Tag: Israel

Don’t Embarrass Joe Biden

W.J. Astore

And the Upcoming Visit by Bibi Netanyahu

A couple of snippets from Reuters captures the weirdness of this American moment. The first involves President Joe Biden and his status as a candidate for 2024:

Some officials think it’s only a matter of time before Joe Biden takes himself out of the race, though nobody can say how the party’s presidential-nomination process will unfold if he drops out. Reports say he’s taking seriously calls within the party to quit because of concerns about his cognitive ability, his age and his health. Fundraisers are on hold and July donations plummeted, sources say.

That last part is likely to be fatal. It’s money that talks in American politics, and if Biden can’t raise any, and he’s hurting the bottom line at the DNC, they’ll find a way to get rid of him.

Remarkably, I keep reading articles about how Democrats shouldn’t do anything to embarrass Biden. As if personal embarrassment is the leading issue here. The leading issue is whether Biden is physically and mentally fit to be president this very moment. Is anyone confident that Biden could handle a crisis akin to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962? Does he have the physical stamina and mental acumen to make critical decisions under extreme pressure? It doesn’t appear so. Isn’t this issue a lot more important than Biden’s feelings?

The second snippet involves Israel’s destruction of Gaza, a topic which has become far less salient lately in U.S. corporate media. Here’s the update from Reuters:

Israel’s aerial and tank shelling of central Gaza intensified while fighting raged in Rafah. Israel’s military is set to issue call-up notices to 1,000 members of the ultra-Orthodox community after the Supreme Court ended their longstanding exemption for Jewish seminary students from service. Netanyahu will address the U.S. Congress next week and might meet President Biden.

I’d set the over/under on Congressional ovations for Bibi Netanyahu at 50; standing ovations at 25.

There are few things more appalling than inviting Netanyahu to address Congress while Israel prosecutes a genocide in Gaza with American-made weaponry. It tells you everything you need to know about the “rules-based order” promoted by U.S. leaders.

Harris has been deployed to calm “jittery” donors. Good luck with that.

With Biden in free-fall and Kamala Harris still not ready for primetime, perhaps the Democrats can draft Bibi Netanyahu to run against Donald Trump.* No man seems to unite Congress in rapturous applause like Bibi. Bibi would certainly revive DNC fundraising as well. Stranger things have happened …

*Yes, I know Bibi can’t run to be POTUS. Why should he bother, when he’s already dictating U.S. policy in the Middle East?

“Nobody should profit from the slaughter of innocents”

W.J. Astore

Jack Gilroy has his day in court against the Merchants of Death

This afternoon at 2:00PM, 89-year-old Jack Gilroy has his day in court in Endicott Village, New York. His crime: trespassing. His real “crime”: protesting against genocide in Gaza and a murderous war in Ukraine and U.S. support of and profiteering from the same.

Believe me, this video is available, but YouTube prefers to dissuade you from watching it

Jack reached out to me a week ago. He’s a “Bracing Views” reader and asked if I might share his ideas and plight with all of you. Hell yes, I said, so here are some words from Jack Gilroy as he prepares for his day in court later this afternoon:

My reward [for peace activism] at St Francis Xavier Parish (Jesuit) in NYC was just last week when I was given a nice plaque for my peace and justice actions over the decades. It was the first recognition since I received Soldier of the Month in my Infantry Battalion in the Austrian Alps in June of 1955. I had just come back from Vienna and some face-to-face confrontation with Godless Communists. I saw just young people like me, and I was just turning 20 at the time. The good Catholic sisters (IHM) who taught me in Carbondale, Pa a little coal town, were the same ones that taught Joe Biden just a few miles away in Scranton and seven years younger than me. I woke up to the lie of militarism in 1955 but Joe is still trapped in the lies of the Cold War.

Today I will go on trial in a village court in Endicott NY for trespass on the property that I pay for with tax dollars, nearby BAE Systems. I was attempting to deliver a letter to warn management and workers that they are part of a series of criminal law-breaking as outlined in our Veterans For Peace Six Broken Laws Letter. I was arrested when BAE Security called the cops. 

