Voted out, and shamed

I don't know what to say about a country whose political class can't call for a cease fire. We see the absolute slaughter of women and children, and still they say nothing. We listen to the stories of families ripped apart or simply obliterated, and yet Rep. Pat Ryan keeps cheering on the carnage. Is our ruling class filled with war criminals?

Does it help to point out how our Congress is bought and sold by the Israel Lobby? Pat Ryan was paid $28,850 by the lobby in 2022 (reported by Opensecrets.org). That money is now covered with human blood.

Have you no shame, Pat Ryan? As a West Point graduate weren't you taught not to butcher civilians? Not to murder thousands of children? What kind of soulless barbarian would defend Israel's mass murder? What kind of human being would take money from the Israel Lobby, if it meant selling their soul?

Let's show our absolute disgust with such supposed leaders, be they Republican or Democrat. Join a local rally, or go to DC (mideastcrisis.org). Ending US support for this racist, apartheid, and bloodthirsty country has to be our most important goal. We will not be "good Germans," as millions are marched to their extermination.

As a citizen and a US veteran, I demand that my flag not be covered with the blood of millions of Palestinians. And those who take the money and sell their humanity must not only be voted out, but shamed for what they have done to our nation.

Fred Nagel

United States is entirely complicit in the genocide

 

On October 7 I was shattered by the news of Hamas's murderous attack on Israeli Jews. I have friends, family, and colleagues in Israel, and many Jewish friends here. I share their anguish. I long to see the hostages returned safely.

 

I am also shattered by Israel's savage response. As I write, over 7000 Gazans have been killed, nearly 1.5 million displaced. Half of them are children. Israel has cut off water, food, and fuel. People are dying of dehydration. Families are forced to leave Gaza City and then bombed as they try to walk to safety. Palestinians in the West Bank--who are not represented by Hamas--are also being murdered, their villages torched by Jewish settlers while the Israeli army stands by. 

 

Please, people, especially those whose post-trauma response makes you demand revenge, please try to hold these complicated but not incompatible truths in your heart:

• Murder of civilians is unjustifiable, no matter their ethnicity.
• Revenge makes nobody safe.
• What Hamas did was an atrocity. 
• It did not come out of nowhere.  
• Resistance to occupation is inevitable, and permissible under international law. 
• When Israel and the world ignores or outlaws peaceful resistance, it is tragically predictable that some will resort to violence. This is not a justification. 
• If we do not look at root causes we will never understand or change. 
• The only way to build peace in Israel/Palestine is for Palestinians to have the same rights as Israeli Jews, including the vote. 
  

 

The United States is entirely complicit in the genocide now taking place. The US could end this horror overnight by withdrawing military aid to Israel. The refusal of Biden and almost all of Congress to insist on restraint is a disgrace. I salute the few who speak out. 

Jo Salas

Coming to terms with genocide

How do we as human beings come to terms with genocide? We research it and catalogue its atrocities. We trace it back to campaigns of racism and violence. And still we wonder how it could have been done. Are we the same people who drove the Cherokee Nation on its Trail of Tears? Would we have forced a million Armenians into the desert to die? Could we have looked the other way while 6 Million Jews were imprisoned and slaughtered?

Now, we don't have to wonder about what we would have done during mass murders of the past. Our own country is behind the current genocide of the Palestinian people.

England and the US created Israel as their colony in the oil rich Middle East. By 1948, Jewish militias were using terrorist tactics to clear 750,000 Palestinians from the land they had lived on for centuries. The result was called the Nakba, or catastrophe.

Israel has been using terror and ethnic cleansing ever since. At the same time, England and the US have funded and encouraged Israel's apartheid regime, no matter how many millions have suffered or died under its brutal occupation.

There are now about 6 million Jews and 6 million Palestinians in the Holy Land. England and the US must end their colony's war crimes and make peace, like what was finally done in South Africa and in Northern Ireland.

Each generation gets a chance to do the right thing when its time comes. Stand up against the genocide of the Palestinian people.

