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avi lewis
'The Fog of War Lies Thick': Critics Warn Israel-Gaza Crisis Is Repeating Bloody Mistakes of the Past
"It's so hard to sort out pebbles of fact from mountains of propaganda," wrote Canadian filmmaker Avi Lewis.
Oct 11, 2023
As officials and medical personnel in Gaza said Wednesday that the blockaded enclave faces a "humanitarian catastrophe," progressive journalists warned that policymakers are placing millions of lives at risk by rapidly making hugely consequential decisions while facts about what's taking place on the ground are not always immediately clear.
Canadian filmmaker and activist Avi Lewis used the military term "fog of war"—the difficulty of determining the on-the-ground realities and the correct decisions to make in military operations—to describe the current situation in Israel and Gaza following an unprecedented surprise attack by Hamas on Saturday, which killed more than 1,200 people, and Israel's deadly retaliation against the impoverished enclave that's home to more than two million civilians, about half of whom are children.
"It's so hard to sort out pebbles of fact from mountains of propaganda," Lewis wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, adding that he has been "appalled" by the suffering of civilians in Israel and Gaza and by the decisions that have followed by policymakers thousands of miles away from the conflict.
As Gaza faced intensifying strain on its healthcare system due to a lack of fuel for its sole power plant and the death toll reached at least 950, Lewis was among those condemning countries including the United States, France, and the United Kingdom for "reverting to simple-minded, one-sided Israel-right-or-wrong-ism."
His comments came less than a day after U.S. President Joe Biden said the Pentagon is "surging additional military assistance" to Israel, "including ammunition and interceptors to replenish Iron Dome," repeating that "we're with Israel" without urging a cessation of the airstrikes that have decimated civilian neighborhoods and healthcare facilities in Gaza.
"The dead and the rubble piling up in Gaza are the bitter fruit of this cynical, simple-minded worldview," said Lewis.
As Yumna Patel, Palestine news director for Mondoweiss, noted on Tuesday—citing The Times of Israel—policymakers including Biden are pledging support for Israel's assault on Gaza as media reports focus heavily on the human impact Hamas's attack had, but far less on the suffering unleashed by the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) retaliation.
"By taking only foreign press into these sites and feeding them information, Israel is again taking control of the narrative on the international stage," said Patel. "And by not allowing local, Hebrew-speaking media into certain areas, Israel is shielding itself from the criticisms and growing frustrations of a population that could easily eventually turn on the government for failing to protect them."
"It's a win-win situation for Israel," she added. "It gets to put out to the world the images that it wants (dead Israelis), while limiting what it doesn't want the world to see or hear (real-life Gazans as human beings), and preventing its own people from the truth of its colossal failure."
Germany-based Palestinian journalist Hebh Jamal added that "this misinformation, and fog of war is playing EXACTLY into Israel's favor."
Warnings of the difficulties of determining the reality on the ground in Gaza and Israel came as numerous right-wing leaders in Israel and the U.S. compared the Hamas attack to September 11, 2001, with both the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and a spokesperson for the IDF saying in recent days, "This is our 9/11."
At The Intercept on Monday, Jon Schwarz wrote that the analogy is apt, but perhaps not for reasons Israeli or U.S. officials would acknowledge.
Both Israel and the U.S. "generated their own enemies," Schwarz wrote, with the U.S. encouraging "fundamentalist Islamic opposition to "the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s," and Israel doing "the same thing in miniature in the occupied territories, encouraging the growth of Hamas to damage the secular Fatah." And like the George W. Bush administration, Israel apparently "ignored" warnings about an impending attack, as Haaretzreported Monday.
"Finally, the revenge that Israel will now exact will be hideous, as was that taken by the U.S.," Schwarz wrote. "There is nothing on earth like the fury of the powerful when they believe they have been defied by their inferiors."
At Open Democracy—which published commentary in the wake of the 9/11 attacks urging the U.S. not to rush into war—international security correspondent Paul Rogers also drew comparisons between the current moment and the time period following the World Trade Center attacks, warning that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's current outlook mirrors that of the Bush administration in 2001: "He sees no alternative but to launch a counter-attack," even against civilian families who had nothing to do with Hamas's brutal assault.
"The chances of a peaceful outcome may be remote, but the alternative will be years more of conflict," wrote Rogers. "Those few Western politicians calling for an immediate cease-fire may be shouted down, but they are right."
U.S. lawmakers including U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) were branded "disgraceful" by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre after issuing statements that both condemned Hamas' attack and criticized Israel's occupation. The lawmakers also called for a cease-fire and peace talks.
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)—the sole member of Congress to vote against the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force—was widely denounced for her vote after 9/11, and over the weekend also called for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
"Time eventually proved her wise, and that lonely stand built her legacy," wrote Intercept journalist Ryan Grim of Lee's dissent in 2001.
Over the objections of lawmakers like Lee this week, he added, "what Netanyahu is doing, and what Biden is encouraging, may spiral into one of the greatest mass civilian atrocities in a half-century."
