December 30, 2023

One of the best actors, Tom Wilkinson, died at 75. Too soon. You may not know his name but you

definitely know his films - brilliant in Michael Clayton and In The Bedroom. But most beloved for The Full Monty. Damn. I loved him I everything.

Let’s all dance to Hot Stuff in his honor.

https://twitter.com/realemirhan/status/1741162347836637570?s=61&t=_R0eaN5XDTx3hnl2jyXBTA]

RIP

December 29, 2023

South Africa institutes proceedings against Israel before International Court of Justice under the Genocide Convention

https://twitter.com/CraigMokhiber/status/1740786012476117266?s=20]

December 29, 2023

"Absolutely Unimaginable": Children in Gaza Face Amputations Without Anesthesia, Death & Disease

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/28/palestinian_children_gaza]

Watched this interview yesterday with Steve Sosebee, founder of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, which provides medical and humanitarian aid to Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank.

Sosebee shares the stories of Izzeddin Nawasra and Mohammed Al-Ajouri, two young men who were shot by Israeli snipers during the Great March of Return protests in 2018 and received medical care in the U.S. from PCRF. Both were killed alongside their families by Israeli airstrikes on and after Christmas Day. Sosebee also describes the state of medical care in Gaza, where patients are being forced to undergo amputations without anesthesia and forgo life-saving medications amid Israel’s ongoing blockade.

It is so heartbreaking. There is so much suffering. Israelis and Palestinians. All wanting a life for their children.

Transcript is in the link above but I encourage those with compassion in their hearts to listen to Sosebee's words.

For me - Every day I wake up with the hope that a ceasefire will be in place, hostages returned, and a negotiations begin towards a peace process. When even ex-PM Ehud Olmert, who refused to agree to a deal that was offered to him when he was prime minister that would have led to the release of Gilad Shalit is writing an opinion piece saying "What should we do? I believe that the time has come for Israel to express its readiness to end the fighting. Yes, end the fighting. Not a pause and not a temporary cessation of two, three or four days. An end to the hostility – period. At that time, Israel will need to bring back the hostages, those who are alive and those who are dead. If we wait, it won't be long before the only ones we can bring back will be the dead, because there won't be any living ones. A cessation of hostilities must be conditioned on the release of all the hostages, every last one of them, the soldiers and the bodies of all those who have been held by Hamas for years. All of them." - someone needs to listen.

To read Olmert's whole piece in Haaretz (which was quite an eye opener for me) - here's a free link: https://archive.is/6iSKm#selection-1027.0-1031.557]

December 28, 2023

Opinion Sanctifying the Indiscriminate Killing in Gaza Is Israel's Second Defeat

An opinion piece by Israeli journalist Uri Misgav in Haaretz

Friends from Kibbutz Or Haner sought to pay a shivah call to Iris Haim, whose son Yotam was one of three hostages shot dead by Israeli soldiers after escaping from Hamas captivity. Haim lived in the settlement of Masua before moving to the kibbutz in the past year; she sat shivah in Moshav Shoeva. To the kibbutzniks' surprise, they were met at the door by an employee of the Mateh Yehuda Regional Council, who served as bouncer. Behind her, the house was packed with men in kippot and women in headscarves. Since October 7, Haim has become a strategic weapon for the messianic-settler right.

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The hostages have also been sacrificed. The hero of the messianic camp is Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, who admitted without blinking an eye that on October 7 he ordered a tank to fire on a house in Kibbutz Be'eri inside which terrorists held 14 hostages. All but two were killed in the shelling. A division commander who gave such an order should sit in jail. There is a direct line from Iris Haim's frequent media interviews to Hiram's approach. Hiram, by the way, gave a comfortable interview to Ilana Dayan after Black Saturday. With a gleam in his eye, he waxed poetic about a vision of occupying the Gaza Strip and said that, from his perspective, it's not about the army, "but something way beyond that, the Jewish people."

The New York Times published the incident, as part of a comprehensive investigation of the terrorist rampage in Be'eri. In the Israeli media, apart from Haaretz, there is no room for criticism of the army. Nor for consideration of and challenge to sinking into a guerilla war in the Gaza mud, without a diplomatic horizon and under an unfit leader.

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But this is the spirit of the time and the place. Journalist Zvi Yehezkeli keeps repeating on Channel 13 News that 100,000 Gazans should have been killed in the opening blow of the war, and that every single one of the Gaza Strip's 2 million residents is connected to Hamas. This is a call for genocide, and Yehezkeli is currently the most popular speaker in the Israeli media (lecture fee: 20,000 shekels, or $5,523).

A society that sanctifies indiscriminate death and killing loses its moral superiority and the justification for its existence. This is the second massive blow that Hamas is on the way to landing on us, and it is even more terrible than the first.