In my attempt to get folks to come to my trial, I note the trial is not about me, but the Merchants of Death, and BAE Systems is one of the largest.

We (VFP, Pax Christi and Peace Action members) started Tax Day 2024, April 15 at the 155mm shell factory of General Dynamics in Scranton (like BAE, General Dynamics makes a lot of dough from nuclear weapons but 155mm shells are the most desired ammo of both Israel and Ukraine). They would not take my letter so we left it for an armed soldier to maybe deliver it. He said he could not take letters. Our little cortege of vehicles drove north to nearby Archbald, PA, where Lockheed Martin makes Paveway I and Paveway II bombs to blow apart children and other living beings anywhere in the world, e.g. Gaza. A security guard took the letter and likely got his ass reamed out when he took it to a superior–the Chief of Police of Archbald was there (I called his office the day before) and he seemed surprised to learn we were opposing the company that has done so much for the depressed anthracite coal valley.

Then, back in our cars and on to Endicott NY where others met us and where I used the envelope in my attempt to deliver the letter. 

We have videos of all that [see above video], and I will defend myself in court (my last time out was very expensive for attorney fees in Syracuse, where I refused to take a plea bargain like the other 31 who did outside the gate of the 174th Attack Wing of the NYS National Guard. My sentence was three months in the Jamesville Penitentiary and the biggest Community Service anyone had ever seen at 1500 hours.

This offense will not be like my other trespass times like the SOA and my trips to four federal prisons shortly after retiring as a high school Participation in Government Teacher. One U.S. Marshall said as he scanned my file, “Schoolteacher, eh. Well, we’re going to give you a lesson.” The lesson was called Diesel Therapy and I won’t get into it. 

So, maybe you can squeeze in a column on this only trial that we know going on that challenges the Merchants of Death. I’ve been in contact with Josh Paul, who resigned his position as Director of the Department of State because he said laws were being broken and he didn’t want to be part of it.

Well, we put members of the Krupp family in prison following the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-47, so let’s start looking at CEOs and others from Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and my nearby BAE Systems, who most people around here think electric buses are their only product. (96 % of BAE contracts are military.)

Jack Gilroy then added a few more details about Congress and the military-industrial complex:

Dems and Repubs are always at the war factories when a new contract is announced. What nice smiles Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have when the big bucks are announced. Schumer takes more money from the war merchants than any other U.S. politician.

And Senator Gillibrand married into a British family who are major stockholders in BAE Systems. Her in-laws sold their stock when she became a Senator (but funded her campaign with a half million bucks).

Readers, please keep Jack in your thoughts as he faces the judge today. And especially keep his words here in mind: “Nobody should profit from the slaughter of innocents. We must protest loudly and persistently, lest we ourselves become complicit in war crimes and genocide.”

Is Joe Biden Issuing Legal Orders to the U.S. Military?

W.J. Astore

Enabling a Genocide in Gaza Is Surely Unconstitutional as well as Morally Wrong

Is it legal for a U.S. president to order American troops to take action that enables a genocide? I should think not. The president takes essentially the same oath of office as military members do. Its essential thrust is supporting and defending the U.S. Constitution. As the civilian commander-in-chief, the President issues orders to the military that are of course authoritative, that must be obeyed, except when those orders are illegal. So, for example, U.S. presidents shouldn’t be able to order torture, nor should they be able to issue orders that contribute to genocide, and, if they do, service members are within their rights to refuse to obey such orders. Indeed, if they put “integrity first” (the leading Air Force core value) as well as the U.S. Constitution, one might argue that should feel compelled by conscience to disobey.

It’s not an easy issue for sure, because the Biden administration claims that Israel is not prosecuting a genocide in Gaza. In fact, the Biden administration sees Israel as a vital ally to America, fully deserving of near-total U.S. support, therefore any service member who objects to orders on legal or moral grounds runs up against the full authority and weight of the chain of command.

