"When one wins, we all win. When one dies, we all die." Those words from older activists echo loud today. As a Black man in America, I feel empathy for the people of Palestine. I stand with them.
Like millions around the world, I have been focused on the war between Israel and Hamas. What started out as a retaliation for the rocket attack by Hamas on southern Israel during the Jewish holiday Simchat Torah has turned into a barrage of gunfire, bombs, and the potential destruction of Gaza.
This has heightened antisemitism, Islamophobia, and for many, has given an excuse to continue the demonization of Palestinians. Social media is flooded with posts labeling them as terrorists and savages. Racists are using the Hamas attack to justify their hatred towards Palestinians and Muslims, similar to what happened after the September 11 tragedy.
We talked about the assault on Gaza in the "Roundtable" we did for Third yesterday. And let me repost "Books" so I can note what's been read and reviewed in the community so far this year:
"Mafia Wives (Susan Williams' WHITE MALICE)" -- C.I. reviews this book.
"The Sewing Circle" -- Marcia reads Axel Madsen's THE SEWING CIRCLE.
"Ellen Sander's The Lifestyle That Classic Rock Unleashed" -- Trina reviews this book.
"Phyllis Diller 1917 – 2012: News, Quotes, Interview" -- Ann reviews this book.
"Call Her Heroic (Ava and C.I.)" -- Ava and C.I. review this book.
"Robert Sellers wrote a book of garbage" -- Kat reviews HOLLYWOOD HELLRAISERS.
"SCREAM VI and THE BOYS" -- Stan reviews Ron and Clint Howard's THE BOYS.
"the world according to joan" -- Rebecca reviews this book.
"Elton John and Whitney Houston" -- Kat reviews Elton John's autobiography and a biography on Whitney Houston.
"DON RICKLES: THE MERCHANT OF VENOM" -- Isaiah reviews this book.
"Crispy Calamari in the Kitchen" -- Trina reviews AIR FRYER COOKBOOK FOR BEGINNERS: EFFORTLESSLY GRILL, ROAST AND BAKE HOMEMADE MEALS: YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS WITH QUICK, TASTY & HEALTHY RECIPES.
"Vincent Price and Universal" -- Marcia reviews John L. Flynn's 75 YEARS OF UNIVERSAL MONSTERS and Vincent Price's I LIKE WHAT I KNOW: A VISUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
"3 books to skip" -- Kat reviews Bertill Nordahl's CAT SEVENS, CARLY SIMON AND LEONARD COHEN AND ALL THE OTHERS, David Redford's NEIL& JONI: 2 LIVES, 21 ALBUMS and Ellen Sanders' ROCK AND ROLL WOMENHOOD: CASS ELLIOT, GRACE SLICK, LINDA RONSTADT, FANNY AND MORE.
"THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: AN UNNATURAL HISTORY" -- Mike reviews Elizabeth Kolbert's THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: AN UNNATURAL HISTORY.
"Paul Kupperberg's DIRECT CONVERSTIONS: TALKS WITH FELLOW DC COMICS BRONZE AGE CREATORS" -- Isaiah reviews this book.
"JOAN BAEZ: THE LAST LEAF" -- Ruth reviews this book by Elizabeth Thomas.
"A JOYOUS TRANSFORMATION: THE UNEXPURZGATED DIARY OF ANAIS NIN, 1966 -1977" -- Ruth reviews a book by Anais Nin.
"An aging queen writes a bitter book about The Way We Were" -- Marcia reviews a bad book about THE WAY WE WERE.
"Travis Stewart's bad book supposedly on Stevie Nicks" -- Kat reviews a bad book supposedly about Stevie Nicks.
"Austin Breakfast Tacos: The Story of the Most Important Taco of the Day"-- Trina strongly recommends this cookbook.
"GET LOST" -- Isaiah looks at this comic magazine
"Melody Thomas Scott's Always Young and Restless: M..." -- Ann reviews this autobiography.
"ROCK AND ROLL NIGHTMARES" -- Elaine reviews this book about crime in the music world.
