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For Immediate Release
February, 22 2023, 03:07pm EDT
Contact:
Email:,info@jewishvoiceforpeace.org
Jewish Voice for Peace Condemns Brutal Israeli Military Attack on Palestinians in Nablus
Berkeley, CA
The Israeli military killed at least 10 Palestinians and wounded over 100 more on Wednesday, when military forces carried out an attack on the densely populated historic Old City of Nablus in broad daylight. Jewish Voice for Peace stands in solidarity with the movement for Palestinian freedom to end the brutal and escalating state violence of the Israeli government.
Reports from Nablus earlier today are chilling. The Israeli military reduced a building in the center of the city to rubble and left storefronts riddled with bullet holes. Among the Palestinians killed were a 16-year-old child and a 72-year-old man. Throughout the brutal attack, reports claimed that Israeli forces blocked Palestinian medical personnel from treating the wounded.
The attack on Nablus comes amid a horrific and violent year. At least 55 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or Israeli settlers since the beginning of 2023. 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 2004, and already this year is set out-pace it.
The current Israeli government, which is the most violent and right-wing in Israeli history, is behaving exactly as promised. This is not a conflict or a cycle of violence between two equal parties - this is a military terrorizing an occupied people. The Israeli government’s domination and oppression of Palestinians is the root cause of each tragic death.
As we mourn the loss of life, we refuse to let hopelessness deter us from action. We are on the side of unconditional commitment to justice, equality, freedom and dignity for all people, no exceptions.
Stefanie Fox, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace“The horrifying and brutal actions of this new government prove exactly what Palestinians have been saying all along: Israel is an apartheid state carrying out ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Jewish people show our beliefs through action. And it is long past time for our community to act. All Jewish people who believe in justice should support Palestinians’ calls for freedom.”
As an American Jewish organization, we are acutely aware of the role our own institutions and government play in the ongoing state violence against Palestinians. We continue to call for an end to U.S. military funding and complicity in Israeli apartheid and we call on our fellow progressive American Jews to actively participate in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement until Palestinians are free.
Join us for ongoing 30 minute calls to learn the latest news from Palestine and take collective action: jvp.org/powerhours
Jewish Voice for Peace is a national, grassroots organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law for all the people of Israel and Palestine. JVP has over 200,000 online supporters, over 70 chapters, a youth wing, a Rabbinic Council, an Artist Council, an Academic Advisory Council, and an Advisory Board made up of leading U.S. intellectuals and artists.
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Sanders Says Billionaire Effort to Crush Mamdani Rooted in Fears of Nationwide Progressive Wave
"They are worried that his campaign is an example of what can happen all over the country."
Jul 11, 2025
Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday reaffirmed his support for Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, a fellow democratic socialist facing fierce opposition from deep-pocketed establishment figures who fear the broad nationwide appeal of his people-over-profit agenda.
Faced with the growing possibility that Mamdani would win the June 24 primary, Wall Street bankers, corporate executives, real estate developers, mega-landlords, and others rushed to dump money into disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's campaign coffers. Now that Mamdani is the Democratic nominee, they're pouring tens of millions of dollars into an anti-Mamdani war chest, despite not even agreeing on which candidate to back in November's mayoral election.
In a Thursday interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour—who noted that Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy tour "has been drawing record crowds"—the Vermont senator said that policies like "giving massive tax breaks to billionaires and cutting healthcare and education and nutrition from working-class families [are] not popular."
While acknowledging that "mainstream Democrats" have been unable to galvanize opposition to Republicans' pro-billionaire, anti-working class agenda, Amanpour pressed Sanders about what he would tell New Yorkers who say that Mamdani "has never run anything, and he says, free buses, and... is he antisemitic or not?'"
Watch Sanders' response:
"First of all, understand, he's going to have the entire establishment, the oligarchy, the billionaires coming down on his head, not only because he's demanding that the wealthy and large corporations in New York City start paying their fair share of taxes, they are worried that his campaign is an example of what can happen all over the country when you bring people together to demand the government that works for all of us and not just a few," the senator said. "So, they really want to crush this guy."
