Some people love Mexican, some love a bistro, some love whatever. I happen to love Chinese food. We used to go eat Chinese all the time before the pandemic. Then we just got out of the habit. My folks were coming over today. I was off and they'd asked to come over.
So I was talking to my wife and we were thinking, why don't we all go out to eat?
And do Chinese because we all love Chinese. And we figured we'd go to the place that we used to go to at least twice a week.
Big mistake.
We went there at four p.m. It only had maybe 1/4 of the tables occupied. They wanted to plump us in the middle next to everyone. No. I wanted a booth. I like a booth. I don't like the wait staff brushing up against me when they need to squeeze by to get to another table. And this was a buffet. The only thing they really did was bring drinks.
I said, "No, booth please." There were two people eating in booths on the right side of the room. There were eight booths. They wanted us to sit in between the two. No. It was not full -- and it wasn't full when we left. There was no reason that we needed to be back to back.
Before we'd even ordered our drinks, I was souring on this place.
It only got worse.
The kitchen was way, way in front of us. So I have no idea why a woman clearing tables set up her cart next to our table. She'd walk all over the restaurant and come back to us to throw her plates and silverware into a tub on the cart that she'd parked by us. It was loud and we didn't ask to sit by the kitchen.
It gets worse. She wants to blast some news outlet on her phone when she's not cleaning tables -- NEWSMAX? I have no idea, I just know the hosts were insisting that African-Americans are lazy. If you don't know this already, I'm African American. As is my wife. As are my parents.
We'll never go back. I tipped $20 but explained, as I signed the receipt, that we would never, ever be back again. That we were not pleased to have an employee sit next to us blasting a racist talk show over her phone. That the whole experience was awful and they should be ashamed of themselves.
I felt bad for my folks. Especially because they surprised us with a very nice gift. When we got married, my wife and I did it on the spur of the moment. And my folks got us some nice bed linens for the quickly put together reception.
I'd written last week about how it was probably time to get a new fridge.
They got it for us. I did not ask them. This was so sweet of them. And it has an ice maker and so much more. And it's brand news. (As I noted, the one we used until today was purchased at Circuit City -- which should give you an idea of how old it is.)
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary has sent us an update from Deir el-Balah’s Al-Aqsa Hospital, where she says an extra emergency department has been opened to deal with the massive influx of injured patients.
The hospital, running on just one generator, remains flooded with sick and injured patients, and is performing surgeries on an “hourly basis”, she said.
At the same time, the flow of aid into Gaza has remained scarce, with many people now eating “only one meal per day”.
“This is not only in the south, but also in the north” of Gaza, said Khoudary, adding that markets are largely empty and what food available is hard to afford for most people.
This is from yesterday's FACE THE NATION (CBS).
MARGARET BRENNAN: We're joined now by the executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme, Cindy McCain, good to have you here in person.
U.N. WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR CINDY MCCAIN: Thank you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Now overnight, we learned that that U.S. pier off of Gaza that was set up by the military has reopened. It had stopped functioning for a bit. How is it going? Because I know you are helping to oversee distribution.
MCCAIN: Well, right now we're paused because I'm concerned about the safety of our people after the incidents yesterday. We also- two of our warehouses- warehouse complex, were rocketed yesterday, so we've stepped back just for the moment to make sure that we're in- on safe terms and on safe ground before, before we'll restart. But the rest of the country is operational. We're doing- we're doing everything we can in the north and the south.
MARGARET BRENNAN: How did your locations get rocketed? I imagine you do de-conflict and share your locations with the Israeli military.
