SEXUAL TENSION WAS CRAKLING IN THE SENATE EARLIER TODAY
AS SENATOR MARKWAYNE MULLIN TRIED TO USE A HEARING AS THOUGH IT WERE
GRINDER AND HE WAS SWIPING RIGHT ON SEAN O'BRIEN, PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS..
THE
51-YEAR-OLD O'BRIEN MORE THAN LOOKS HIS AGE AND WE DON'T MEAN THAT AS IN INSULT,
WE'RE JUST TRYING TO MAKE CLEAR THAT O'BRIEN WILL NOT BE REPLACING
PATRICK DEMPSY ON THE COVER OF PEOPLE'S SEXIEST MAN ISSUE.
BUT WHATEVER WE MISSED WAS PINGING HARD FOR MARKYWAYNE.
STANDING
UP AND REMOVING WHAT APPEARED TO BE A WEDDING RING, MARKYWAYNE TRIED TO
ACT TOUGH -- LIKE A POWER BOTTOM BEGGING THE TOP TO POUND IT OUT HARD
-- SNARLED, "SIR, THIS IS A TIME; THIS IS A PLACE."
PANTING HARD AND
APPARENTLY READY TO PRESENT, markywayne WAS LEFT HIGH AND DRY AS THE
ROSE NYLUND OF THE SENATE, BERNIE SANDERS RUSHED TO HALT THE MAN-ON-MAN
ACTION WITH A "HEY, HEY, YOU KNOW YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SAVE THAT FOR
INTERNS AND SENATE PAGES!"
Lawyers for the Palestinian victims of Israeli attacks on Gaza filed a
complaint Monday at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Dutch
city of The Hague.
The victims’ representative before the ICC,
Gilles Devers, and a four-person delegation that accompanied him
submitted the complaint to the court’s prosecutor.
Addressing the press, Devers asserted that Israeli acts in Gaza constitute factors of the crime of genocide.
“The
ICC is currently investigating the war crimes in a related
investigation. The crime of genocide should also be included in this,”
he said, adding that forcing over one million people to be displaced and
cutting access to water, energy, food and medicine indicates that
Israel wants total annihilation of the population in Gaza.
The filing is something that many have called for around the world. For example, Amy Goodman (DEMOCRACY NOW!) noted in yesterday's headlines:
Mary
Lou McDonald, the head of Sinn Féin, is calling on Irish and European
leaders to take action against Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Mary Lou McDonald: “Where is the protection of
international law for every child killed in Gaza, for every Gazan mother
holding the cold body of their dead child? Israel cannot be allowed to
commit atrocities with impunity. The government says that Israel’s
actions cannot be without consequences. I agree. That is why the Irish
government must take the lead and refer Israel to the International
Criminal Court and send the Israeli ambassador home.”
Mary Lou McDonald spoke at Sinn Féin’s annual conference, where
Palestinian Ambassador to Ireland Dr. Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid also spoke
and was met with a standing ovation.
But
it's not just the Israeli government that's been named in a lawsuit.
In a US federal court Joe Biden, Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin are
named in one. From the Center for Constitutional Rights:
November 13, 2023, San Francisco –
Today, Palestinians asked a federal court to enjoin President Biden,
Secretary of State Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Austin from
providing further arms, money, and diplomatic support to Israel on
grounds that there is an unfolding genocide by the State of Israel
against the civilian population of Gaza and the U.S. officials have a
legal duty to prevent, and not further, this most serious of crimes.
Biden,
Blinken, and Austin, as outlined in the complaint, are sued in their
official capacity for failing to prevent an unfolding genocide where
they have influence over the State of Israel to do so, and directly
abetting its development with weapons, funds, and diplomatic cover, in
breach of duties enshrined in the Genocide Convention and customary
international law. The filing is accompanied by a declaration from the
leading legal expert on genocide, William Schabas, who
identifies features of the Israeli government’s statements, deadly
military assault, and total siege as signs of genocide and affirms the
United States’ breach of its legal duty to prevent genocide. A separate
expert declaration by the genocide and Holocaust scholars Drs. John Cox,
Victoria Sanford, and Barry Trachtenberg, explains how the genocidal
intentions and actions of Israeli leadership resemble other genocides in
recent history.
The
complaint, which seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, cites the U.S.
government’s unconditional support for Israel as it bombs the people of
Gaza and deprives them of food, water, and other necessities. The
complaint states that even the crimes committed by the military wing of
Hamas on October 7th that killed an estimated 1,200 Israeli people,
including many civilians, and kidnapped 240, cannot legally justify the
forms of targeting an entire population and collective punishment meted
out by the Israeli government, let alone genocide. Since October 8th,
Israel has killed over 11,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – mostly
civilians, including more than 4,600 children – and displaced 1.5
million. Thousands of Palestinians remain missing, and Israel’s
destruction of hospitals, schools, and most infrastructure in Gaza – as
well as intentional deprivation of access to food, water, electricity,
and medicine – has rendered life in Gaza impossible.