"You have billionaires saying quite openly, 'We are going to spend as much as it takes to defeat this guy.' You have Democratic leadership not refusing to jump on board a campaign where this guy is the Democratic nominee," Sanders added. "So, most importantly, I'm going to do everything I can to see that Zohran becomes the next mayor of New York."
Some Democrats have done more than refuse to support their own party's nominee. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) falsely claimed last month that Mamdani had made references to "global jihad" and speciously argued that "globalize the intifada"—a call for Palestinian liberation and battling injustice—is a call to "kill all the Jews."
Freshman Congresswoman Laura Gillen (D-N.Y.) also falsely accused Mamdani of "a deeply disturbing pattern of unacceptable antisemitic comments."
Congressional progressives including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), André Carson (D-Ind.), and Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.)—the four practicing Muslims in the House of Representatives—last month condemned what they called the "vile, anti-Muslim, and racist smears from our colleagues on both sides of the aisle."
Despite the attacks against him, Mamdani is leading Cuomo—who is now running as an Independent—by 10 points in a Slingshot Strategies poll of more than 1,000 registered voters published earlier this week. Mamdani also leads Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa by 21 points and scandal-ridden incumbent Mayor Eric Adams by 24 points.
Observers note that establishment Democrats' reservations about backing Mamdani seem to be fading amid the strength of his campaign. As Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) hold out on endorsing their own party's nominee, critics argue it's time to follow other lawmakers like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jerrold Nadler, Adriano Espaillat, and Nydia Velázquez—all New York Democrats—and endorse Mamdani.
"Mamdani won a record-setting primary victory, and unions, grassroots Democratic groups, and savvy elected officials are rushing to back him," The Nation's national affairs correspondent, John Nichols, wrote Friday. "Now it's the establishment's turn."
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'Profoundly Damning': NYT Report Says Netanyahu Prolonged War on Gaza to Stay in Power
"He pressed ahead with the war in April and July 2024, even as top generals told him that there was no further military advantage to continuing," reports The New York Times.
Jul 11, 2025
An explosive new report from The New York Times flatly contends that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has "prolonged the war in Gaza" to stay in power and avoid potential criminal prosecution.
The Times' reporting reveals that Netanyahu in April 2024 was close to signing off on a six-week cease-fire proposal that would have led to the release of more than 30 hostages captured by Hamas six months earlier and "would have created a window for negotiations with Hamas over a permanent truce."
However, Netanyahu abruptly changed course when Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a hardliner who has long demanded the reestablishment of Israeli settlements in Gaza, warned Netanyahu he and his allies would quit their coalition government if any cease-fire deal were reached. Such a move would collapse the coalition and force new elections, which polls at the time suggested Netanyahu would lose.
According to the Times, the Israeli prime minister tossed the cease-fire proposal away and kept the war grinding on until this very day, even expanding military operations into nations such as Lebanon and Iran.
"Under political pressure from those coalition allies, Netanyahu slowed down cease-fire negotiations at crucial moments, missing windows in which Hamas was less opposed to a deal," the Times writes. "He avoided planning for a postwar power transition, making it harder to direct the war toward an endgame. He pressed ahead with the war in April and July 2024, even as top generals told him that there was no further military advantage to continuing. When momentum toward a cease-fire seemed to grow, Netanyahu ascribed sudden significance to military objectives that he previously seemed less interested in pursuing, such as the capture of the southern city Rafah and later the occupation of the Gaza-Egypt border. And when an extended cease-fire was finally forged in January, he broke the truce in March in part to keep his coalition intact."
The report also details American efforts to persuade Netanyahu that he would politically benefit by reaching a cease-fire deal that would release hostages by referencing opinion polls showing that more than 50% of Israeli voters would back such a move.
"Not 50% of my voters," Netanyahu responded, according to the Times' sources.
The toll taken on Palestinians in Gaza has been horrific. At least 57,000 Palestinians have been confirmed killed as a result of Israel's war, and researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said earlier this year that it's possible the actual number of civilians killed is significantly higher than that. Additionally, civilians in Gaza are facing widespread food insecurity and even run the risk of getting shot by the Israeli military while standing in line to receive food.
The report on Netanyahu's maneuvers to prolong the Gaza war drew a disgusted reaction from Ron Ben-Tovim, a senior lecturer at the Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel.