MCCAIN: We are de conflicted. I don't know. That's a- it's a good question.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Did you lose any of your–
MCCAIN: We had one man injured, but everything else is fine. Nobody else is hurt. But indeed, it's- it's the kind of thing that's why a ceasefire is necessary. That's why we need to stop this so that we can get in at scale with our aid and other and other aid from other organizations as well. We can't continue this in a way, because what almost happened in the north with famine could happen in the south. And so that's what we're trying to avoid right now. And it's been very difficult, just because of the- of what's going on. You know, we've had looting inside the country, we've had, you know, various problems around with it. You know, there's always something going on. It's very difficult to operate there.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You mentioned just now the full blown famine in the north. When you said that [on FACE THE NATION's May 3rd broadcast], it got a lot of attention. Prime Minister Netanyahu was asked about your comments by NBC and said quote "Cindy McCain, unfortunately, is misinformed." The Israeli government's been putting out pictures of food being brought into Gaza. They dispute there is famine. How does that square with what you are seeing on the ground?
MCCAIN: When I made that comment, my people had seen it on the ground, not only evidence of it, but the actual impact of it. Since then, they've allowed us to get more trucks into the north, and so we're getting much more food in- in up there, and that will stave it off, but- but listen, the bottom line here is- is I make choices every day to take food from the hungry to give to the starving. We need a ceasefire, we need it now so we can feed and this doesn't happen in the south. We're right on the edge in the south of the same thing occurring.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You're on the edge of famine in the south of Gaza?
MCCAIN: Yes. There's- there's people that are very hungry and can't- don't have access because of the danger, because of- because they've been pushed, you know, into the center again. So we want to make sure that we can- can not just get in and feed, but do it at scale. They need more than food, too. It's water, it's sanitation, it's medicine, so it's all of the above, because famine is not just about starving, it's about all the other things too.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And I know how difficult I've heard it is to help a child with stunted growth. You just said you're- you're taking from the hungry to feed the starving.
The Israeli government has been carrying out its assault on Gaza for eight months now. Around the world, people are objecting and calling for a cease fire. On Saturday, citizens protested outside the White House.
Megan Lebowitz (NBC NEWS) reports:
Thousands of people from cities across the country gathered outside the White House on Saturday to protest the Biden administration’s policies toward the Israel-Hamas war, many dressed in keffiyehs and red clothes to symbolize what they say is a red line that Israel crossed.
Hundreds of protesters held a red banner that stretched around the White House, urging President Joe Biden to change his approach to the war in Gaza.
“Biden, Biden you can’t hide, we are your red line,” protesters chanted.
The red line is in reference to remarks made by the White House and Joe last month that Israel would be in serious trouble, for real this time, no kidding!!!!Footage posted to social media showed police using pepper spray on protesters, who faced arrest at the mass demonstration.
At least one demonstrator also held a canister that released green and white smoke near the southern side of the White House.
The demonstrator, who was dressed as the superhero character Spiderman, shouted along with a crowd: “Biden, Biden, we can’t wait! We’ll see you at the Hague!”
The Hague is the Dutch city that is home to the international criminal court that prosecutes war crimes.
Word somehow got back to us that the thick, dark wall of police, with their riot gear and paddy wagons, were making their way uptown. We knew CCNY’s encampment would be their next stop.
Sure enough, just minutes before midnight on May Day, the NYPD burst through the gates, lights flashing, batons ready to meet the few dozen unarmed protestors left—throughout the night, the police had reportedly deployed tasers on anti-war demonstrators, shattered their teeth, and broke their bones. Iqra, a recent Hunter College graduate and organizer in her twenties, recalls how protestors were dragged to the precinct and left for hours without proper food, water or medical attention.
But what shocked her most were the headlines the next day.
From the May 1 cover of the New York Daily News: “Cops Crush Columbia Takeover.” From the New York Post: “Hundreds of NYPD officers stormed Columbia University.” From the front page of The Wall Street Journal: “Police Move to End Protests at Columbia.”
Notably absent from every one of these front-page spreads is any mention of CCNY—even as the encampment saw the largest amount of single-day arrests of any pro-Palestine encampment at the time, with more than 170 people detained. This surpassed the number of students arrested on the same night from Columbia and its sister school, Barnard College, by dozens. (Only the University of California-Los Angeles has since topped this record.)
“We were arrested the same night [as Columbia students], from the same neighborhood, taken to the same jail,” Iqra tells The Progressive. “However, the media coverage [of CCNY] was so vastly different. And by vastly different, I mean almost non-existent.”