“To be
honest, it’s difficult to revisit all the scenes of the past weeks.
They open a door to hell when I recall them,” said Dr. Omar Al-Najjar, a
24-year-old intern physician at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis
and a plaintiff in the case.
“I’ve lost five relatives, treated too many children who are the sole
survivors of their families, received the bodies of my fellow medical
students and their families, and seen the hospital turn into a shelter
for tens of thousands of people as we all run out of fuel, electricity,
food, and water. The U.S. has to stop this genocide. Everyone in the
world has to stop this.”
In
addition to Dr. Al-Najjar, the other plaintiffs in the case are the
Palestinian human rights organizations Defense for Children
International–Palestine and Al-Haq; the individuals Ahmed Abu Artema,
and Mohammed Ahmed Abu Rokbeh, who are in Gaza; and Mohammad Monadel
Herzallah, Laila Elhaddad, Waeil Elbhassi, Basim Elkarra, and “A.N.”,
who are U.S. citizens with family in Gaza. All have had multiple family
members killed, subjected to the closure of Gaza, and displaced.
Filed
on the plaintiffs’ behalf by the Center for Constitutional Rights with
the law firm of Van Der Hout, LLP,
the complaint provides extensive evidence that the acts of the Israeli
government represent an unfolding genocide, which the Genocide
Convention defines as acts committed “with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or
religious group,” and which can be accomplished through killing,
inflicting serious bodily or mental harm upon a targeted group, or by
“inflicting upon the group conditions of life calculated to bring about
its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The
Israeli military has targeted civilian areas and infrastructure,
including using chemical weapons, and deprived Palestinians of basic
necessities for life, the complaint says, while dehumanizing
Palestinians as “human animals” that are undeserving of human rights
protections and vowing to “eliminate everything,” making clear the
“emphasis is on damage and not accuracy.” Gaza had already been subject
to five prior bombing campaigns and a nearly 17-year military closure
and ongoing occupation that had made Gaza an open air prison.
“For
the last five weeks, President Biden and Secretaries Blinken and Austin
have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with an Israeli government that has
made clear its intention to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza.
As neighborhood after neighborhood, hospital after hospital, and
sheltering displaced Palestinians were bombed, while subject to a total
siege and closure that denies 2.2 million people basic necessities for
life, they have continued to provide both military and political support
for Israel’s unfolding genocidal campaign while imposing no red
lines,” said Katherine Gallagher, a senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and one of the lawyers who brought the case.
“The United States has a clear and binding obligation to prevent, not
further, genocide. They have failed in meeting their legal and moral
duty to use their considerable power to end this horror. They must do
so.”
The United States has
a duty under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention to prevent and punish
acts of genocide, an obligation the U.S. Congress made law in 1988 when
it ratified the Convention and passed the Genocide Convention
Implementation Act (18 U.S.C. § 1091). The duty to prevent is heightened
given the United States’ considerable influence on Israel. The Biden
administration, plaintiffs say, is not merely failing to prevent
Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, it is actively abetting it. From the
start of the bombing, Biden has repeatedly reaffirmed, through word and
deed, “unwavering” U.S. support.
Courts
have identified the providing of weapons and other materials to the
perpetrators of genocide as a form of complicity. To be culpable, the
provider need not share the recipients’ genocidal intent.
William Schabas, the world’s leading legal expert on genocide,
wrote in his declaration in the case, “I conclude that there is a
serious risk of genocide committed against the Palestinian population of
Gaza and that the United States of America is in breach of its
obligation, under both the 1948 Genocide Convention to which it is a
party as well as customary international law, to use its position of
influence with the Government of Israel and to take the best measures
within its power to prevent the crime taking place.”
“Palestinian
children in Gaza are undoubtedly targets as repeated Israeli military
offensives destroy their homes, schools, and neighborhoods, as Israeli
forces use U.S.-made and funded weapons to kill them and their families
with impunity,” said Khaled Quzmar, general director at Defense for Children International – Palestine.
“While people protest in the streets, world leaders show, day after
day, that they lack the temerity to end the catastrophic and
unprecedented destruction of Palestinian life in Gaza. We need the
American people to join us to force an end to this genocide.”
Local counsel Marc Van Der Hout of the law firm of Van Der Hout, LLP,
said, “The United States must fulfill its obligations under the
Genocide Convention and international law to prevent escalating
atrocities in Gaza. The killings and kidnappings perpetrated by Hamas on
Oct 7th, horrendous as they were, in no conceivable way justify the
massacres now being perpetrated by the State of Israel with the
unconditional support and acquiescence of the United States. The courts
must now force the U.S. to comply with its obligations under the law.”
