcript.

….John Mearsheimer:

I would like to focus my talk on what has transpired regarding the Israel lobby and the U.S.-Israeli relationship in the ten years since Steve Walt and I wrote The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. My talks comprise of four parts. I’ll begin by briefly restating the core arguments in our book. I’ll then describe four major changes that have taken place regarding the lobby and the U.S.-Israeli relationship over the past decade. I will then describe what has not changed and conclude by speculating about the future.

The central argument in the book is that the United States has a special relationship with Israel that has no parallel in modern history and it is almost wholly due to the lobby. What makes Israel’s relationship with the United States extraordinary is not simply the fact that Israel has received more foreign aid than any other country or that Washington almost always backs Israel diplomatically. What makes it truly special is that the aid is given unconditionally. In other words, Israel gets this aid even when it does things that the United States opposes like building settlements in the West Bank.    (Continued:

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2017/03/31/john-mearsheimer-what-has-changed-since-publication-of-the-israel-lobby-and-what-the-new-administration-can-do-differently/

Grant Smith summarizes conclusions from his book Big Israel and results of polling people about the Israel Lobby
Grant Smith: American Public Opinion About U.S. Aid to Israel and Other Top AIPAC Programs  https://www.wrmea.org/2017-may/grant-smith-american-public-opinion-about-u.s.-aid-to-israel-and-other-top-aipac-programs.html

Dale Sprusansky: Grant Smith is the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy—again, the co-sponsor of today’s event.  He’s the author of the 2016 book Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby Moves America, which covers the history, functions, and activities of Israel affinity organizations in America.  Grant has written two unofficial histories of AIPAC, and many other books.
His organization is constantly working on Freedom of Information Act requests and uncovering important documents, especially on Israel’s nuclear program.  I can tell you that few, if any, people work harder on this issue than Grant.  Between his frequent research, appearance in FOIA court, his writing, his polling and his 5:00 a.m. e-mails, Grant is truly a one-man machine.  Today he will be sharing polling data on U.S. aid to Israel conducted by his organization and by other pollsters. 

Grant Smith:  Thank you, Dale.  Public opinion polling is very important, obviously, but there isn’t very much done in terms of asking about what the public thinks about core Israel lobby programs.  But that’s going to change today.  The polling that we are about to look at could and should provide input to elected officials, who should then, in turn, act in the public interest.  Polling about the Israel lobby programs that we’re going to look at reveals the growing gap between what the public thinks about particular issues, and the government actions being demanded by the Israel lobby. 

Last year, I spoke here about the birth of the Israel lobby in the United States, its growth, its size, its composition and division of labor.  This was all based on my book Big Israel, in which I reveal a $3.7 billion nonprofit ecosystem on track to reach $6.3 billion by 2020.  With 14,000 employees, 350,000 volunteers, but a paying membership of approximately 774,000, it is this nonprofit lobby, along with overlapping campaign-finance infrastructure—whether it is large individual donors, stealth political action committees—that provide Israel with the U.S. support that it would otherwise not have.  All of this will be on a brilliant display when 15,000 AIPAC members assemble this weekend to begin their annual policy conference.  So let’s continue looking at the lobby, and what Americans think of that program.  MORE  .   https://www.wrmea.org/2017-may/grant-smith-american-public-opinion-about-u.s.-aid-to-israel-and-other-top-aipac-programs.html

 

 

CONTENTS: ISRAEL-PALESTINE NEWSLETTER #15  5-17-21

MAY 18 GLOBAL PROTEST

US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

ANSWER Coalition

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION MAY 2021

Weapons to Israel

Chris Hedges, Israel’s War Crimes and US and Israel’s Lies

Mairead Maguire v. Israel Killings and US Compliance

Philip Weiss v. Biden’s Secretary of State Tony Blinken on Israel

Lana Tatour, Not Only Apartheid but Israel Enforces Settler-Colonialism

Norm Finkelstein Interview

2016-17 CONTINUITY, PRESENT FROM THE PAST

Jonathan Cook, New Land Law for Annexation Dooms 2- State Solution

Stephen Zunes, Israeli War Crimes Permitted by Bipartisan US Congress

RESISTANCE

sraeli Teens Refuse to Serve in Israeli Army

Medea Benjamin, BDS Movement

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Jewish Social Justice Tradition

CONTENTS, ISRAEL-PALESTINE NEWSLETTER #14,  MAY 16, 2021

http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/05/omni-israel-palestine-newsletter-14-may.html

MAY 12-16, 2021: A Battle Becoming a War

Whitbeck: Meaning of annual $3.8 Billion to Israel

Consequences of Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing

A Palestinian Community Calls for International Help

The Nakba and Israeli Refusers

Nakba Day

Senator Sanders Calls for Peace

Rabbi Waskow: Muslims and Jews Call for Peace (and you can join them)

LOOKING BACK TO PREPARE THE FUTURE

A. J. Muste Institute for Nonviolence, and Israel/Palestine

Canada’s NDP Sanctions Israel

AFSC Demands Vaccinations for Palestinians

Ilan Pappe’s Quick History of Israel/Palestine

APN, Beerman’s Book on Zionism

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs: John Kerry

APN, 2016

 

END ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS NEWSLETTER #16, May 25, 2021.