Although anti-war organizers had camped out on the lawn of City College, calling it “the City College encampment” is misleading. Organizers from across the City University of New York (CUNY) system stood at the helm. CUNY is the largest public higher education system in the country, hosting more than twenty-five individual colleges (including Iqra’s alma mater, Hunter) and serving more than 250,000 students per year.
“CUNY is the key to the city of New York,” Jordan, an organizer, Ph.D. student, and adjunct professor at CUNY, says. “Students come out and they go into a lot of unionized jobs, a lot of jobs in the city that have a lot of people power attached to them.”
MSNBC‘s Joe Scarborough (5/9/24) went on a rant about the college students who have been staging the protests, suggesting to guest Hillary Clinton that they were influenced by China or Qatar:
I’m going to talk about radicalism on college campuses. The sort of radicalism that has mainstream students getting propaganda, whether it’s from their professors or whether it’s from Communist Chinese government through TikTok, calling the president of the United States “Genocide Joe.” Calling you and President Clinton war criminals.
Eventually, he called the students “extremists—I’m sorry—funded by Qatar.”
Clinton responded: “You raised things that need to be vented about.”
Scarborough’s claim that Qatar funds the students likely comes from a Jerusalem Post article (4/30/24), which called the protests “despicable.” The story reported, “Qatar has invested $5.6 billion in 81 American universities since 2007, including the most prestigious ones: Harvard, Yale, Cornell and Stanford.” Of course, funding universities is not the same as funding student protests; the university administrations that actually received the Qatari funding have often been quite hostile to the protesters.
House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) suggested on CNN’s State of the Union (1/28/24) that Russia has played a role in the protests:
And what we have to do is try to stop the suffering and gossip….. But for them to call for a ceasefire is Mr. Putin’s message…. I think some of these protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some I think are connected to Russia.
CNN’s Dana Bash asked, “you think some of these protests are Russian plants?” Pelosi responded: “I don’t think they’re plants; I think some financing should be investigated.”
Like MSNBC, Fox News (5/2/24) has also pushed the narrative suggesting that China is behind the protests: “China may be playing a significant role in the anti-Israel protests by using TikTok to foment division on college campuses,” Alicia Warren wrote.
Gordon Chang, a senior fellow at the far-right, anti-Muslim Gatestone Institute, told Fox that “China is using the curation algorithm of TikTok to instigate protests.”
The presence of pro-Palestinian advocacy on TikTok has been cited by lawmakers as a justification for censoring the social media platform (FAIR.org, 5/8/24). But the messages on TikTok, which is popular among younger people, may simply reflect public opinion among that demographic. According to the Pew Research Center, “Younger adults are much less supportive of the US providing military aid to Israel than are older people.”
In a story headlined, “Campus Protests Give Russia, China and Iran Fuel to Exploit US Divide,” the New York Times (5/2/24) described “overt and covert efforts by the countries to amplify the protests.” The story included some speculation about foreign influence: “There is little evidence—at least so far—that the countries have provided material or organizational support to the protests,” Steven Lee Myers and Tiffany Hsu wrote. If there was any evidence, they did not present it.
The journalists blamed the protests for having “allowed” these “foreign influence campaigns…to shift their propaganda to focus on the Biden administration’s strong support for Israel.”
The weekend’s news touted safety for four hostages held in Gaza, the success of a “rescue” operation celebrated across the front pages of U.S. and Israeli newspapers. The fact that “scores” of Palestinian civilians in Nuseirat refugee camp—274 according to one count — were killed in the process, that the soldiers came in on disguised aid vehicles, almost an afterthought. Yet these disproportionate numbers are once again a reminder that the calculation is being made day after day that hundreds of civilian deaths are permissible if the Israeli state is the one doing the killing.
That more hostages have been freed through negotiations than battle, that hostages may have died during the raid, makes it seem as though safety is not the point, after all.
The
students who built the encampments knew well their relative safety
compared to the people in Gaza whose updates they watched on smartphones
for eight months. They knew they would also face crackdowns from their
universities, assaults by police and right-wing counterprotesters, because they had faced them already for those eight months.