“We
have lost so many people, but there are still many more who are living,
and we owe it to them to do everything possible to stop this genocide,”
said Mohammad Herzallah, one of the plaintiffs in the case who has family in Gaza.
“I have done everything in my power: I have participated in protests,
sit-ins, wrote letters to my representatives, civil disobedience. Now I
am asking the courts to end this ongoing genocide.”
The Crooked Court just gets worse. Now they're suddenly
desperate to block Congressional action, so they've come up with their
own 'code of conduct.' ABC NEWS reports:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday released a formal "Code of Conduct" for
the justices, responding to years of criticism that the nation's
highest court does not have transparent or enforceable ethics
guidelines.
The
8-page code, which significantly mirrors a code of conduct for lower
federal court judges, details the expectations that justices should
"avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety" in their actions
on and off the bench.
Among
other things the code requires justices to "uphold the integrity and
independence of the judiciary" and "avoid impropriety and the appearance
of impropriety in all activities."
The
court has been under pressure to act ever since a series of reports
raised questions about whether justices were following the rules.
Democrats
on the Senate Judiciary Committee have proposed legislation that would
impose a new ethics code on the court, with lawmakers saying they are
being forced to act because of the justices' failure to do so.
The
new rules say nothing about how complaints about ethics lapses would be
enforced, an omission that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., seized
upon.
"This
is a long-overdue step by the justices, but a code of ethics is not
binding unless there is a mechanism to investigate possible violations
and enforce the rules," he said.
What he called the "honor system" of individual justices handling ethics issues has not worked, Whitehouse added.
Not
good enough. Not at all good enough. As Senator Whitehouse points
out, the honor system has failed. We need it in writing and we need it
to be law. We need clearly defined penalties and clearly defined
steps. AP notes, "Public
trust in and approval of the court is hovering near record lows,
according to a Gallup Poll released just before the court's new term
began on Oct. 2." Nothing in what the Court is proposing will do anything to restore trust in the Court. As the saying goes, they must think we kin to Boo-Boo the clown.
Monday, November 13, 2023. The assault on Gaza continues, 101 UN
workers have been killed, hospitals are under attack, protests increase
and much more.
Incubator babies and dialysis patients hooked up to machines
dependent on fuel are at particular risk – especially as Al-Aqsa is the
sole facility for kidney patients in the central Gaza Strip governorate,
Khalil al-Dakran, the hospital’s spokesperson, told Al Jazeera’s
fact-checking agency Sanad.
“If electricity and water outages persist and fuel depletes, patients
will be transferred to mass graves if the aggression continues,”
al-Dakran warned.
“And the world [just] watches,” he continued bitterly.
Also this morning, CNN reports, "Premature babies at Gaza’s largest hospital are being wrapped in
foil and placed next to hot water in a desperate bid to keep them alive,
the hospital director warned, as Israeli firepower continues to pound surrounding streets and remaining fuel reserves dry up, leaving the facility unable to function." The United Nations noted::
The regional directors of the UN sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA),
children’s agency UNICEF and health agency WHO, said they were
“horrified” at latest reports which indicate many have been killed –
including children – in facilities across Gaza city and other northern
areas of the Strip.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society is reporting that the second
largest hospital in Gaza, Al-Quds, is in effect out of service due to
fuel shortages with the NGO saying it has only been able to make
sporadic contact with the facility.
Writing on social media
platform X, the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus said having managed to establish contact with the largest
hospital, Al Shifa, in the past few hours, "the situation is dire and
perilous."
He said medics had been three days without
electricity and water "and with very poor internet which has severely
impacted our ability to provide essential care.
"The
constant gunfire and bombings in the area have exacerbated the already
critical circumstances. Tragically, the number of patient fatalities has
increased significantly", he added.
He
said the hospital "is not functioning as a hospital anymore",
concurring with the regional directors that there must be international
intervention.
News reports quoting the health ministry, said earlier on Saturday
that five wounded patients have died because they could not be operated
on due to a lack of fuel.
Two babies in the intensive care unit there were reported to have died on Saturday, with water, food and electricity cut off.
Tedros
expressed grave concern for the safety of staff and patients caught in
crossfire late on Saturday noting that Israeli tanks were reportedly
surrounding Al Shifa.
The Israeli military has repeatedly denied
its forces are targeting hospitals, claiming that Hamas and other
militants are using the facilities as shields with their headquarters
located beneath Al Shifa.
“Intense hostilities surrounding several
hospitals in northern Gaza are preventing safe access for health staff,
the injured, and other patients”, said the statement released by Laila
Baker of UNFPA, UNICEF Regional Director Adele Khodr, and Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandhari, of WHO.
Meanwhile on Monday, the UN flag flew at half-mast at the
Organisation’s offices around the world in memory of the 101 staff
members of the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s retaliation for Hamas’ massacres perpetrated in southern Israel on 7 October.