Fred Nagel

Place in the history of genocide

At first, taking tens of thousands from the Israel Lobby seemed like a no-brainer to Rep. Pat Ryan. Who knows really where the money comes from? Some very rich "philanthropists" with close ties to Israel just like giving their money to members of Congress. And so many are on the take:

Schumer, Charles      $546,007
Warnock, Raphael   $489,917
Jeffries, Hakeem     $439,790
Menendez, Robert   $109,800

It is only when push comes to shove, that this yearly dole becomes something else. Those free trips to Israel and all that money take on a darker meaning. You are asked to support an apartheid state committing genocide on millions of Palestinians. You have to explain why you back the killing of 2,500 children in less than two weeks. You have to defend the death march of 2.3 million, without food, water or shelter. And you are called upon to promote even more billions in military aid to Israel when it somehow runs out of bombs. All of a sudden, Pat Ryan finds he has blood on his hands, and like Macbeth, all of "Neptune's ocean" won't clean them off again.

The familiar canards won't work anymore. Is Israel just defending itself as it forces millions of civilians on a death march? That's like the Nazis claiming self defense while Jews and Romani are shipped to Auschwitz. Pat Ryan will have his own place in the history of the Palestinian genocide. For he has sold his soul to virulent racism and ethnic cleansing, like most members of Congress.

Fred Nagel
 

Made in Woodstock at Ametek Rotron

 

As the bombs continue to explode on the civilian population of Gaza, Woodstock citizens should realize that many of the weapons used in this terrible war depend on parts made in Woodstock. Ametek Rotron is part of the huge military industrial complex. One of their products is used in the illegal cluster bombs that are part of the arsenal that Biden provides to the IDF. Ametek Rotron is the largest employer in our town. Like almost every county across the nation, small and large weapon industries ensure that the local state and federal representatives keep supporting war. Ametek Rotron is not about "peace and love", We in Woodstock are being held hostage by these merchants of death. 

DeeDee Halleck

One more Rotron fan for Israel

I posted this at https://woodstockweaponswatch.blogspot.com/: 

On October 16, as Israel pursued its ethnic cleansing and collective punishment of civilians in Gaza, its Ministry of Defense invited tenders for a "sample" 200AC fan "made by Rotron Inc." Ametek Rotron's contributions to foreign militaries mostly fly under the radar -- we've reported on their sales to Israel before -- but this request, unusually, turned up online. It's just one fan, but the word "sample" suggests that more will follow, and it confirms that the Israeli military continues to rely on made-in-Woodstock components as it violates international law. The government set a quick deadline of Nov. 1, suggesting the fan(s) are to be used soon. 

We know that made-in-Woodstock Rotron fans are used in many of the advanced weapons systems deployed by Israel and supplied by the US -- warplanes, tanks, rocket launchers, military helicopters, drones, armed personnel carriers, and warships. 

The procurement notice was published by Al Bawaba, a Jordan-based news site (paywall) and also by Bidsinfo.

Laurie Kirby

Please let us stand for peace

 My letter to the Daily Catch:

I'm so disturbed by the conflict in Israel/Palestine and the unending, simple and biased media blitz in the US. I have been long concerned about the brutal apartheid that Israel has become, this time under Netanyahu, and the US military support that has helped fuel this conflict. I do not want to hear another politician use the term "unprovoked" in regards to the attack by Hamas. I do not support the use of violence by either Hamas or Israel. I do not stand with Israel when they are perpetuating war in Gaza, inflicting far more harm than was done to them. It is time to look at what is happening now and name it correctly. Israel has a vastly superior military and has used it to maintain the occupation, throwing Palestinians out of their homes and confining them to walled in camps. Israel has been brutal in the killing of civilians which is strictly against international law, yet the US stand with Israel no matter what. What is terrorism if it is not a desperate act by people who are systematically brutalized. But war is real terror and this war has been killing far more Palestinians than Israelis. It is wildly unfair to paint the people of Gaza with one brush and indiscriminately wage war on an entire population, most whom are just trying to live their lives. Netanyahu is a war criminal and must be removed. The United States has got to stand with the people, not with one people over the other. I only stand with the people of Israel who refuse to allow their brethren to live in the settlements, condemn the brutal regime of Netanyahu, and demand equal rights for the Palestinians.