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Avi Lewis Hoping Canadians' Climate Concerns Deliver Electoral 'Upset of Epic Proportions'
"We need to send Avi to Ottawa to shake up the entire political establishment, including his own party, and tip the scales in favor of people and the planet," said environmentalist David Suzuki.
Sep 20, 2021
As Canadians head to the polls Monday on the final day of federal elections, a journalist, documentary filmmaker, and climate activist in British Columbia is hoping his plan to take aggressive action to combat the climate emergency will resonate with enough voters to score an upset victory.
"The entire political system is failing to confront the level of emergency that we have."
--Avi Lewis,
NDP candidate
Avi Lewis, the New Democratic Party's (NDP) candidate for the House of Commons for the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country riding, knows his is a longshot campaign. The social democratic NDP--which finished a distant fourth place there in the 2019 election--has never held the seat in the riding, one of Canada's wealthiest, and a Liberal stronghold.
"We're in an uphill battle to pull off an upset of epic proportions," Lewis told CBC News Sunday.
However, Lewis--who is the third generation of his family to enter politics--believes he can flip the riding from the Liberals, the party of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, by running on a Green New Deal platform that addresses the most pressing issues facing Canada today: the climate crisis and inequality.
"The entire political system is failing to confront the level of emergency that we have and embrace the level of opportunity in housing and health and transit and all the related systems that need changing," he added.
International climate campaigners including Canadian environmental activist David Suzuki and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben have joined activists, artists, and intellectuals such as Jane Fonda, Alexandra Morton, Mike Douglas, Yan Martel, and Sara Quin in endorsing Lewis due to his strong stance on climate action.
In 2015, Lewis, along with his wife--the author, activist, and filmmaker Naomi Klein--and others publishedThe Leap Manifesto, a bold call to action on climate and inequality spearheaded by a coalition of Indigenous leaders, labor unions, and environmentalists that was signed by more than 50,000 Canadians and whose principles were adopted by the NDP in 2016.
However, activists have criticized what they call the NDP's vague and inadequate climate policies, including the party's support for fossil fuel projects and its refusal to condemn fracking.
Unlike NDP leadership, Lewis has been unafraid to demand a halt to destructive projects, including the government-owned Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion. Both Trudeau's government and the Conservative Party opposition staunchly support the fossil fuel industry, which accounts for more than 5% of Canada's gross domestic product. Canada is the only G7 nation whose greenhouse gas emissions have increased since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2015, mainly due to the extraction of tar sands oil, the world's dirtiest fuel.
Mike Simpson, the Green Party candidate running for the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country parliamentary seat, has resisted pressure to step down and support Lewis. However, Lewis' stong stance on climate action has earned him the support of many Green Party members and voters.
"We need to send Avi to Ottawa," Suzuki asserted in an endorsement video featuring prominent British Columbian Greens, "to shake up the entire political establishment, including his own party, and tip the scales in favor of people and the planet."
\u201cThis is the most important day of my campaign so far.\n\nIn this riding, we either unite the environmental vote or we get the disastrous status quo.\n\nThese local and national climate champions have made a tough decision: their support is an honour and a responsibility.\n\n#Greens4Avi\u201d— Avi Lewis (@Avi Lewis) 1631042346
Lewis' candidacy comes during a summer in which British Columbians suffered some of the world's hottest temperatures, as well as devastating wildfires. Provincial authorities said extreme heat claimed 569 lives between June 20 and July 29.
After the village of Lytton recorded a Canadian record temperature of 49.6degC (121.3degF) on June 30--surpassing all-time highs in desert cities including Las Vegas and Tucson, Arizona--it was destroyed by a massive wildfire.
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'We Can Be Whatever We Have the Courage to See': New Video From AOC Envisions a #GreenNewDeal Future
"This beautiful film helps us imagine a different version of ourselves, and a future in which we decided to come together in the face of crisis, rather than surrender and fall apart."
Apr 17, 2019
"Before we can win a Green New Deal, we need to be able to close our eyes and imagine it. We can be whatever we have the courage to see."
That was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) expressing one of the messages behind an urgent video on climate change released Wednesday by The Intercept.
The video, "A Message From the Future with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," was produced by The Intercept's Naomi Klein. Narrated by Ocasio-Cortez, the short film is presented as a look back to the present day from a future in which the Green New Deal passed Congress and reshaped America and the planet for the better.
The video features art from Molly Crabapple and was written by Ocasio-Cortez and Avi Lewis. It was co-directed by Kim Boekbinder and Jim Batt.
"Despite all the horrors of climate change that we have seen and continue to see," said Crabapple, "we can save ourselves, accomplish brave, beautiful, and world-changing things."
Klein pointed to the hope the video could give to people interested in working to change the planet for the better.
"This beautiful film helps us imagine a different version of ourselves, and a future in which we decided to come together in the face of crisis, rather than surrender and fall apart," said Klein.
Watch the video here:
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