“Today,
we join the UN community in a moment of silence to mourn and honour our
colleagues killed in Gaza,” UN World Food Programme chief Cindy McCain
wrote on social platform X.
At a solemn ceremony at the UN Office
in Geneva, Director-General Tatiana Valovaya thanked staff for their
sacrifice, highlighting the importance of their work at a time when
multilateralism was under threat.
August
19, 2003. That's what comes to mind. That's the date of an attack on
the UN in Baghdad. It was a deadly attack that left 22 people dead.
World Humanitarian Day was commemorated to remember those aid workers
who lost their lives.
22 day died and the
world was horrified. But now 101 UN workers have died in the assault in
Gaza and the Israeli government seems to think they should get off with
a 'whoopsi!'
United Nations workers observed a minute's silence on Monday to honor
the more than 100 employees killed in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war
began last month as UN flags flew at half-mast.
Staff at UN offices in Geneva bowed their heads as a candle was lit
in memory of the 101 employees of UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA)
killed in the Israeli assault on Gaza.
"This is the highest number of aid workers killed in the history of
our organization in such a short time," said Tatiana Valovaya,
Director-General of the United Nations in Geneva.
"We are gathered here today, united in this very symbolic location,
to pay respect to our brave colleagues who sacrificed their lives while
serving under the United Nations flag."
UNRWA has said that some staff members were killed while queuing for
bread while others were killed along with their families in their homes
in Israel's aerial and ground war against Hamas in response to the Oct. 7
cross-border assault by the group.
As the assault continues, the protests increase. Jake Johnson (COMMON DREAMS) notes, "Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of London on
Saturday to demand an immediate cease-fire in Gaza as Israeli forces
ramped up their aerial and ground assault on the Palestinian enclave's
hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, intensifying the
territory's humanitarian crisis." BBC NEWS explains,
"It was the biggest UK rally since [. . .] 7 October." We've removed
the phrase "since the war between Israel and Hamas began on" because the
war didn't begin that day. October 8th? That's when the latest assault
on Gaza began because Gaza's been under assault for years. Fatima al-Kassab (NPR) adds, "Protesters marched overwhelmingly peacefully through the city, meeting
at London's Hyde Park and walking to the U.S. Embassy. The Met police
reported 'no issues'' with
the protest itself, saying that it had stuck to the prescribed route.
The route for Saturday's march, which coincided with Armistice Day, was intentionally drawn up
by protest organizers to avoid London's war memorials such as the
Cenotaph, where two minutes of silence were held to commemorate the U.K.
war dead an hour before the march began." Mark Townsend, Tobi Thomas, Rajeev Syal and Toby Helm (GUARDIAN) quote
activist Rachel Solnick, "I feel really
appalled by how some of the framing around liberation for Palestine has
been as if there’s an opposition, or some kind of binary between Jewish
safety and Palestinian safety. I absolutely disagree with that framing.
I think that loads of us who have Jewish ancestry feel really strongly
that what is taking place in Palestine is ethnic cleansing and we don’t
want it to happen in our names. It feels so important to gather here in
numbers, as Jews and as members of the British public in general, to
counter that narrative." Chris Marsden (WSWS) observes, "Sir Keir Starmer’s backing of Israel has made him the most despised
Labour leader since Tony Blair took Britain into the Iraq war in 2003
based on lies. This has led to mass resignations and a collapse of
support in inner city areas. Many demonstrators carried homemade banners
targeting Starmer as an accomplice to war crimes." UK SOCIALIST WORKER reports:
The national march for Palestine—of at least 800,000 people—in London on Saturday made even the massive protests of the last month seem small.
“Now I have hope, now I think we can make a real difference to help stop the agony of Gaza,” protester Rania told Socialist Worker. She was born in Ramallah in Palestine and fears for her family and friends.
It was so big that there was a demo to the demo. Half an
hour before the advertised start time, around 50,000 or more marchers
packed the mile-long street from Oxford Circus to the assembly point at
Marble Arch
Marcher Alex said, “I have been on the sit-ins and
marches. I can’t rest and just go back to ‘normal life’. It’s hard for
me to understand why even more of us aren’t on the streets and closing
down buildings and places where people work. We need to stop society.”
Mariam is a GP. She told Socialist Worker that she
couldn’t stand aside and watch a genocide happen in real-time. “As a
health worker I have to stand against what’s happening in Gaza,” she
said. “Israel is bombing hospitals and ambulances and killing my
colleagues.
Raw fury at Israel and its backers was everywhere. Maryam
came from Manchester to be at the demonstration because she was “just so
angry” “I can’t take the double standards,” she told Socialist Worker.
“Why is it that when the Ukrainian people fight back with
Molotov cocktails everyone celebrates them but if the Palestinians do
the same they are terrorists? I’m also sick of the media saying things
like ‘Palestinians were killed’—no they were murdered.