I also think it is imperative for the people of the US to look at the history of this region and understand how complex and interwoven the people have been. There has also been extreme meddling by other nations for purposes not in the best interest of the people. We cannot allow those that profit on war and conflict to call the shots. If we stand with one people over another we are encouraging conflict and standing for war. Please let us stand for peace.

 

Cary Kittner

Unspeakable and unrelenting violence

To the Editor:

Unspeakable and unrelenting violence and brutality are being inflicted upon innocent and powerless humans throughout the world.   In Israel/Palestine, in Yeman,  Ukraine, Congo, Kashmir, India, and Colombia.  Sometimes it’s about land, sometimes religion, sometimes drugs, sometimes about resources like timber, metals, or oil.  But it’s always ugly and it’s always the innocent who suffer, or die, or become refugees.  The mothers and the children, the sick and the weak, the poor with nowhere to hide and nowhere to run.   The powerful,  those with  big guns and weaponry like tanks, fighter jets, missiles, bulldozers, war ships. and bombs  destroy and decimate  all who get  in the way.  

 

My own country perpetrated a genocide on nineteen million indigenous peoples (which is still playing out today in places like Thacker Pass).  Recent history is replete with atrocities, genocides, and holocausts.  It will only stop when we say it must stop.  We must recognize the humanity of the “other” and respect the “others” right to exist.  We must  acknowledge that all people, particularly children and babies, are of equal value. There are powerful forces within  the military/industrial/banking complex  who have no reservations or regrets  about murdering  “others.”  Including   millions of Vietnamese, a million Iraquis,  tens of thousands in Hiroshima/Nagasaki, or six million Jews to maintain power, profits, and control.  We must say no to  mindless, military madness and spending.   We must find human, humane, and peaceful solutions.  Let’s start with a cease-fire in Israel/Palestine.

Eli Kassirer
 

Member of Jewish Voice for Peace

I am a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and have mentored young writers in Gaza as part of We Are Not Numbers (WANN). These groups were founded to counter the insidious propaganda that upholds Israel’s apartheid state and to bring an end to its occupation of Palestine. They were founded by Jews who said “not in our name” will this ongoing tragedy continue. 

 

As we read and hear the latest news, I urge Americans to look behind the headlines at the history of Israeli violence against Palestinians and the role of the US in funding it. It is our responsibility to de-escalate this crisis and work towards addressing the root causes, the well-documented injustices of Israeli occupation, and the relentless bombing of Gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2022. How many bombs will it take until Americans see that our government is complicit in a cycle of war crimes against an innocent people? Right now I am grieving the death of one of the young writers I tutored, who didn’t deserve to die. All Yousef wanted was the chance to live a peaceful life in a secure community- what so many of us take for granted.
Lisa Mullenneaux

West Bank Update

Report from the West Bank

This update is sent by Sa'ed Zboun, Arabic teacher at Bethlehem University and one of the founders of the Aida Youth Center, located in a refugee camp in the West Bank. Sa'ed was a guest on Activist Radio on May 25, 2023.

Updates from Palestine
Mon, Oct 16, 2023, at 2:25 PM

The situation here gets worst and worst! We are under a complete lockdown in the West Bank. There is lack of food, the internet keeps cutting off! Above all settlers are attacking us. 

I always thought that our Nakba that happened in 1948 because people back then were not educated and didn’t know the term humanity. Now, we witness another Nakba but in front of the whole world!
Israel now is committing a genocide in Gaza where they told more than 1.1 million to evacuate which is impossible because of the size of Gaza. Yet once they started fleeing, they bombed them in the streets! They deprived 2.1 million people of water, food, medicine, and electricity. What is happening now is not a war against Hamas, it’s a war against Palestinians but they are using Hamas as an excuse. 

