Nanjeanne

Nanjeanne's Journal

March 20, 2024

Sen. Van Hollen was great this morning on Democracy Now

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/20/chris_van_hollen]

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN Since my visit to Rafah in January, things have gotten even worse. The situation — the humanitarian situation in Gaza is even more catastrophic. And now, as you said, Prime Minister Netanyahu has said he’s going to ignore President Biden’s requests and launch a full-scale invasion of Rafah.

You know, President Biden was right, in my view, to say that that would be a red line, that you can’t cross it. And so, now it’s going to be very important that the president and the Biden administration back that up and make it clear that they will hold the prime minister accountable.

As you know, the Netanyahu government is going to be sending some officials to Washington this week to discuss how they might go about this Rafah invasion. And I’m very worried, Amy, that the Biden administration will simply get dragged into the planning of this, something that is bound to go terribly wrong, based on what’s happened already in the months of war in Gaza, and then somehow become complicit in Netanyahu’s actions in Rafah. So, I would warn the administration not to get sucked into this, because we’ve seen time and again that at the end of the day, Prime Minister Netanyahu simply ignores the president of the United States. And so we need to do more to make Netanyahu accountable for our requests.

Snip

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Kids in Gaza are now dying from the deliberate withholding of food. In addition to the horror of that news, one other thing is true: That is a war crime. It is a textbook war crime. … And that makes those who orchestrate it war criminals.

Read the transcript in link or watch the video.

March 18, 2024

Chef Jose Andres speaks for me

https://twitter.com/chefjoseandres/status/1769521519779029185?s=61&t=_R0eaN5XDTx3hnl2jyXBTA]

March 6, 2024

Analysis One Fiasco After Another: Meron Disaster Findings Also Convict Netanyahu for October 7

The commission's members were not impressed by Netanyahu's argument that 'you cannot be responsible for what you don't know.' Once the October 7 massacre, forewarned for years, undergoes investigation, he won't be able to rely on this defense

As the quotes cited by Haaretz in recent months indicate, Hamas' murderous plan was known in the minutest detail 10 years ago. In the spring of 2014, then-Shin Bet director Yoram Cohen presented dramatic intelligence that relied on a number of sources: the organization was carrying out extensive training indicating its intention to break through the border and send thousands of fighters armed from head to toe to capture communities, massacre Israelis and kidnap soldiers and civilians."

SNIP

For years, he had deliberately strengthened Hamas and even fattened it with suitcases of cash from Qatar in order to deepen the divide between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and to bury the two-state solution. Five months ago, it all exploded in Israelis' faces.

SNIP

In a normal country, the Meron commission's piercing conclusions would have forced Netanyahu to hand over the keys, but there is no chance that he will do the right thing. All that can be hoped for is that when the state commission of inquiry into the October 7 massacre submits its report, he will no longer be in power. The commission's conclusions will then be a bitter reminder of his destructive influence on Israel in the past 10 years.

Read whole damning report here Haaretz subscriber link https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-06/ty-article/.premium/one-big-fiasco-mount-meron-disaster-report-also-convicts-netanyahu-for-october-7/0000018e-1508-d2aa-a1be-1dcd1d410000]

Free link https://archive.is/40uTS]

March 3, 2024

Gaza's Night of Death and Hunger

Opinion by Gideon Levy in Haaretz.

It was a night of death and hunger. When it ended, at least 112 people had been killed and another 760 were injured. Israel tried to deny responsibility – the trucks hit them – but there is no denying its responsibility for what is happening now in the Gaza Strip: Israel is the occupying force there.
Not only that: Dr. Mohammed Salha, the acting director of Gaza City's Al-Awda Hospital, told The Associated Press that of the 176 wounded brought to the facility, 142 had gunshot wounds and the other 34 showed injuries from a stampede. A physician at the city's Shifa Hospital said that most of those treated there had gunshot wounds.

SNIP

If the night of death and hunger, the night when body bags replaced the bags of food on the trucks and when blood mixed with flour, did not inspire resistance to the war in Israel, nothing will make Israel stop, if only to think about its actions and their cost: If not the horrific price that the nonhuman Gazans are paying, then at least the price that Israel will pay. From here on, we shall only whisper in vain: Enough.

Thank you Mr. Levy for your important contribution to the discourse surrounding Gaza's haunting reality.

Haaretz link: https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-03-03/ty-article-opinion/.premium/gazas-night-of-death-and-hunger/0000018e-00dc-da4e-adbf-82fd397b0000]

Free link: https://archive.is/zGumB]

February 15, 2024

Prime Ministers Canada, Australia and NZ Call For Ceasefire

Read the full statement below:

https://twitter.com/shaykhsulaiman/status/1758116011276976189?s=61&t=_R0eaN5XDTx3hnl2jyXBTA]

February 15, 2024

Israeli Government to Reward New Immigrants Who Settle in Country's North, South and West Bank

Against a backdrop of growing interest in immigration to Israel from Jewish people in France, Britain, America and Canada, Israel plans to give financial aid to new 'olim' in a bid to increase immigration from Western countries

. . .

The plan will cost a total of 70 million shekels (a little over $19 billion), and will provide 2,000 shekels (around $550) a month for two years for every immigrant who chooses to live in the geographic periphery or beyond the Green Line. Immigrants who rent apartments in the center of the country or in the Haifa area will receive assistance of several hundred shekels each month for two years.

SNIP

Sofer and Smotrich also announced a second program , which would introduce "absorption centers in the community," in which groups of immigrants will reside in newly built, currently empty apartments in Israel in their first few years in the country.
According to the director-general of the Aliyah and Integration Ministry, Avichai Kahana, 80 million shekels (roughly $22 million) will be budgeted for this plan over the next two years.