“I know why this double standard exists—because the Palestinians are mostly Muslims.”
Marchers were proud to have defied the cops’ and home
secretary Suella Braverman’s attempts to halt the demonstration and slur
protesters.
“Piss off Braverman, we’re on the streets and you can’t
stop us. Your lies about ‘hate marches’ are so rubbish,” said health
worker Andy Wollerton from the West Midlands. “Braverman’s the
hate-person.”
At the rally at the end of the march, Lindsey German from
the Stop The War Coalition said, “The police wanted to call off the
march. The prime minister wanted it called off. Braverman wanted to ban
the march. But we marched and we will keep marching.
“If there is any violence today it is the fault of pound shop Enoch Powell, the home secretary. She should be sacked.”
Encouraged by Braverman, the thugs of the far right fought
the cops at the Cenotaph war memorial in Whitehall as they showed how
they remember wars. Meanwhile, their fuhrer, Nazi Tommy Robinson, drove
to safety in a taxi.
Demonstrators knew who to blame for Western support for
Israel. As they arrived at the US embassy in south London, they chanted,
“Joe Biden—blood on your hands. Rishi Sunak—blood on your hands. Keir
Starmer—blood on your hands”.
Anger at Starmer ran through the march. Hazel from east
London said, “He’s a murderer, I hate him more than Sunak because he’s
supposed to be the opposition. He will do anything to keep in with the
rich, even ignore kids’ deaths.”
Imran Hussain, the MP who resigned as a Labour
shadow minister this week, told the rally, “It was the people of
Bradford who sent me to Westminster. They expect me to stand up against
injustice. This is beyond a humanitarian crisis, it’s a breach of
international law and a war crime.”
Labour MP Apsana Begum said, “The situation is urgent. It
is chilling—as are the attempts to vilify those opposing mass killing.
“History will judge those that have the green light to
slaughter. Demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to the oppression of
the Palestinians. None of us are free till we are all free.”
There is a point—very rare—when a march moves from a
normal demonstration to a city-halting, government-defying,
revolt-inspiring social force.
Saturday 11 November was one of those. All of those who
were part of it will speak of it to friends, workmates and those they
live alongside in the next few days. They will remember it for years to
come.
People speak sometimes of a change “from quantity to
quality”. It means that increasing size doesn’t mean an event is bigger
than another one, but that it becomes much more significant.
This should be the spur to urgent and more militant
resistance that’s desperately needed to break the British government
from its full-throated support for Israel’s crimes. The magnificent
march has to be a launch pad for even more effective action.
There must be more demos, more sit-ins, more occupations
and blockades, more campuses disrupted. And we need more discussion,
more debate, more educating ourselves and talking about a stronger
socialist fight on all the class issues workers face, as well as
Palestine.
This was by far the biggest ever march for Palestine in
Britain—and that’s partly because it’s not just about Palestine, but all
the injustice people face. The trade union block on the march was
bigger than previous ones with banners from branches or the national
NEU, UCU, Unite, CWU, RMT, Aslef and PCS.
Stop The War has called a workplace day of action for Wednesday—15 November. Everyone should try to build it and make it disruptive.
Those who are already set to strike that day should make
Palestine a theme of their day and urge others to join them. This
includes 15 further education colleges, the Go North East bus strikers,
the Barnet mental health social workers and others.
The organisers of Saturday’s march called for local protests across
Britain next Saturday 18 November, and said they will announce another
national demonstration soon.
Freeing Palestine will take a revolution. This movement, if it escalates still further, can point the way to building the forces that can make one.
Around 15,000 people took to the streets of Glasgow.
Around 2,000 people joined a march for Palestine in Cardiff. Some protesters then occupied Cardiff Central station.
Another notable protest was one in Austin, Texas. Pooja Salhotra (TEXAS TRIBUNE) reports, "Thousands of Texans descended upon the state Capitol Sunday afternoon in
support of Palestinians to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to
U.S. and Texas aid to Israel. [. . .] The crowd stretched across multiple blocks and spilled onto sidewalks.
One group climbed onto a nearby parking garage and held banners over the
roof. Another group carried a white banner that listed the names of
every person killed in Gaza since Oct. 7. The protest was organized by a
coalition of pro-Palestine groups, including the Palestinian Youth
Movement and the Party for Socialism and Liberation." Bianca Moreno-Paz (AUSTIN-AMERICAN STATESMAN) adds,
"Chants of 'From Palestine to Mexico, the walls have got to go,'
thundered through the crowd as they unrolled a scroll measuring 100
feet, listing the Gazan children killed by Israeli attacks since Oct. 7.
Overhead, an airplane circled the Capitol, its banner saying, 'Save
Palestine, Cease Fire Now'." Tan Radford (FOX 7) quotes Abdullah Alqaroot stating, ""It's incredible, I don't think Austin has seen this big of a crowd.