"ALL THE LEAVES ARE BROWN" -- Kat reviews this book about the Mamas & the Papas.
"SAPIENS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMANKIND" -- Mike reviews a science book.
"Stephen Rebello's DOLLS! DOLLS! DOLLS: DEEP INSIDE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, THE MOST BELOVED BAD BOOK AND MOVIE OF ALL TIME" -- Stan reviews a book about the making of VALLEY OF THE DOLLS.
"Elizabeth Taylor -- two books" -- Ruth covers Katy Holborn's ELIZABETH TAYLOR: AN ELIZABETH TAYLOR BIOGRAPHY and Gian-Luca di Rocco's WOMEN IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT: CHARTING SOCIETAL PROGRESS THROUGH THE FILMS OF ELIZABETH TAYLOR AND JANE FONDA 1944-1981.
"Split Image: The Life of Anthony Perkins" -- Ann reviews a biography about Anthony Perkins.
"Andrea Warner's BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE: THE AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY" -- Mike wonders why he bothered to read this book?
"Worst summer read ever is by Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince" and "'the fondas: henry, jane and peter' is a very bad book" -- Marcia and Rebecca review Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince's THE FONDAS: HENRY, JANE AND PETER.
"Cookbooks and Air Fryer Cauliflower in the Kitchen" -- Trina reviews two cookbooks.
"Do not read ENDLESS HIGHWAY at AMAZON" -- Isaiah lays it out for AMAZON's KINDLE.
"Naomi Klein's DOPPELGANGER" -- C.I. reviews Naomi Klein's latest book.
"Demetrius Sherman's BLACK COMIC BOOK HISTORY" -- Isaiah reviews a book about the history of comic books.
"Stefan Kanfer's Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball" -- Marcia reads up on one of her favorite entertainers.
"Anne Edwards is a waste of time and a killer of trees" -- Elaine reviews Anne Edwards' A REMARKABLE WOMAN: A BIOGRAPHY OF KATHARINE HEPBURN.
So I've reviewed six books. I may do one more before the year's over, not sure.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Authorities in Gaza said Tuesday night that an Israel Defense Forces airstrike on a hospital holding thousands of patients, staff, and people seeking shelter from Israel's relentless bombardment killed at least 500 civilians, while IDF officials blamed the deaths on a botched Islamic Jihad rocket attack.
Photos and videos from al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City posted on social media showed bodies and body parts scattered about in the fiery aftermath of the blast. One video shared by senior Al Jazeera
journalist Ali Hashem reportedly shows the moment when a rocket or
missile strikes the Anglican-run hospital, causing a massive,
earth-shaking explosion.
"The death toll right now is more than 500, but we believe that number will reach more than 1000," Ziad Shehadah, a medical doctor and resident of Gaza, told Al Jazeera. "It is a massacre."
Ghassan Abu Sittah, a physician with the international charity Doctors
Without Borders (MSF), said on social media: "We were operating in the
hospital, there was a strong explosion, and the ceiling fell on the
operating room. This is a massacre."
MSF said that "nothing justifies this shocking attack on a hospital and its many patients and health workers, as well as the people who sought shelter there."
"Hospitals are not a target. This bloodshed must stop. Enough is enough," the group added.
Many Gazans had fled to the hospital after Israeli authorities ordered 1.1 million Palestinians to flee for their lives—an alleged war crime compared to the Nakba ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel—amid a bombing campaign that has killed more than 3,500 people, including over 1,000 children, since October 7.
"What's s happened is terrible because those people, all of them are civilians. They fled their homes and reached a place that they believed was safe—a hospital, which according to international law, is a safe place," Shehadah said. "People left their homes thinking they were more dangerous and they move to our schools and hospitals to be safe. And in one minute, all of them have been killed at a hospital."
Joe Biden's just another War Criminal as his Tweet makes clear.
What about the daily brutal attacks on the Palestinians? What about the children of Palestine? No move to stand with them, no move to defend them. You wasted everyone's time by even going. All you're doing is providing cover for this continued slaughter. It's beyond disappointing, it's shameful.