I have to ask -- if Israel has $41 billion to spend on Settler programs - isn't it time to say they don't need US taxpayer money????

Read full article here: https://archive.is/fP5Dn#selection-1065.0-1073.186]
Subscriber link: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-02-15/ty-article/.premium/israeli-govt-to-reward-new-immigrants-who-settle-in-countrys-periphery-and-west-bank/0000018d-ac36-da6e-af9f-ac3fffb70000]

* Note Haaretz has either made a mistake in amount of shekels or amount of US dollars. So it’s either 41 billion or 41 million. Haaretz will have to correct. For me - if they have this much to spend on spreading settlements, they do t need my money.

February 15, 2024

Netanyahu's office rejects calls for two-state solution, saying it's 'not the time' to speak about 'gifts'

From Haaretz daily updates

"Now is not the time to be speaking about gifts for the Palestinian people," Avi Hyman, a spokesperson in the Prime Minister's Office, told CNN during a press briefing, in reference to talk of a Palestinian state.

CNN had asked Hyman about a report by The Washington Post that the Biden Administration and "a small group of Middle East partners" are working to formulate a comprehensive peace plan, which "could be announced as early as the next several weeks."

Hyman responded, "Here is Israel, we're still in the aftermath of the October 7th massacre."
"Now is the time for victory – total victory against Hamas. And we will continue on the path to victory. All discussions about the day after Hamas will be had the day after Hamas," said Hyman.

My heart bleeds for my Israeli family and friends, for the Palestinians suffering, for the hostages and their families, for the Gazans facing a horrific crisis. With this kind of talk I see no ending of this war, no peace for anyone and no return of hostages. I’ve never felt so bleak.

February 13, 2024

Robert Reich: Children in Gaza: Why aren't we stopping the deaths?

https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/children-in-gaza-why-arent-we-stopping?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email]

Read full piece above.

Late last night, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen gave a remarkable speech on the Senate floor, condemning the government of Benjamin Netanyahu for deliberately blocking aid to civilians in Gaza. Van Hollen said:

“Kids in Gaza are now dying from the deliberate withholding of food. In addition to the horror of that news, one other thing is true: That is a war crime. It is a textbook war crime. And that makes those who orchestrate it war criminals. … Every one of them [officials at humanitarian relief organizations] has stated that their organizations have never experienced a humanitarian disaster as dire and terrible as the world is witnessing in Gaza.”

Let’s be clear. To take a clear moral stand against Netanyahu is not to be pro-Hamas or anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist or antisemitic.

It’s to be pro-human rights.

SNIP

Tens of thousands have been killed, including thousands of children. Many more are starving. American tax payers’ money is partly responsible. Where is the moral clarity? Where is the moral authority? Why aren’t we doing everything possible to stop the deaths?

Why indeed.

February 12, 2024

Opinion My Mother, Vivian Silver, Is Gone. Who Carries Her Flag?

Vivian’s son, Yonatan Zeigen is a social worker who after October 7 decided to devote himself to being a peace activist.

Ever since her voice fell silent, I am overwhelmed by pain. Standing before a mirror that measures 365 square kilometers, if you don't include the West Bank. As an individual, what is reflected back to me is pain and hopelessness. As a people, what is reflected to us are big ideas and empty phrases: "national goal," "they only understand force," "they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity," "there's no one to talk to." It all comes back to us and repeats in an endless loop.

The Zionist project is an impressive enterprise that was intended to provide an answer to the genuinely existential Jewish question. At the same time, its aim has always been to turn an area inhabited by one ethnic group into the nation-state of another ethnic group.

SNIP

People say that if Hamas would just lay down its weapons, the current war would end. That may be true, but what would the Palestinian Authority say, which put down it weapons long ago and has been left with occupation? If we want to prevent soldiers from falling in battle, to ensure that the communities near the borders rebuild and prosper, to ensure that Israelis in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv stop experiencing terror attacks, and that all the hostages return, the Palestinians need to have a horizon. They need to at least receive a signal that when they do lay down their arms, the blockade will end, and the checkpoints and bombardments will be replaced by dialogue.

Yitzhak Rabin was thought of by Palestinians as the "breaker of bones" and Yasser Arafat was known as the "arch-terrorist," and they were able to recognize each other's existence on the national level. This happened because they underwent a conceptual change. Menachem Begin told Anwar Sadat that "war is avoidable, peace is unavoidable." Where have all the good men (and women) gone, the leaders who will finally save us from the agonies of war?

Read his powerful words here. https://archive.is/MdaM6]

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-02-11/ty-article/.premium/my-mother-vivian-silver-is-gone-who-carries-her-flag/0000018d-9974-d92c-a9ed-fbfd75300000]

February 12, 2024

Israeli Forces Rescue Two Hostages From Hamas Captivity in Gaza

Israeli security forces have rescued two hostages who were held captive by Hamas in Gaza overnight Sunday, a joint statement by the IDF, Shin Bet and Israel Police said.

The two, Louis Norberto Har, 70, and Fernando Marman, 60, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak on October 7 and were held in an apartment in Rafah. They are in good condition and have been taken for medical evaluation at Sheba Medical Center in central Israel.

Free Haaretz link https://archive.is/4yg86]

Good news for these men and their families. I saw a clip this morning on Democracy Now of a relative of one of the men begging Israel to make a deal for the hostages, saying the families need to breathe. To make the deal now.

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