It's just a testament of what the people want, and it is a testament for
what Palestinians are going through, which is a pretty hard time right
now."
More than 1,000 University of Texas students and
community members gathered in pouring rain Thursday afternoon in support
of Palestinians.
The Palestinian Solidarity
Committee, which serves as both the community and UT student organizing
group for Palestinians in Austin, held a “Walk Out” event Thursday at
the Gregory Gym. Students left class to gather and chant for the end of
the occupation of Gaza and the end of aid to Israel.
An estimated 1,200 attendees then marched to the UT Main Mall, chanting under umbrellas.
Thursday’s
walkout was part of a national walkout held by Students for Justice in
Palestine chapters. There are more than 180 chapters on U.S. college
campuses.
Protests over the weekend also included Chicago and WSWS reports on that protest:
Thousands marched in the streets of Chicago again on Sunday to
protest the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Demonstrators gathered around the
Water Tower Place on Michigan Avenue along the commercial shopping
district of the Magnificent Mile.
The
demonstration on Sunday followed one on Thursday evening where over
5,000 protested the visit of President Joe Biden’s visit to Chicago for a
fundraiser, chanting “Genocide Joe” over and over at the heavily
policed event.
At
the march on Sunday, a number of protestors came to the IYSSE table,
purchased literature and signs and spoke at length with a number of
reporters from the WSWS.
“It’s atrocious what Israel has been
doing against Palestinians for years, and I never supported anything
they were doing against Palestinians,” said Han, a public school teacher
in a Chicago suburb.
“As far as what Republicans and Democrats
have been doing for Palestinians, there were apparently peace talks for a
while but I think that turned out to be all fluff, considering they
were supporting Israel the entire time. They are two sides of the same
coin. If Israel benefits them, why would they support Palestinians?”
When
asked how the billions spent on war funding every year affects the US
working class, he said, “There’s a hundred things that it could be used
for. For one thing, it could go to education. Since I’m a teacher that’s
the first thing that comes to mind. It could go toward social programs
for the elderly and working class children, to infrastructure in rural
areas that don’t have much maintenance done on roads, public
transportation access, housing. I don’t want to sound like an
isolationist, but there are a hundred things that can be solved here at
home instead of going abroad to police the world, so to speak.
“There
needs to be an alternative to capitalist and imperialist society and
politics, for that matter. They say money’s the root of all evil, but
when you follow the dollar signs of what’s going on between Palestine
and Israel, you see a lot of it’s tied to US war profiteering companies.
And these major corporate interests are supporting Democrats and
Republicans during their campaigns.”
Han also spoke to the broader
context of opposition to capitalism: “It’s hard for me to justify the
belief that capitalism is helping people, and the nonsense that there is
a ‘trickle down effect’ of capitalism. Everyone at the top is living
fine, but down here we’re all suffering.
“Why do we have to
struggle just to make it out here to demonstrate and support
Palestinians? I work in a Republican district where a lot of officials
are Trump supporters, and I’m concerned for my job if they knew I was
here. Why should it be that way? Why does it have to be a struggle for
people to put food on the table and have housing? It shouldn’t be that
way. These are basic necessities for every human being. It shouldn’t be a
struggle to live in any country.”
Ryan, a young actor and worker
said, “I’m out here because what’s happening here is incredibly wrong.
And because what’s happening is not just relegated to Palestine, not
just relegated to Gaza, it’s the entire world. When we fight for the
liberation of the Palestinian people, we’re fighting for everybody’s
liberation.
“The people who are oppressing the Palestinian people
are the same people who are saying that it’s okay to destroy the world
for their own profits, for their own profits.
“So
for me, with what Biden is doing, it’s just incredibly disgusting.
What’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank is on display for the entire
world to see. We just talked about Motaz Azaiza,
who is documenting so clearly what is happening on the ground. It’s so
easy to get on Instagram and see what he’s posting and see what he’s
sharing.
“And then for all that to be in the face of the world,
for the president of the United States to authorize billions more
dollars to this genocidal government that is trying to eradicate these
people… Meanwhile, we have our own problems in this country that can be
solved with all that money. It’s just disgusting to me.
“I did
vote for Biden in 2020. But now do I even want to vote for anybody at
this point? What is the point of engaging with this system, if all it
does is it fuels governments like Israel who are committing genocide
against innocent people?
“People who are working class or lower
class in terms of the social hierarchy rising up and saying, ‘no, this
is wrong’ is a beautiful, wonderful thing.”
AP notes, "Activists protesting corporate profits, environmental abuses, poor
working conditions and the Israel-Hamas war marched in downtown San
Francisco on Sunday, united in their opposition to a global trade summit
that will draw President Joe Biden and leaders from nearly two dozen
countries." Kaitlin McKinley Becker (NBC BOSTON) notes,
"Hundreds gathered Sunday in Boston's Copley Square at the "Rally to
Return," calling for a ceasefire now. Demonstrators at the pro-Palestine
rally told NBC10 Boston that they
are pushing for an end to U.S. funds supporting Israel in this war."
AMYGOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.
We return to Omer Bartov, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies
at Brown University. The Israeli American scholar has been described by
the U.S. Holocaust Museum as one of the world’s leading specialists on
genocide. He spoke to us on Wednesday, one day after the House voted to
censure Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress,
for her criticism of Israel.
AMYGOODMAN:
Professor Bartov, you are a professor at Brown University in
Providence. You’re in Cambridge right now. And I wanted to ask you about
the dissent on college campuses and how they’re being dealt with. In
Cambridge, at Harvard, you know about the students who were protesting
on behalf of Palestinian rights. A truck carries around their faces, and
above their faces, it says, “antisemite.” And on television, you’ll see
pieces on antisemitism, which is very real in the world, for example,
the burning of the Austrian cemetery in Vienna and many other
situations. But they will be blended together — this is on the
mainstream networks — with images of people protesting, holding a
Palestinian flag. Can you talk about what’s happening on college
campuses and people fearing that their concern for justice is being
translated as antisemitism and cause for them to be blacklisted?
OMERBARTOV:
So, look, this is a very complex issue, I agree. I think part of it is,
frankly, ignorance about the reality on the ground in Israel-Palestine.
And that has to do, obviously, not with your show, but with much of how
the mainstream media in the United States is presenting things. But
also, young people, students can find other sources of information to
better know what is happening on the ground. So, generally, I think
there’s a little bit of an issue of information.
Antisemitism is real, as you say, and has been growing, and is a not
just lamentable, but frightening phenomenon. And obviously, I have no
sympathy with it. But there is, and there has been for a long time, a
tendency to label any criticism of the state of Israel, any criticism of
the policies of any particular government, let alone criticism of
Israel as a state as such, as antisemitism. And that is a policy of the
right wing in Israel, and that’s a policy of the right wing in this
country, and it has nothing to do with the truth. One can be a Zionist
or a non-Zionist or an anti-Zionist, and not be antisemitic. One can be,
again, Zionist, but against particular Israeli policies. I very
strongly support the existence of the state of Israel, and I’m highly
critical of its policies, and some people would call me a self-hating
Jew. But that is nonsense. That has to do with criticism of policies
that not only function as oppression of Palestinians over a very long
period of time, 56 years of occupation of Palestinians, a refusal by the
Israeli government to ever talk about what happened in 1948, so this
kind of shutting up the entire conversation, and at the same time a
belief that Jews, like other nations, have a right of
self-determination. So we have to separate the two.
I think that at the moment, in the demonstrations, there is a sort of
heightening of passions, and in part it is because of the policies of
the Israeli government. I do feel that when people march in support of
Palestinian lives — and I’m very much in favor of that — one does also
have to remember what happened on October 7. On October 7th, over a
thousand Jewish civilians, Israeli Jewish civilians — there were
actually some Arabs there, too, some Bedouin, who live there, too — were
butchered in the most heinous manner. And this was live-streamed. This
has been deeply wounding to Israeli society. Almost every person in
Israel knows people who were killed there or kidnapped, including
myself. Members of my own family were either killed or are now in Gaza.
And one has to recall that there are 240 people now held as hostages.
And so, I think that when when protests the policies of Israel, for the
sake of — and this has to do also with what Representative Tlaib said,
which I completely agreed with. I thought it was a very moving speech.
But I think it’s important to also stress that other side.
There has been a dehumanization of both sides. Occupation dehumanizes
people. It dehumanizes the occupier, and it dehumanizes the occupied.
And the way to deal with this is to talk about the political future: How
do we move forward? A ceasefire would be wonderful, and I’m very much
in support of it, but it won’t put an end to the violence. The end to
the violence will come only as a result of a peaceful resolution of this
100-year-old conflict which has caused so much blood. That is, I think,
what we should try to push the American administration to do, to change
its policies, to put pressure on the Israeli government to finally
relent and to begin again negotiations with the Palestinians.
AMYGOODMAN:
And let me ask you about the term “from the river to the sea,” which
the Israeli government takes, and those who charge others with
antisemitism say, it means the annihilation of the Jewish population of
Israel. I’m looking at the Likud party platform of March 1977, “The
Right of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel),” which
is the land of Israel. And it says, “The right of the Jewish people to
the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the
right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be
handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan
there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” That’s between the sea and the
Jordan River, between the river and the sea. Can you talk about that
term?
OMERBARTOV:
Yes. You know, the originators of the Likud party, the Revisionist part
of Zionism, under the great leader Jabotinsky, had a song that they
used to sing. And the song was, “The Jordan has two banks / this one
belongs to us, and the other one, too.” That is, they were not only
talking actually about so-called historical Palestine, which is
Mandatory Palestine of the interwar period; they were actually talking
also about parts of the Jordan, of what is now the Kingdom of Jordan, as
belonging to the future Jewish state.