Read whole piece here for those who aren’t able to articulate the complex feelings about this war - reading this you might not feel quite so alone. https://archive.is/6as6m]

December 26, 2023

"Christ in the Rubble": Watch Palestinian Pastor Deliver Powerful Christmas Sermon from Bethlehem

Reverend Munther Isaac at the landmark Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/26/christ_in_the_rubble_christmas_sermon]

If interested, please watch. It moved me to tears, but I know others will not be. For those that might — this is beautiful, powerful and painful.


His interview is also important and can be viewed on Democracy Now as well.

December 24, 2023

The Fatal Attraction Between Netanyahu and Hamas

A fascinating opinion piece by Samuel Heilman in Haaretz showing the connection between Netanyahu and Hamas in both their disregard for the suffering of the Palestinians and how they both have the same goal - to prevent peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israelis and Palestinians are both trapped by power-hungry leaders who are ready to sacrifice their own people to fight to the death of the other. Both Netanyahu and the leaders of Hamas know they depend on this war, and the conflict more broadly, enduring

Omer Bar-Lev, who was Israel's minister of internal security before right-wing extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir was appointed to the job by Benjamin Netanyahu, recently suggested that any objective review of Netanyahu's years pursuing and serving in the job of prime minister would reveal a compelling intersection between his interests and those of Hamas.

This fatal attraction began years ago and likely influenced Netanyahu's decision to prop up this terror organization.

As early as 1996, when it appeared following the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that Shimon Peres, who pledged to continue the peace process he and Rabin began, was on the verge of winning the election as prime minister, Hamas suicide bombers blew up two buses on Jaffa Road in downtown Jerusalem, killing 45 people. (The attacks were masterminded by Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif in Gaza, who Israel has been trying unsuccessfully to assassinate for decades.)
The bombings turned enough voters away from the peace process which Netanyahu opposed and undermined in his campaign, resulting in a surprise narrow victory for Netanyahu by slightly less than 30,000 votes. This put into power a prime minister who allowed Hamas to grow and prosper thereby weakening the Palestinian Authority, a tactic meant to scotch all possibilities of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

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Meanwhile, Netanyahu carries on the war even as his popularity sinks. A recent survey found that the Benjamin Netanyahu-led coalition that won 64 seats in the November 2022 elections would crash to just 45 seats in the 120-strong Knesset were elections held today. Fewer than four percent of Jewish Israelis report that they trust the prime minister as the most reliable source of information regarding the war against Hamas.

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Just before Hamas launched its October 7 assault, a poll found in early October that an absolute majority of the Gazan public (67 percent) expressed little confidence in Hamas, compared to 29 percent who expressed a high degree of trust. Moreover, 73 percent of Gazans supported a non-violent settlement of the conflict, compared to only 20 percent who favored violent action against Israel. But according to a more recent poll in November, Hamas popularity has soared since the war began.

Both Netanyahu and the Hamas leaders realize that in a time of true peace they would be replaced by leaders who offer hope and good government. They therefore have no incentive to end this war since its end would end of their hold on power.

It's a fatal mistake to believe that either Hamas leaders or Netanyahu, who both care more about retaining power than ending the war are likely to bring their people to any genuine peace or attempt of a political resolution of any kind.

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But wars end when battles stop, when peace is pursued above all else, when the future promises better times if fighting stops. It is time for the people who want such peace to speak truth to power and demand new leaders who can get us to peace not after the war but now.

Time is not on anyone's side.

*bolding mine
I highly recommend reading the whole piece to get some history and understanding of why this war is being forced upon Israelis and Palestinians and why it must stop. Link for those who do not subscribe to Haaretz: https://archive.is/7f03k#selection-1457.245-1473.29]

December 24, 2023

Thousands of Israelis Protest in Tel Aviv and Northern Israel for Netanyahu's Ouster

Among the speakers at the rallies were relatives of those murdered on October 7 and MK Yair Golan, who called on Benny Gantz to leave the war cabinet: 'All Netanyahu wants is an endless war, without timetables or clear goals'

Thousands of Israelis demonstrated on Saturday night across Israel, calling for the ouster of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his part in the governmental failure that led to Hamas' massacre on October 7 and the outbreak of war in Gaza.
The demonstrations were led by activists and residents of communities near the border with Gaza and Lebanon who were evacuated from their homes.
Hundreds of people protested in the upscale town of Caesarea, near Netanyahu's private residence, with former Meretz MK Yair Golan saying at the rally that "this awful man who has no political, security, or human considerations in his heart other than his own personal benefit, dragged and continues to drag Israel into disaster."
Golan added that "From Netanyahu's point of view, there's only one way out of his current situation – all that he wants is an endless war, without timetables or clear goals."

Read whole article from Haaretz here https://archive.is/ugCTy]

So proud of my family standing amongst the thousands in Tel Aviv.

