December, 29 2019, 11:00pm EDT
CODEPINK Statement in Response to the Hanukkah Stabbing Attack in Monsey, New York
WASHINGTON
CODEPINK is heartbroken and horrified at the latest antisemitic act, the stabbing attack in Monsey, NY during a Hanukkah celebration at the house of Rabbi Chaim Leib Rottenberg. CODEPINK sends love and solidarity to the affected families and all of the Hasidic and ultra-orthodox Jewish communities in America who have been on the frontlines of the dangerous rise in antisemitic hate crimes.
The Monsey stabbing attack occurred on the seventh night of Hanukkah. It followed eight other attacks in Brooklyn and Manhattan over the past week in which members of the Orthodox Jewish community were punched, kicked and had objects thrown at them.
Love and prayers are not enough. CODEPINK calls on all people to take action to stem the tide of growing fascism and racism in this country and across the world. Although the Monsey attack was perpetrated by one man alone, his actions are part of a sharp rise in antisemitism that has been encouraged and perpetrated by Donald Trump.
During Trump's three years in office, the U.S. has seen antisemitism soar. In 2018, the number of attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions doubled. This is occurring alongside Donald Trump's association with known White Nationalists such as Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka, and Stephen Miller, and his repeated use of antisemitic tropes and dog-whistles. In August 2017, in response to Nazis marching in Charlottesville, Trump said there were "very fine people on both sides." In October 2018, Trump contributed to conspiracy theories that Jews were funding a caravan of migrants from Latin America to invade the U.S. On December 7, 2019, Trump told a Jewish audience: "A lot of you are in the real estate business. I know you very well. You're brutal killers, not nice people at all. But you have to vote for me, you have no choice," invoking a centuries-old antisemitic trope that Jews care more about money than other people do. The aforementioned incidents are only a sampling of the antisemitic statements and stereotypes Trump has used since coming into office.
CODEPINK also condemns the anti-Black racism being incited by some people in response to the Monsey stabbing and the December 10, 2019 shooting in a New Jersey Kosher supermarket, both of which were perpetrated by Black individuals. CODEPINK calls on the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CoP) to cut all ties with Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, who has been leading such incitement against the Black community.
This rise of different forms of hatred in America--including fascism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-Black racism--is part of a global trend encompassing Brazil, India, Israel, Hungary, the United Kingdom, and other places. That's why we must work together, across the world, to move beyond prayer and into action to ensure that people of all ethnicities, races, and religions can live in safety and peace, without individual hate-crime acts of violence or the mass violence of wars. This need for a global response is exemplified by the December 28 horrific attack in Somalia, when a truck laden with explosives blew up, killing at least 79 people.
As an organization with numerous Jewish leaders and members, CODEPINK rejects the response being called for by some that synagogues and other places of worship should have armed security. It is only through education, collective solidarity and unarmed community protection that safety can be obtained.
CODEPINK suggests that people place menorahs or images of menorahs in their windows tonight for the eighth and final night of Hanukkah.
CODEPINK is a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs.
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UN Chief Warns of Israel's Syria Invasion and Land Seizures
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stressed the "urgent need" for Israel to "de-escalate violence on all fronts."
Dec 12, 2024
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday that he is "deeply concerned" by Israel's "recent and extensive violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," including a ground invasion and airstrikes carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the war-torn Mideastern nation.
Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
Israel claims its invasion and bombardment of Syria—which come as the United States and Turkey have also violated Syrian sovereignty with air and ground attacks—are meant to create a security buffer along the countries' shared border in the wake of last week's fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid the IDF's ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed or wounded more than 162,000 Palestinians and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
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"The Syrian army abandoned its positions in the area... which potentially creates a vacuum that could have been filled by terrorist organizations," U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing earlier this week. "Israel has said that these actions are temporary to defend its borders. These are not permanent actions... We support all sides upholding the 1974 disengagement agreement."
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Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
"Look, when we talk about the healthcare crisis, in my view, and I think the view of a majority of Americans, the current system is broken, it is dysfunctional, it is cruel, and it is wildly inefficient—far too expensive," said Sanders (I-Vt.), whose position is backed up by various polls.
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"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," Sanders added. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together and understanding that it is the right of every American to be able to walk into a doctor's office when they need to and not have to take out their wallet."
"The way we're going to bring about the kind of fundamental changes we need in healthcare is, in fact, by a political movement which understands the government has got to represent all of us, not just the 1%," the senator told Jacobin.
The 83-year-old Vermonter, who was just reelected to what he says is likely his last six-year term, is an Independent but caucuses with Democrats and sought their presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. He has urged the Democratic Party to recognize why some working-class voters have abandoned it since Republicans won the White House and both chambers of Congress last month. A refusal to take on insurance and drug companies and overhaul the healthcare system, he argues, is one reason.
Sanders—one of the few members of Congress who regularly talks about Medicare for All—isn't alone in suggesting that unsympathetic responses to Thompson's murder can be explained by a privatized healthcare system that fails so many people.
In addition to highlighting Sanders' interview on social media, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) pointed out to Business Insider on Wednesday that "you've got thousands of people that are sharing their stories of frustration" in the wake of Thompson's death.
Khanna—a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act, led in the House of Representatives by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—made the case that you can recognize those stories without accepting the assassination.
"You condemn the murder of an insurance executive who was a father of two kids," he said. "At the same time, you say there's obviously an outpouring behavior of people whose claims are being denied, and we need to reform the system."
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All Act—similarly toldHuffPost in a Tuesday interview, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system."
"Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far," she continued. "This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the healthcare to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone."
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Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2024 roundup, which was published Thursday, found that at least 54 journalists were killed on the job or in connection with their work this year, and 18 of them were killed by Israeli armed forces (16 in Palestine, and two in Lebanon).
The organization has also filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court "for war crimes committed by the Israeli army against journalists," according to the roundup, which includes stats from January 1 through December 1.
"In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible," wrote Thibaut Bruttin, director general of RSF, in the introduction to the report. Since October 2023, 145 journalists have been killed in Gaza, "including at least 35 who were very likely targeted or killed while working."
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When counting the number of journalists killed by the Israeli army since October 2023 in both Gaza and Lebanon, the tally comes to 155—"an unprecedented massacre," according to the roundup.
Multiple journalists were also killed in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Sudan, Myanmar, Colombia, and Ukraine, according to the report, and hundreds more were detained and are now behind bars in countries including Israel, China, and Russia.
Meanwhile, in a statement released Thursday, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) announced that at least 139 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed since the war in Gaza began in 2023, and in a statement released Wednesday, IFJ announced that 104 journalists had perished worldwide this year (which includes deaths from January 1 through December 10). IFJ's number for all of 2024 appears to be higher than RSF because RSF is only counting deaths that occurred "on the job or in connection with their work."
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