WSWS calls out the bombing:
On Tuesday, the Israeli military dropped a massive GPS-guided bomb on the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, killing more than 500 medical personnel, patients and refugees. The hospital, operated by the Anglican Christian Church, had been sheltering over 1,000 people who were displaced by the bombing. Doctors and medical staff at the hospital had courageously refused Israeli demands that they relocate further south, stating that there were not enough beds in southern Gaza to accommodate their critically wounded patients.
This atrocity has triggered mass protests by hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East, Europe and America. Thousands rallied outside the White House, with banners accusing US President Joe Biden of genocide.
The Israeli government and US media have launched a campaign to promote the lie that the Palestinians bombed their own hospital. Israel denied responsibility for the bombing, claiming that the attack was caused by a rocket launched from Gaza that misfired. The entire world knows this is an absurd fabrication. This massacre was conducted by Israel, with the support of the US-NATO axis.
There is nothing accidental about the Gaza bombing. It is only the latest, and most heinous, in a string of dozens of attacks on hospitals, residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure over the past 10 days. It is entirely in keeping with Israel’s strategy for the war, which is to terrorize the population by inflicting massive casualties and deaths.
Yet Joe lands in Tel Aviv and immediately issues propaganda statements that it was "the other side." Disgusting and humiliating. Bethan McKernan (GUARDIAN) reports, "The Israeli military said an initial investigation suggested the explosion was caused by a failed Hamas rocket launch, before saying it was the result of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket barrage. Islamic Jihad denied the Israeli allegation, and the scale of the blast appeared to be outside either of the militant groups’ capabilities."
As Amy Goodman noted yesterday, "Biden has so far refused to call for a ceasefire in Gaza." At THE NATION, Abdullah Shihipar notes:
The situation in the Gaza Strip is dire. Amid an intense bombing campaign, Israel has shut off water and power and limited essential supplies such as food, medicine, and fuel, creating a massive public health crisis in a region that was already struggling due to a years-long blockade. According to latest statistics, more than 2,750 people have been killed by Israeli strikes, of whom 1,000 are children. Hospitals in Gaza have already been targeted. After repeated threats and calls to evacuate, the Ahli Arab Hospital was bombed on October 17, with early estimates of casualties reporting 500 dead. The hospital was filled with people seeking shelter from the bombings, as are hospitals across Gaza. At Shifa Hospital alone the number of people seeking shelter is estimated to be around 35,000 people. These are ideal conditions for infectious disease to spread. If there is not immediate intervention, thousands of Gazans will die of infections, malnutrition, and dehydration, in addition to the bombardment.
The shutoff of clean water is of particularly grave concern. When people no longer have access to clean, treated water, they will drink water from whatever source there is, including seawater. These sources may be contaminated with sewage, chemicals, and other contaminants, which can lead to water-borne illnesses like cholera and dysentery; outbreaks of such diseases would strain the medical system in Gaza. These diseases also require rapid rehydration, and without a source of water, they can quickly become deadly. Clean water is also necessary for providing proper medical care to people—for one thing, you can’t wash your hands without it. Water is a key component in many medical procedures, such as dialysis for kidney patients. When clean water is no longer available, medical practitioners have to spend crucial moments looking for water in a time when time can barely be spared. Meanwhile, the blockade prevents medical supplies from entering Gaza, and Médecins Sans Frontières has reported that hospitals have run out of painkillers. As people are gravely injured and arrive at the hospital with open wounds, if hospitals are lacking proper medical equipment to stabilize them and prevent infection, many people will die preventable deaths.
The head of the United Nations on Wednesday called for an "immediate humanitarian cease-fire" in Israel and Gaza following a deadly strike on the Palestinian territory's al-Ahli Hospital, where many displaced Palestinians had taken refuge amid relentless Israeli bombing.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said a cease-fire would "provide sufficient time and space" for humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip and hostages to be freed.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We head now to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 55 Palestinians in the West Bank since Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel October 7th. Israeli authorities have also arrested over 700 Palestinians, several prominent lawmakers, including Aziz Dweik, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
To talk about the situation in the West Bank and the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, we’re joined by Sari Bashi, program director at Human Rights Watch, co-founder of Gisha, the leading Israeli human rights group promoting the right to freedom of movement for Palestinians in Gaza.