Honestly, I’m glad I was never put in this position when I was in the U.S. military. Yet I still think about it. How would I feel as an Air Force officer loading or flying 2000-pound bombs to Israel to be dropped on Palestinians in Gaza? How would I feel as a Navy officer covering the flanks of Israel so that the IDF can concentrate its forces in murderous assaults on Gaza? How would these and similar actions be in the cause of defending America and supporting the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic?

(In the video clip above, Matthew Hoh further discusses this issue. I highly recommend it.)

Judging by this article by Mike Prysner, more than a few service members within the U.S. military have their own doubts, with some seeking conscientious objector status and others going AWOL or simply refusing to consider reenlisting. I have to assume that a lot of Soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airmen are thinking, “This is not what I volunteered for. This is not serving the best interests of my country, most especially the rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, to which I swore an oath.”

So, it’s quite possible Joe Biden is issuing illegal or at the very least morally questionable orders to American troops. Shouldn’t this matter? Shouldn’t Americans be talking about this more?

I’m not picking on Biden here. I strongly condemned Donald Trump back in 2016 when he claimed U.S. troops would follow his orders no matter what, even if he ordered torture, assassinations, and other acts forbidden by law.

Either we follow the law or we don’t. Either we respect the Constitution or we don’t. Either we use our military wisely or we don’t.

Beware the military that has been used poorly by its leaders. Beware the military that feels betrayed. For that military will soon be hollow, or, even worse, estranged from the people and the nation, and perhaps angry enough to seek vengeance.

Ukraine, Gaza, and Elsewhere

W.J. Astore

There Will Be Wars and Rumors of Wars

Checking my daily email from Reuters this past Thursday revealed these two stories:

“Diplomacy falters” is one of the sub-headings, which is assuredly the case, assuming diplomacy was even tried.

The BLUF, or bottom-line upfront, to use an Army acronym, is more death, dying, and destruction in Ukraine and Gaza.

Reuters still refers to Israeli ethnic cleaning in Gaza as the “Gaza war,” but only one side has tanks, combat aircraft, 2000-pound bombs, heavy artillery, bulldozers, and even nuclear weapons. It’s not exactly a fair fight, is it? The Israeli government says it’s out to destroy Hamas, but what it’s really after is the destruction of Gaza and the forced relocation of Palestinians there, after which Gaza will be annexed and assimilated into Israel.

What Israel has done and is doing to Gaza

Turning to the Ukraine War, the longer it lasts, the greater the suffering, and the higher the risk of further escalation. Yet the focus is always on deterring Russia and defeating Putin, as if it’s 1938 yet again, with Putin as Hitler and Ukraine as Czechoslovakia. Any diplomatic settlement with Russia will be the equivalent of appeasement, another Munich Agreement, so the war must go on, I guess until one side or the other collapses from the strain. Perhaps 1918 and the chaotic end of World War I is a better year to think about than 1938.

Meanwhile, Reuters tells me there are “challenges” in Africa and that China must be corralled and contained. Poor Africa. European nations (and the United States) are always offering answers to Africa’s “challenges,” but those answers address the interests of the West, not of African peoples. The U.S. has a whole military command, AFRICOM, to address those “challenges,” mainly in the form of U.S. weapons sales and “security assistance.”

Finally, resurrecting the racist “yellow peril” trope with regards to China is only driving that country into closer contact with Russia, which has the added benefit of justifying immense Pentagon spending due to the dual threat of Russia-China. (Democrats tend to stress Russia as the big threat; Republicans prefer China.). Thus we hear of a new Cold War, which of course necessitates colossal military spending, because do you want China and Russia to rule the world?

There will be wars and rumors of wars: And so it goes with U.S. foreign relations, in perpetuity, seemingly.

Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza, Ethics Cleansing by America

W.J. Astore

A Few Thoughts and Questions on Israel, Gaza, and the USA

  • As Israel is ethnically cleansing Gaza, the United States is ethically cleansing Israel. It doesn’t matter what Israel does to the Palestinians in Gaza. War crimes or genocide, it’s all ethically justifiable, according to U.S. government officials.
  • Never conflate the Jewish people with the deeds of the Israeli government. Many Jewish people have bravely spoken out against the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Holocaust survivors have powerfully said that “Never again!” applies just as much to Palestinians in Gaza (or anyone else for that matter) as it does to Jews.
  • Is any entity harming the Jewish tradition as much as the hardline Israeli government that is destroying Gaza? Is anything more anti-semitic than associating Zionism and Jewish identity with mass murder?
  • A Republican U.S. Congressman essentially said he reaches out to AIPAC to tell him how to vote on any bill related to Israel. How is that representative of the will of the American people?
In Tel Aviv, protesters call for a ceasefire and the release of hostages.
  • As a college professor, I taught a course on the Holocaust. In my research, I recall finding a two-volume encyclopedia on genocides throughout human history. A two-volume encyclopedia! When will it ever end?
  • It’s always struck me that debate about Israel and its actions is far more intense, diverse, and contentious within Israel than it is within the United States.
  • Israel is, according to the U.S., a wildly successful democracy, a rich country with national health care for all. Why does such a rich and successful country need so many scores of billions in aid from the American taxpayer?
  • Speaking of U.S. aid, it curiously seems to provide the U.S. with absolutely no leverage over the actions of the Israeli government.
  • Whether you support Biden, Trump, or RFK Jr., it doesn’t matter. All three of them are committed to issuing blank checks of support to Israel. As is Congress, which has yet again invited Bibi Netanyahu to address a joint session. What has Bibi done to deserve such an honor?
  • There are many reasons to hate war, and one of the leading ones is how war facilitates, enables, and seemingly justifies the very worst crimes against humanity. Basically, “We’re at war” is a cry being used by Israel to justify genocide in Gaza.
  • If Hamas surrendered en masse today, does anyone think Israel would rebuild Gaza for the Palestinians?
  • When I took a seminar on the Holocaust with Henry Friedlander, he taught me that “You don’t kill the people you hate; you hate the people you kill.” It’s a powerful sentiment that captures something awful about human nature.
  • As a college professor, I taught a course on the Holocaust. In my research, I recall finding a two-volume encyclopedia on genocides throughout human history. A two-volume encyclopedia! When will it ever end?

Four Hostages Freed; 274 Palestinians Killed

W.J. Astore

A Brutal Calculus

If you have to kill 274 people to free four others being held hostage, is that a “successful” military operation? According to the Israeli and U.S. governments, it is.

Israel, apparently with some U.S. help, attacked the Nuseirat Camp in Gaza and freed four hostages seized by Hamas. In doing so, however, Israeli forces killed and wounded hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children.

It’s a brutal calculus that sees Palestinians as being “in the way” and essentially worthless and therefore expendable. Put differently, Israel sees all Palestinians in Gaza as “guilty,” as “terrorists,” therefore there are no innocent Palestinians and Israel can kill as many as they need to, without guilt or remorse, to achieve a desired end.

Coverage by the mainstream media in the West generally has been glowing, praising Israel for rescuing four hostages while downplaying the Palestinian dead as collateral damage that’s hardly worth noticing.

Here’s an example from the BBC:

You see a happy young woman freed by Israeli forces, but you don’t see any images of the more than 200 Palestinians killed by Israel in this “special military operation.” And note how the Palestinian dead are consigned to a sub-heading and a smaller font, using the passive voice (“were killed”), as if it’s unclear who killed them and why.

Yes, it’s good to see four hostages freed. But if hundreds of other innocent people must die or suffer grievous wounds in the process, that’s not a “successful” operation. It’s a massacre.

The Dishonesty of Western Media on Gaza

W.J. Astore

Genocide? What Genocide?

A fascinating interview, well worth watching.

Suella Braverman is a Tory MP in Britain. Here she debates a student about Gaza and the ongoing genocide there.