December 18, 2023

What are your favorite - maybe obscure - Holiday Movies to watch during these weeks?

I'll start:

Remember The Night - with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck. Fell into this on TCM a number of years ago and always make a point of watching. Written by Preston Sturges. MacMurray plays a lawyer and Barbara Stanwyck a shoplifter that he winds up taking home for the holidays.

It Happened On Fifth Avenue - Also found on TCM a number of years ago. Every winter, Michael J. O'Connor, the second richest man in the world, vacates his 5th Avenue mansion for his winter home in warmer climes. Every winter, Aloysius T. McKeever, a homeless man, and his dog moves into vacated mansions. This particular winter, McKeever meets Jim Bullock, an army veteran who has recently been evicted from his apartment and offers to share the mansion with him. It's not long before the mansion has a few more guests, including two of Jim's army buddies and their wives and children; runaway heiress Trudy Connor; her mother and even Michael J. O'Connor, himself.

Holiday Affair - another TCM find with Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh and Wendell Corey

Not obscure . . . but we always have to watch Christmas in Connecticut and The Family Stone as well.

Yours?

December 18, 2023

U.S. Jewish Leaders Urge Biden to Form Post-war Israeli-Palestinian Peace Initiative

From Haaretz https://archive.is/H6Px1]

The letter calls for a commitment to a two-state solution as well as pursuing a settlement freeze that would include dismantling illegal outposts and pushing concrete steps to ending settler violence

WASHINGTON - Twenty-seven prominent former-leaders of the Jewish community urged U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday to declare his intention to pursue a post-war peace initiative that "establishes a path to end Israeli governance of Gaza and the West Bank."

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Among the signatures on the letter include former AIPAC Executive Director Tom Dine, Longtime former CEO of UJA-Federation of New York Dr. John Ruskay, former Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations Alan Solow, former Jewish Communal Fund President Karen Adler and former Israel Policy Forum chair Susie Gelman.

The leaders urged Biden to declare his intention to pursue a peace initiative that provides Palestinians with a political horizon, detailing a list of "essential steps" that would move toward providing both parties with a secure peace.

This includes articulating a steadfast U.S. commitment to a two-state solution "before time runs out," as well as pursuing a settlement freeze that would include dismantling illegal outposts and pushing concrete steps to ending settler violence.

Read more at link.

December 17, 2023

Extraordinary piece: Opinion Free My Son's Palestinian Killer to Free the Israeli Hostages Held by Hamas

https://archive.is/BVO1h] from Haaretz

By Robi Damelin is the International Relations Spokesperson of the Parents Circle- Families Forum.

All of Israel is Hamas' hostage, and the hostage families most acutely, as long as babies, fathers, mothers and brothers remain captives in Gaza. That's why I call for the release of the sniper who killed my beloved son, if it would bring back even one of their loved ones

To the dear families of the hostages, here's an answer to a question you may not have felt comfortable asking.

But the news of the three young Israeli men taken hostage by Hamas only to be killed by our soldiers who will probably spend the rest of their lives in sadness and guilt, and the agony of the ever-growing danger to the surviving hostages, allows me at last to try and tell you what is in my heart.

I think about David, my beloved son, who was killed by a Palestinian sniper while on reserve duty in the West Bank in 2002. I am sure, if he were still with us, that he would have been with you demonstrating for all these terrible days that have passed since the October 7.

I think about that sniper who is in jail for killing him along with nine other soldiers and civilians. I say free him if it will bring back even one of your loved ones.

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Let us examine South Africa, my birthplace, and where heinous crimes were committed during the Apartheid years. These criminals could easily have been hanged for their crimes, however in their wisdom the South Africans created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and these same perpetrators were given amnesty in exchange for testimony. This was incredibly difficult to accept for many in the country and understandably so. Yet among those who perpetrated crimes were those who afterwards helped rebuild a new South Africa.

Peace does not equal justice, and as long as we cannot accept this fact and insist on only referring to the narrative of what was done to us, there is no prospect for a lasting peace.

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If they free the man who killed David, what would I honestly feel? Again, it would be extremely painful, too hard to even put to words.

But as I search inside, ultimately I conclude that it is worth it if it means another hostage freed and and peace for their families. That is worth everything.

Besides what petty satisfaction and revenge would I feel if he stayed in jail for the rest of his life? Would that fill the void which is forever in my heart?

Many searingly difficult calls will be made in the event of a deal. But bringing the hostages back now, while - we hope - all, if not most, are still alive, is the only humane thing to do. It is also the only way we will begin to heal from the October 7 wound that otherwise remains a festering ongoing trauma for all Israelis.

*bolding mine
Please read the entire piece. Extraordinary compassion and truth about the only path to peace and security. She has much to teach us — and there are many who could learn compassion from hearing her words.