Sari, if you can talk about the entire situation, the imminent invasion of Gaza? You just heard Raji Sourani. And also talk about what’s happening in the West Bank. In the last year, approximately — it’s a bit more, but a Palestinian a day has been killed since the beginning of the year.
SARI BASHI: Yes. Thank you.
And I’m sorry to say that since October 7th in Gaza, Israeli airstrikes have killed, on average, 100 children a day. And that’s the statistic that stays with me.
So, this latest escalation began on October 7th, when Hamas-led fighters entered Israel and committed unspeakable war crimes against Israeli civilians. They massacred partygoers at an outdoor dance party. They entered homes, in some cases burning the homes, in other cases shooting families. And they took hostage men, women, older people, children, people with disabilities. Appropriately, the U.S. government and people in the United States condemned those acts, because they were unspeakable crimes against civilians that have no justification.
So the answer cannot be for the Israeli government, with the backing of the American government, to then target and harm civilians in Gaza. I am particularly concerned about the collective punishment of civilians in Gaza. The Israeli military cut food, electricity, water and fuel supplies on October 7th, which is contributing to the humanitarian catastrophe. And the Israeli military is engaging in — is dropping explosive weapons in densely populated areas with wide area effects. So, when you do that, when you drop bombs on crowded urban centers, it is predictable that you will kill civilians. It is predictable that you will kill children. And that’s what’s happening. Gaza is the size — about the size of the U.S. city of Philadelphia. It’s 2.2 million people. Nearly half of those people are children.
And that’s something that we need to see more of the United States government addressing. We’ve heard thus far general comments about the need to respect international humanitarian law. We need very specific directives for the Israeli government to immediately restore food, fuel, electricity and water supplies and to stop dropping weapons in densely populated civilian areas.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Sari Bashi, I wanted to ask you — the prime minister, Netanyahu, has urged the Palestinians in Gaza to flee to Egypt if they want to avoid the horrors of the bombing and the invasion. Isn’t this itself a form of ethnic cleansing? After all, Israel is not telling the Palestinians, “Hey, if you want to escape the bombing and the invasion, move into Israel or be transported to the West Bank.” After all, even Putin, in his invasion of Ukraine, ended up admitting 1.2 million Ukrainians into Russia to avoid the worst impact on them of the war itself.
SARI BASHI: So, the first thing to say is that the countries that are neighboring Gaza — Israel and Egypt — have an obligation to open their borders and let people who are fleeing for their lives enter. Not to do that risks violating the principle of non-refoulement. When you have mothers with children who are trying to save their children’s lives, Israel and Egypt need to open their borders and let that happen. But the Israeli evacuation order risks forcible transfer. The Israeli military has called on half the population in Gaza in the north to go to the south, and Israeli military officials have also called on people in Gaza to flee to Egypt.
Now, for people in Gaza, Gaza is — 70% of the people living in Gaza are refugees from what is now Israel. Some of the older people who fled Friday, Saturday from northern Gaza to southern Gaza, they remember fleeing the Israeli army 75 years ago. They remember the homes they left behind in what is now Israel. And they remember that they were never allowed to come back, although international law defends the right of return for all refugees, whether they’re Ukrainians trying to resume — to return to areas that have been liberated from Russian occupation or under Russian occupation, or people from Gaza coming back after the army has left.
My concern is that while it’s acceptable, and in some cases advisable, for warring parties to issue warnings, those warnings are only effective if there are safe ways for civilians to avoid harm. So, when you tell a million people to evacuate but there’s no safe place to go to and no safe way to get there, that’s not an effective warning. And another thing that the United States government should do very clearly is to call on the Israeli government to cancel the evacuation order and to take all measures to protect civilians who remain in the north. There are many people — men, women, children, older people, people with disabilities, hospital patients — who either cannot or will not leave the northern Gaza, and they retain their protections under international law.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk to us about how Palestinians in the West Bank are being impacted as a result of the continuing conflict in Gaza?