"I no longer know if there's anything that will bring down this government, but an investigation showing how and when exactly Netanyahu prolonged a baseless war of destruction to stay in power should end his political career," he wrote on X.
Joel Swanson, a scholar of modern Jewish intellectual history at Sarah Lawrence College, similarly expressed his disgust with Netanyahu.
"Everything in this report is just so profoundly damning of Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the worst and cruelest world leaders of our age," he wrote on Bluesky.
Matt Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, argued that the Times report also delivered a damning portrayal of former U.S. President Joe Biden.
"Portraying Biden as feckless and cranky at constantly being conned by Netanyahu really undersells his culpability," he wrote on X. "Netanyahu couldn't have massacred Gaza and revived his political career without Biden’s total support, which Biden chose to give."
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Federal Agents Spray Tear Gas at Protesters, Children During ICE Raids at California Farms
"ICE was conducting a raid using disproportionate displays of force against local farmworkers and our agricultural community," said U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal, who was denied entry to one farm where he was attempting to provide oversight.
Jul 11, 2025
Federal immigration agents were met with a strong show of resistance Thursday when they raided two farms in Southern California—with hundreds of community members protesting the arrests of migrants at the facilities growing cannabis and vegetables.
Los Angeles-based independent journalist Mel Buer reported that hundreds of community members gathered to protest the raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Glass House Farms' facility in Camarillo, Ventura County, and supporters dropped "hundreds of pounds of water, food, and masks."
Local news outlet KTLA reported that "dozens of farmworkers were detained" in the raids at Glass House Farms' properties in Camarillo and Carpinteria.
Federal law enforcement first arrived in Camarillo at about 11:00 am, and the situation escalated as a crowd of community members gathered.
The federal agents first deployed tear gas into the crowd early Thursday afternoon.
Ventura County District 5 Supervisor Vianey Lopez told KTLA that as the federal agents used force on the protesters, she saw two government vans, each carrying about 15 people, leaving the farm.
"It is an ongoing situation that is very concerning for the safety of those showing up with anger and disappointment at what is happening to hardworking people in our community," Lopez said.
The immigration enforcement agents were joined by National Guard troops in military vehicles later that afternoon in Camarillo, according to The Guardian, as other federal agents carried out a simultaneous raid in Carpinteria, about 50 miles northwest in Santa Barbara County.
Carpinteria City Council members Julia Mayer and Mónica Solórzano were among a large crowd of community members who gathered to protest the raid, and they told the Santa Barbara Independent that federal officers "pushed us as a group into the ground" and threw at least one smoke grenade, causing Solórzano to injure her arm.
U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.), who represents Santa Barbara County and part of Ventura County, released a statement condemning the ICE raid and saying he had been "denied entry and not allowed to pass" when he attempted to "conduct oversight" over the raid targeting his constituents in Carpinteria.
"ICE was conducting a raid using disproportionate displays of force against local farmworkers and our agricultural community," said Carbajal. "There's been a troubling lack of transparency from ICE since the Trump administration started, and I won't stop asking questions on behalf of my constituents."
Carbajal is now one of several Democratic elected officials who have been denied the ability to oversee ICE operations. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) pleaded not guilty last month to forcibly interfering with federal officers—charges that stemmed from her attempt to conduct congressional oversight at an ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey.
"These militarized ICE raids are not how you keep our communities safe. This kind of chaos only traumatizes families and tears communities apart. They are also a gross misuse of limited resources and a betrayal of the values that define us as Americans," said Carbajal, who noted that the identities of those detained in the raids had not been made clear.
In Camarillo, a resident named Judith Ramos told The Guardian that she had learned from her father, who worked in Glass House Farms' tomato fields, that "immigration was outside his job" on Thursday morning.
Ramos, a 22-year-old certified nurse assistant with two younger siblings, said her father told her "to take care of everything" if he was detained by ICE.
She was sprayed with a chemical substance when she arrived at the farm and joined the crowd of protesters, and told The Guardian that she did not know where her father was.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has clashed with President Donald Trump and filed a lawsuit against the administration last month over its federalization of the California National Guard to respond to protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles, posted a video showing children running from the federal agents.
"Trump calls me 'Newscum,'" said the governor, "but he's the real scum."
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