But within the tents they raised on campuses around the country — I spoke to students, faculty and community members from 11
universities and visited two encampments and the site of one’s
dismantling — they built a space of temporary safety and community,
turning the lessons of past movements to the growing Palestine
solidarity campaigns across the United States and across the world,
applying pressure to the institutions that turn their tuition dollars
into prestige and profits and yes, risking their own safety when those
institutions brought in the riot police.
Within the spaces of the encampments, students enacted the vision on that “We Keep Us Safe” banner at DePaul. They did their best to keep one another safe, and to provide for all of their basic needs.
“It was really beautiful,” said Christopher Iacovetti, a graduate student at the University of Chicago. “It was especially encouraging to me to see how many people from so many different backgrounds came to support, to mobilize, to provide supplies almost on the drop of a hat.”
Marie Adele Grosso, an undergraduate at Barnard College in New York, said the Columbia-Barnard encampment created “the strongest sense of community people have felt in quite a few years on campus.”
“While we were on campus and while we were all together, we were making all of the decisions together,” Grosso said. “Organizers did just such an amazing job of bringing in the beauty of Palestine.” There was dance and music and teach-ins and conversation with people in Gaza at the moment.
“Israel refused in order to continue to destroy Gaza and the Palestinians as a people,” Albanese said.
“This genocidal intent turned into action,” she said.
“Israel has used hostages to legitimise killing, injuring, maiming, starving and traumatising Palestinians in Gaza.”
The White House praised the mass killing on Saturday. "Praised" -- past tense. Ben Samuels (HAARETZ) observes, "After the Biden administration's initial full-throated praise of Israel's dramatic hostage-rescue operation in a Gaza refugee camp, rhetoric from senior U.S. officials has slightly shifted to acknowledge the reportedly significant Palestinian death toll." And the death toll has risen.
AP notes, "At least 274 Palestinians, including dozens of children, were killed, and hundreds more were wounded, in the Israeli raid that rescued four hostages held by Hamas, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Sunday." Malak A Tantesh, Aseel Mousa and Emma Graham-Harrison (GUARDIAN) quote some of the survivors:
“The Nuseirat market is always crowded, but now more than usual because of the many displaced people,” said Haroun, 29, who is now staying with an uncle. She was looking at outfits for the girls when the first Israeli airstrikes hit, and almost without thinking raced out of the door to go to them.
Outside, she found a scene “like the horrors of judgment day”, as panicked crowds tried to escape the coming onslaught. Helicopters and quadcopter drones would soon join the assault that left hundreds dead, and shattered bodies scattered along the streets, images from the area show.
“Everyone was screaming, terrified,” she said. “The street I was on was only 50 metres long, but it was packed with hundreds of people, all running. A woman next to me fainted from terror, and I saw vendors abandoning their goods on the roadside to flee.”
Survivors provide eye witness testimony to CNN here. The deaths pushed the death toll since October to over 37,000. Thomas Mackintosh (BBC NEWS) observes Saturday was "one of the deadliest days of the conflict so far." Pope Francis spoke Sunday on the issue of Gaza.
Pope Francis noted the upcoming conference ("the day after tomorrow") on Tuesday that Jordan is hosting calling for humanitarian solutions to end the assault on Gaza. The Pope declared, "I encourage the international community to act urgently, with all means, to come to the aid of the people of Gaza, worn out by the war." Khaled Yacoub Oweis (THE NATIONAL) explains:
The "humanitarian summit" at a Dead Sea venue, a few kilometres from Israel, is aimed at enhancing "the response of the international community to the human disaster in Gaza”, Jordan said.
It is being held under the auspices of Egypt, Jordan and the UN. Egypt, a main player in ceasefire talks, is on guard over concerns the Israeli military will move deeper into the Rafah border area, driving Palestinian refugees into Egyptian territory.
Following Saturday's massacre, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu resigned. Thomas Helm (THE NATIONAL) reports:
High-profile Israeli politician Benny Gantz has withdrawn his party from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wartime unity government, saying he made the decision "with a heavy heart, yet wholeheartedly".