SARI BASHI: So, here, people are mostly worried. There have been road closures. Workers have not been allowed to enter Israel for their jobs. There have been increased military activity in the West Bank, including incursions and arrests. You mentioned arrests of people who expressed support for the attacks on October 7th. Businesses who engaged in that have been closed at night, with the Israeli army coming in. For the most part, people are worried.
All of this is unprecedented. The attacks that Hamas-led fighters committed against Israeli civilians on October 7th are unprecedented. It was the worst massacre of civilians in Israeli history. And the level of harm, targeted harm, that the Israeli military is inflicting on civilians in Gaza is also unprecedented.
At Human Rights Watch, we’re trying to hold open a narrow space for universal basic principles of humanity. It is never OK to commit unspeakable war crimes against civilians, as was done in southern Israel on October 7th. And that in no way justifies committing war crimes against civilians in Gaza.
And for Americans who are confused by all of what’s going on, I would suggest you just remember that very basic principle that civilians need to be protected, and then encourage your elected representatives to remind the U.S. government of that principle, because the United States government is providing $3.8 billion in annual military aid to Israel, and it’s rushing even more weapons here right now. It has a responsibility to rein in the attacks on civilians, to call on Israel to cancel the evacuation order and protect civilians in Gaza and to immediately restore humanitarian supplies to civilians.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the difference between your experience on the West Bank, as an Israeli Jewish lawyer, and your husband’s experience, as a Palestinian professor, a resident of Ramallah, for people to understand? And also this issue — you know, Jake Sullivan recently said, just a few weeks ago, Biden’s national security adviser, that it’s been quieter in the Middle East than any time in 20 years. This is the time that at least a Palestinian a day was being killed. And talk about settlers and the army.
SARI BASHI: Yeah. I think part of the concern — and I know Raji was addressing that when he talked about root causes — is that some of the root causes of the violence, including what Human Rights Watch and many other groups have called apartheid, are invisible to U.S. policymakers. We have a situation where U.S. policymakers are very busy brokering normalization deals between the most right-wing Israeli government in history and dictatorial Arab governments, and it’s not paying attention to what’s happening on the ground.
For decades, the Israeli authorities have engaged in systemic repression of Palestinians, including not allowing people in Gaza, refugees in Gaza, to return to their homes in what is now Israel, and including a punishing closure for the last 16 years that has not allowed appropriate supplies to enter and leave Gaza and has not allowed people to travel. And that’s part of the reason why people in Gaza were so vulnerable even before this violence began.
In addition, the Israeli government is privileging Israeli Jews over Palestinians. And that’s the essence of the crime against humanity of apartheid, when you commit inhumane acts and engage in systemic repression in order to privilege one group over another. So, I’m Israeli Jewish, American, as well. My partner is Palestinian. And I can do things that he can’t do. I can travel quite freely. And even though his mother is a refugee from what is now Israel, he can’t pass areas that are off limits to Palestinians. I have excellent rights. I have health. There are cities in Israel being built for Jews only, and also in the West Bank, settlements being built for Israeli Jews only, while Palestinians are hemmed in, unable to build cities, and their homes are being demolished for lack of permits that are almost impossible to get. The Israeli authorities are engaging in forcible transfer, where they remove Palestinian communities in the West Bank to make room for settlements. All of these are part of the root causes of the violence.
And the only thing I can hope is that U.S. policymakers will realize that it’s not quiet here. There’s terrible abuses going on. You just have to listen to what people on the ground are telling you, and adjust accordingly. No U.S. policy toward Israel-Palestine will be successful if it doesn’t address the abuses on the ground, first, second and third.
AMY GOODMAN: Sari Bashi, we want to thank you for being with us, program director at Human Rights Watch, co-founder of Gisha, the leading Israeli human rights group promoting the right to freedom of movement for Palestinians in Gaza.
Next up, we go to a former Israeli peace negotiator. His recent interview on BBC went viral. Back in 20 seconds.
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