The media is not covering anything about the real situation in Palestine!

If you want the truth, you should always go to the source! You have to watch out for biased news! Fake information is filling the whole internet! Because they are controlling the whole media! We are trying so hard to fight them, but our voice is not heard. They said that women were raped, and kids were beheaded in the beginning without one evidence. Then they all admitted that it is not true, and it’s all lies to make the Palestinians look savages!

We wonder, how can people trust the narrative of country that its leaders lied to the whole world, and these lies reached to a wide audience? On Platform X these lies reached 44 million and still are not deleted!

We need your voice now more than ever. You have to remember: We are fighting for our justice and a humanitarian cause.

Those who struggled against discrimination, segregation, and occupation in many parts of the world were never honored with red carpets and thunderous applause. They were instead murdered, imprisoned, and banished. Yet their legacy is still felt today. Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela are just two examples!

Following the correct path through history has never been simple, and that has been the case from the very beginning.

The path of the oppressed is long and arduous, so most people would rather side with the powerful (oppressor) than the weak (oppressed). We are not surprised by the side of the politicians in Europe and the USA. Those are the same people who saw our suffering and ignored us for more than 75 years.

We lived in this hell through all our life! It’s not something new to us, unfortunately! Of course, now it is more difficult than before! It’s true that we have mixed feelings of anxiety and confusion, but we have nothing to lose!
What we will lose from all of this is our tents and chains!

We have nothing to fear from our oppressors, who will soon be forgotten. We are not scared of them or their collective punishments and aggression, no matter how severe they are.

Among all this tragedy, we hope for a future of peace, liberty and dignity that awaits the Palestinians! If not, then death is better than living under the mercy of the oppressor because leaving is not an option for us!

Much love and respect. Your voice matters.
Saed Zboun
Aida Refugee Camp
Bethelem

Dear Editor:

Israel ordered 1.1 million Palestinians to “evacuate” the northern half of the occupied Gaza Strip, prompting UN officials to warn of an impending and unprecedented catastrophe, with the full backing, funding and arming of the U.S. and Europe. Israel's collective punishment of civilians is a war crime.

Addressing the recent crisis, its underlying causes, and the absolute need for the occupying power as well as all resistance groups of the occupied community to respect international law and to respect the prohibition against harming civilians is important. Killing children because children were killed will never prove that killing children is wrong. Israeli state violence needs to be called out, named and sanctioned.  

The top priority now for anyone who cares about human rights and upholding international law is to pressure our electeds and the UN to impose a ceasefire, to provide protection for civilians, and to compel Israel, the occupying power, to allow urgent humanitarian aid, including food, water and electricity, in to the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in the Israeli-occupied and besieged Gaza Strip.

For over 7 days the Palestinians in Gaza have been under the most intense and indiscriminate Israeli bombardment ever, targeting homes, markets, schools and universities, hospitals, healthworkers, journalists, and the entire civilian infrastructure. The Israeli occupation forces are implementing their “Dahiya Doctrine,” which precisely calls for “disproportionate force” to maximize damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure. Israel has bombed Gaza, Syria and Lebanon. We need to stop its raging war machine.  

We need to act now, with urgency. Palestinian lives depend on it.
 

John Francis Mulligan

Dear Senator Gillibrand

Dear Senator Gillibrand,

As my representative I hope you will also stand with the Paestinians who live in peace and under the oppressive apartheid that Israel has become. I urge you not to support the government of Netanyahu and his band of thugs and help the people of Israel forge a path to peace. I am not in support of Hamas any more than I support the militaristic regime of the Zionists. Each wants to eliminate the other on land that was given to the Jews by nations that had no right to give anything to anyone. There is not a path to peace until the United States stops its unending stream of weapons and political support to the radical government of Israel. I would like a response regarding your stance on the points I am addressing.

Sincerely,
Cary Kittner

Israel has been using terror and ethnic cleansing ever since

It is easy to criticize violence and bloodshed, whether it be in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, or Palestine. There are always women and children being killed. There are always thousands more buried alive in the rubble. And the barbarism always feeds upon itself. As Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind."