So, when we talk about “from the Jordan to the sea,” we are talking
about the territory that is now controlled by Israel. In that territory,
there are now 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians — 2 million
Palestinians who are Israeli citizens, 3 million Palestinians who are in
the West Bank, and two to two-and-a-half million Palestinians — most of
the population of Gaza are refugees in Gaza. So it’s 7 million versus 7
million.
To talk about a Palestinian state or a Jewish state between the
Jordan and the sea, the question, of course, arises: So, what happened
to the — what will happen to the other half? That is really the
question. If one talks about a Palestinian state that refuses to
recognize the Jewish right of self-determination — that is, of the right
of Jews to have a state of their own — the question is: What will
happen to the Jews there? Would they go back to Europe, as some people
say, whatever that actually means? And if you have a state the way the
Israeli right, the Likud party, and now the much more radical, really
Jewish supremacist elements in Netanyahu’s government, Smotrich and
Ben-Gvir, these people who sort of trace their roots back to Rabbi
Kahane, who are really Nazis — if you think — if you ask yourself, “What
do they mean?” they want to create a Jewish state that does not have
Palestinians in it, nor Arabs in it. And the policy has been
consistently to make life as unbearable for the Palestinians there, so
that either they will finally move out, which they have no intention of
doing, or to use an emergency situation, such as exists right now, under
the cover of which they could be ethnically cleansed. And that’s a
major worry now among Palestinians who are Israeli citizens, who are
worried about a second Nakba, a second expulsion of Palestinians after
1948, something that has been mentioned by a number of Israeli
politicians, and, of course, a major worry in the West Bank and in Gaza.
So, what we need to think of is not the term “from the Jordan to the
sea,” which is the territory that Israel now controls, but how does that
territory get to be shared by these two groups in ways that do not
include oppression, lack of any rights, lack of equality, and certainly
does not include violence and expulsion.
AMYGOODMAN:
And finally, Professor Omer Bartov, the issue of a two-state solution
or a one-state solution, if you could take that on in a nutshell?
OMERBARTOV:
Yeah. So, you know, I used to be a strong supporter of the two-state
solution. And I gradually realized that this was a sort of fig leaf of
the Israeli left, while the country kept settling the West Bank and
making it impossible to create an independent Palestinian state there.
And we kept saying, “Well, but at the end, there will be a two-state
solution.” So, the traditional two-state solution, to my mind, is no
longer viable. ’
So what is viable? And I think — and I belong to a group of people
who have been talking about it for quite a while — that the only
solution is a confederation, which would mean that there would be two
states. There would be a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. They both
would have full sovereignty. And they would be along more or less the
borders of 1967, the Green Line, so-called, but they will make a
distinction between residency and citizenship, so that people, say, Jews
who live in a Palestinian state, could remain Israeli citizens, who
have rights of residency in a Palestinian state, but have to then adhere
to all the laws, rules and regulations of that Palestinian state. And
Palestinians who live, say, in Nablus and would like to live in Haifa,
like a French man from Paris who would like to live in Berlin, could
move to Haifa, and they could have rights of residency, but they’d have
to conform to all the rules and regulations of the Israeli state, but
they would vote for — to a Palestinian parliament. And Jerusalem would
be the joint capital of both. And above that, there would be
institutions that will take care of the mutual affairs of these two
states, which are very tightly woven together now by the infrastructure,
electricity, water and so forth. It’s really impossible to cut them
apart. That is — right now, of course, sounds like a pipe dream. But I
think that in the long run, that is probably the only viable solution.
And I’ll add one last thing to that, which is very important both to
Jews and Palestinians, which is that both states would have the right of
return. The Jews could say, as they say now, that Jews who want to
become Israeli citizens, wherever they live, can come. And Palestinians
in the Palestinian state could say all Palestinian refugees who would
like to come back to Palestine could come and become Palestinian
citizens, and, under certain rules, could also move to the Israeli part
of so-called Mandatory Palestine as residents.
AMYGOODMAN: And why not simply a one-state solution?
OMERBARTOV:
I think a one-state solution is something that neither one side nor the
other wants, because the Palestinians, quite rightly, want the right of
self-determination, want to have their own state, as do the Jews. And
both sides are afraid that the other side would be more powerful.
Obviously, right now, under current conditions, the state of Israel is
much more powerful militarily, economically than the Palestinian part of
the land. And so, in that sense, a one-state solution would actually
perpetuate Jewish supremacy in the whole country.
AMYGOODMAN:
Omer Bartov is professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown
University. The Israeli American scholar is one of the world’s leading
specialists on the subject of genocide. He recently signed an open letter warning of Israel committing a potential genocide in Gaza.