One of three war cabinet ministers, Mr Gantz, who has become increasingly critical of Mr Netanyahu’s war strategy in recent months, said “Netanyahu is preventing [Israel] from progressing towards a true victory”.
In particular, he and his allies, along with a growing segment of Israeli society, accuse Mr Netanyahu of not prioritising the release of Israeli hostages.
"I want to ask the hostages' families for forgiveness," Mr Gantz said in his address. "We did a lot but we failed.
Claire Gilbody Dickerson (SKY NEWS) notes, "The popular former military chief's resignation had been expected after he gave Mr Netanyahu an 8 June deadline to present a clear day-after plan for the conflict in Gaza." ALJAZEERA explains, "Gantz last month threatened to leave the emergency government – formed last year to oversee the war on Gaza -- if Netanyahu failed to present a post-war plan for the besieged and bombarded Palestinian territory, where Israel is continuing a ground and aerial bombardment campaign that has killed more than 37,000 people since October 7, according to Gaza health officials." Gantz is calling for early elections.
Does that mean change is about to happen? No. Last week on DEMOCRACY NOW!, Amy Goodman spoke with Daniel Levy ("president of the U.S./Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator under Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin") and the issue of whether resignations could toppled Netanyahu's government was raised:
AMY GOODMAN: And also, even if Smotrich and Ben-Gvir — Ben-Gvir, who was not only charged with, but convicted of terrorism and supporting a terrorist group and inciting anti-Palestinian hatred — even if they were to leave the government, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the survivor, Netanyahu, would fall, which has often been said — right? — if the other parties came to his support.
DANIEL LEVY: Right. So, that’s a lot to unpack. [. . .] On the Netanyahu side, he now has an equation to deal with. As you say, he could conceivably have a majority in parliament, because Gantz’s party and Lapid’s party have both said they will provide a safety net for Netanyahu if he takes the deal, and that gives him the numbers. However, and let’s be clear, Gantz and Lapid have supported this war throughout. They’ve had no qualms about any of the violations of international law that it’s committed — just so we correctly characterize those folks. But they have said they will offer a safety net for this deal, and that’s important. However, that makes Netanyahu dependent on people who want to bring him down, who want him out of power, as well they should as the leaders, putatively, of the opposition. Therefore, if he wants governmental stability, he needs to stick with the original coalition that he formed, that was in power until October 7th, that continues to be in power, which includes his own party, many of whom have opposed this deal, and which includes these characters from the extreme right, alongside his own extremists, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. And Netanyahu, therefore — this is the crucial thing, Amy — he, therefore, looks at the proposal and says, “Is it more risky politically for me to say no to Biden or to say no to Ben-Gvir and Smotrich?”
Jake Lapham (BBC NEWS) observes of the resignation, "The move will not topple the Israeli government, since Mr Netanyahu will still hold a comfortable majority of 64 in the 120-seat Knesset."
This morning, THE NATIONAL reports:
Five people were killed and at least 30 others wounded in Israeli strikes on Rafah and Khan Younis on Monday, the official Wafa news agency has reported.
The dead and wounded were taken to Nasser Medical Complex following several strikes on Rafah, where "continuous shelling" stuck western parts of the city.
Strikes were also reported on Al Mawasi, a so-called "safe zone" near Khan Younis.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 248 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll reaches 37,124, with 84,712 injured." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:
The 8-month-old conflict became the most destructive conflict of the 21st century, the Associated Press reported, with tens of thousands killed, most of them being women and children. The war left many parts of the city in ruins, leading to a collapse in its healthcare system, leaving 10 out of 36 of Gaza’s main hospitals somewhat functional, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported.
Israel’s bombardment has leveled and destroyed over 60% of Gaza’s homes, forcing over 1.7 million Palestinians to flee, the Associated Press reported.
“How many more homes have to be destroyed, how many children need to be killed, until this [United States] government takes definitive action to stop Israel’s war crimes,” said Celine Qussiny of the Palestinian Youth Movement.
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