That doesn't mean that there is no one to blame. Most of these conflicts are proxy wars, with the major powers (China, Russia, and the United States) confronting one another by laying waste some Third World country. The United States is the worst of the three, with 800 military bases around the globe. Of course, our country talks about freedom and human rights, but these wars aren't really about that at all.

England and the US created Israel as a colony in the Middle East. At the end of the WW I, Jews made up just 8% of the population in Palestine. The Second World War changed all that, with a huge influx of Jewish settlers. In 1948, Jewish militias used terrorist tactics to clear 750,000 Arabs from the land they had lived on for centuries. Britain and the US looked the other way.

Israel has been using terror and ethnic cleansing ever since. There are now about 5 million Jews and 5 million Palestinians in the Holy Land. England and the US must undo their colony's apartheid and make peace, like England finally did in South Africa and Northern Ireland. The blood is on our hands; we must free the Palestinian people.

Fred Nagel

The "remarkably spiritual and educational experience" that apartheid had on him

Pat Ryan and Marc Molinaro have a lot in common. They are relatively young men who went off to Washington talking about human rights and justice. Both claim a type of amorphous patriotism; Ryan risked his life in one of American's ill chosen wars in the Middle East, and Molinaro loves helping the surviving veterans of US military adventures. Youth, service, and moral righteousness are hard to beat, and these two have even found it hard to beat one another.

And yet, both stand tall for Israel. According to OpenSecrets.com, Pat Ryan got $28,850 from the Israel Lobby in 2022, plus a free trip to see just how this apartheid state operates. Molinaro hasn't been in Congress long enough to have a record on OpenSecrets, but he has taken a trip to Israel as well, funded by a local Jewish Federation. He came back talking about the "remarkably spiritual and educational experience" that apartheid had on him.  

Both Ryan and Molinaro voted for (H Con Res 57) last July, asserting that Israel “is not a racist or apartheid state.” Very recently, both Ryan and Molinaro stood together in support of Israel when Assemblywoman Sarahana Shrestha called for an end to Israeli occupation.

Both Congressmen supported Israel despite what Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said recently: "I ordered a full siege on the Gaza Strip. No power, no food, no gas, everything is closed. We are fighting HUMAN ANIMALS and we act accordingly."

So both of our upstanding Congressional representatives support the cutting off of all food and power for 2 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza? Somehow their boyish enthusiasm for human rights and justice seems to have gone astray. Do they really think that Palestinians are human animals, not fit for life? Isn't that what Nazi leaders used to say?

Fred Nagel

Letter to the editor

To the Editor:

Once again the Palestinians have committed hari-kari. I'll say it again: of course they have a right to resist with armed force, but it's a bad strategy, especially when it involves attacking civilians. It just feeds the Zionist entity-U.S. propaganda machine, with ever more dire consequences for the Palestinians. The Palestinians appear to say, "Butt out - we'll figure it out!"  Well, after 75 years, they're not figuring it out, it's only getting worse. Meanwhile we're expected to shell out more money to staunch their bleeding.    

Dale Carnegie of How to Win Friends and Influence People fame wrote, "Do not do the impulsive thing - it is always wrong." In this case, impulsive, indiscriminate violence was the wrong strategy. What's a better strategy? Perhaps a Palestinian has answered that: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti. But will they hear, much less heed, his advice?

Meanwhile this magazine, despite its general excellence, continues to use some of the euphemistic red herring terms of the Zionist entity such as "Israel Defense Forces" (October 2023 issue, P. 18) and "the Land of Israel." As you otherwise document so well, the Zionist entity's armed forces are wolves in sheep's clothing. They're not about "defense." They're all about aggression, occupation, dispossession, ethnic cleansing, murder and apartheid. And Palestine isn't "the Land of Israel" (Israel's land). Using the language of the criminal validates the criminal. Please cut it out or count me out.

Gregory DeSylva