Watching this interview exposes the playbook of Western politicians and the media. It’s about accusing student protesters of antisemitism; of getting them to denounce Hamas; of asking them about Israel’s “right to exist”; of starting the debate with the Hamas attacks on October 7th. Those are the “facts” that matter to the Western media and politicians like Suella Braverman.

Fiona Lali, the student here, does a superb job of focusing on the facts that matter: the roughly 40,000 Palestinians already killed by Israel, the more than 100,000 wounded, the millions displaced from their homes, together with the Western policy of covering for Israel while sending them more weaponry to kill more Palestinians. Those facts don’t seem to matter to the mainstream media, and politicians are careful to ignore them or to dismiss them as “necessary” since Israel has “a right to defend itself.”

Apparently, Fiona Lali is associated with “the revolutionary communist party” and is a critic of capitalism. Perhaps the British establishment believed that she’d come across as a crazy radical. As you watch the interview, you realize Lali is the rational “conservative” in that she’s trying to conserve the lives of Palestinians while arguing for free speech and a system that doesn’t exploit the many for the benefit of a few.

I hope Lali is correct that the majority of Britons are against sending more weapons to Israel, though I doubt the Tories in Britain care here.

It’s rather incredible that this Tory MP argues there is no evidence of genocide in Gaza and that the real issue is antisemitism and Israel’s right to exist.

Education in America

W.J. Astore

Protesting genocide in Gaza gets you punished as layoffs and job losses loom for teachers

Two stories landed in my email inbox this morning that tell us something about the state of education in America. The first from The Boston Globe shows how students are being punished for protesting against genocide in Gaza:

Suspended MIT and Harvard protesters barred from graduation, evicted from campus housing

Dan Zeno’s suspension from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for participating in an encampment protesting the war in Gaza had a swift impact on his family’s life. The graduate student has not only been barred from classes, he was also evicted from campus housing, along with his wife and 5-year-old daughter, with just one week to find another place to live.

He is among the MIT students who won’t be graduating as planned or have lost income by having their fellowships canceled or have had their research projects halted.

And on Friday, Harvard University began suspending protesters. They were told they can’t sit for exams or participate in commencement or other school activities, and will be evicted from student housing.

That’s the way you handle “rebellious” students: make them homeless and perhaps even degree-less. Want to protest mass murder and famine? Prepare to be evicted and probably suspended, if not prosecuted. And this is happening in the “liberal” state of Massachusetts at “liberal-leftist” Harvard.

Schools like MIT and Harvard, having intimate connections to Israel and the military-industrial complex, as well as huge endowments, are corporations rather than schools of higher learning. And, as we learned from “Rollerball,” you are not to interfere with management decisions. Corporate boards at MIT and Harvard are pro-Israel, and so must you be, else keep your mouth shut and maybe we’ll let you graduate. Open your mouth and we’ll shut it for you.

The second story involves teacher and staff layoffs as federal subsidies related to COVID are set to expire at the end of September. A quick summary from CNN:

Schools across the country are announcing teacher and staff layoffs as districts brace for the end of a pandemic aid package that delivered the largest one-time federal investment in K-12 education. The money must be used by the end of September, creating a sharp funding cliff.

Too bad we don’t have any money after September for those teachers and staff. I guess we sent all the money to Ukraine and Israel. Priorities, people.

For a bit of inspiration, consider this student from the University of Chicago, who explains why stopping mass murder is more important than his career prospects:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/XLxSaN2nPx0?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

He gets it right. I wonder how he’ll be punished? “Criminal trespass”? Suspension? Expulsion? Imprisonment?

Someone should compare the funding of police forces, with all their riot gear and weaponry, to the funding of teachers and staff in K-12 schools across America. I’m sure America’s politicians, if pressed to make a choice, will fund the police first and to the max. Teachers? Who needs them. Our students are learning invaluable lessons from the police, who are “teaching” them about Tasers, rubber bullets, tear gas, and other instruments of “higher” learning.

Why Biden Is Consistently Pro-Israel

W.J. Astore

You get what you pay for

This graphic provides clarity as to why Joe Biden and other senior leaders in the U.S. government are consistently pro-Israel:

Of course, the power of AIPAC and similar interest groups isn’t limited to the money they give in campaign “donations.” If you cross them, they will use their power to denounce you as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel while supporting more tractable candidates against you.

You have to hand it to AIPAC and Israel. They basically control much of the U.S. government and for a relatively cheap price.

Of course, I’m not suggesting money and intimidation are the only reasons these men support Israel, but they are compelling ones.

The Palestinians and indeed the Arab and Muslim world simply have no counter to AIPAC and Israel. Unless you count oil and the threat of turning the taps off. Still, the power of the Israeli lobby in America is staggering. Many members of Congress seem more eager and willing to protect Israel at any cost than America itself. Senator Fetterman of Pennsylvania literally draped himself in an Israeli flag to show his support of that country.

Yes, that is U.S. Senator John Fetterman at a pro-Israel rally

To be an ally of a country, you don’t have to be a slavering puppet. Or a groveling puppy.

What is wrong with these people?

Update (5/11): I added this to the comments section and then thought it might be useful here as well: Besides money and fear, especially of being labeled anti-Semitic, here are more reasons why U.S. politicians support Israel so strongly:

1. It’s the path of least resistance.

2. For some, support of Israel is tied up with evangelicalism and other forms of Judeo-Christian faith.

3. They want to cash in after they leave office, and being construed as not entirely pro-Israel may be detrimental to that.

4. Sympathy for Israel (and Jews) as victims of the Holocaust.

5. Discomfort or antipathy toward Muslims, e.g. they seem more “alien” or less Western than Israelis and Jewish people in general.

6. The IDF and its intelligence services are intertwined with the CIA and various other U.S. intelligence agencies. In other words, fear of reprisals, because, let’s face it, most politicians have a lot of skeletons in various closets, and even if they don’t, skeletons can be “found.”

7. The U.S. mainstream media is almost entirely uncritical of Israel. Strong criticism of Israel will lead to negative coverage. Support of Israel produces positive coverage.

8. Being treated as an outcast among your peers. Most politicians relish being part of the club and basking in applause. You’re in the club and applauded when you support Israel. The opposite is true if you don’t.

Any others, readers? (And, of course, money/jobs related to all the U.S. weaponry that flows to Israel.)

Media Bias and Student Protests

W.J. Astore

NPR as National Propaganda Radio

I’d like to highlight this Twitter/X post by Lee Camp and his take on improving NPR’s BS headline:

Lee Camp: Ummm, NPR, I believe you meant to say “Nearly 300 peaceful unarmed people brutally attacked by fascist police for exercising their freedom of speech”

I’d add that students are protesting the Israeli government’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and the U.S. government’s complicity in the same. They are not protesting against “the war in Gaza,” unless you modify that as “Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.” 

It’s funny indeed that NPR has a reputation as being “left” or even “far left.” Anything critical of Joe Biden is “radical left” in America (unless you’re a Trumper, in which case you’re “fascist”). Anyone that questions and challenges the U.S. government’s total subservience to Israel’s current genocidal agenda is dismissed as unrealistic or as Kremlin stooges. Or maybe apologists for China. It’s nonsense, of course, but it seems to work for some people.

Confuse and obscure the issue. Baffle with BS. And don’t forget Tasers, handcuffs, tear gas, rubber bullets, and good old-fashioned truncheons for those who refuse to obey.

I suppose deceptive headlines don’t hurt quite as much as being beaten to the ground and hauled off to jail. But they are even more effective, I think, at quietening dissent.

Update (4/29): At Indiana University, snipers and armored cars showed up as well as circling helicopters for a modest student encampment. The snipers were apparently escorted into rooftop and tower positions by university administrators. Check out this report:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/MSFPOsxVPWw?start=5s&rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Update 2 (4/29): A good cartoon is sometimes worth 1000 words: