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yousef munayyer
Tlaib Slams White House for Criticizing Cori Bush's Vow to Fight AIPAC
One observer predicted that one day, Bush will "be remembered for valiantly standing up for the rights of Palestinians when too many still did not have the political courage to do so."
Aug 08, 2024
U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on Wednesday ripped the White House for admonishing Rep. Cori Bush's vow to fight the American Israel Public Affairs Committee after the powerful lobby group spent millions of dollars to unseat the Missouri Democrat for opposing Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.
AIPAC's dark money arm, United Democracy Project (UDP), spent $8 million in support of Bush's opponent, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, in the second-most expensive House race ever. UDP spent $15 million to defeat Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), another "Squad" member who has criticized Israel's war on Gaza. AIPAC has vowed to spend $100 million to unseat progressive lawmakers—many of them Black and brown—who it deems insufficiently supportive of Israel.
In a defiant concession speech on Tuesday night, Bush declared, "AIPAC, I'm coming to tear your kingdom down!"
"All they did was radicalize me, so now they need to be afraid," she added.
Asked Wednesday if President Joe Biden had any opinion regarding Bush's remarks, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre—who in 2019, before her current job, called AIPAC "severely racist"—linked the congresswoman's speech to last month's attempt to kill former President Donald Trump.
"The president has always been very clear—and very recently, after the assassination attempt of the last president—about lowering rhetoric, right?" Jean-Pierre said. "It is important... that we be very mindful of what we say. This kind of rhetoric is inflammatory and divisive and incredibly unhelpful."
Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress,
responded on social media: "You know what's not helpful? Sending bombs to be used for war crimes and killing thousands of children. You know what's not helpful? Attacking a sitting U.S. congressmember, while the org you are defending is funding anti-abortion and insurrectionists (sic) candidates."
Despite Israeli forces killing nearly 40,000 Palestinians—mostly women and children—wounding more than 90,000 others, forcibly displacing around 90% of Gaza's population, and starving children to death with a crippling siege, the Biden administration continues give Israel billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic support including multiple United Nations Security Council vetoes.
On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump, was
interrupted by pro-Palestine protesters during a campaign rally in Detroit, home to one of the nation's largest Muslim communities.
They chanted: "Kamala, Kamala, you can't hide! We won't vote for genocide!"
Harris, staring down the hecklers, replied: "You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I'm speaking."
According to AIPAC Tracker, Harris, has taken nearly $5.4 million in campaign contributions from AIPAC as either an individual candidate or Biden's running mate.
Leaders of the Uncommitted National Movement—a coalition of pro-Palestine, peace, and progressive groups that urged people to vote "uncommitted" in U.S. Democratic presidential primaries in a bid to pressure the Biden administration to push Israel for a Gaza cease-fire—said they met briefly with Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, at the Detroit rally.
"The vice president shared her sympathies and expressed an openness to a meeting with Uncommitted leaders to discuss an arms embargo," the group said.
However, Harris' national security adviser, Phil Gordon, said on social media Thursday that the vice president "does not support an arms embargo on Israel" and "will always ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups."
Early in the war, Bush introduced a cease-fire resolution supported by 18 other House Democrats. This and other pro-Palestine advocacy, including support for an arms embargo, drew the ire of AIPAC and others supporting a war for which Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the World Court. Dozens of other lawmakers have also called for a Gaza cease-fire.
Such opposition to Israeli policies and practices was once all but unimaginable.
"Over the last two decades, we have seen quite a remarkable shift in opinion on this issue among Democrats in particular," Palestinian American author and political analyst Yousef Munayyer wrote for The Guardian on Wednesday. "Numerous public opinion polls all provide evidence of the same trend. Democrats especially, but also Independents, have grown less sympathetic to Israel over time. A Pew poll from March 2023 found that for the first time, Democrats had more sympathy for Palestinians than Israelis."
Munayyer continued:
The support for Israel once enjoyed in the U.S., when people took it to be as normal as the sun rising every day, is gone. Maintaining what support is left will require persuasion—which isn't easy given they are trying to persuade audiences to support war crimes—and increasingly coercion. That era of coercion and repression is what we are quickly transitioning to and will shape the years to come, but that too comes with reputational costs for pro-Israel forces and will eventually collapse as well.
"When it does," he added, "voices like Cori Bush's will be commonplace in our political class and she will be remembered for valiantly standing up for the rights of Palestinians when too many still did not have the political courage to do so."
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'Obscene': Biden Quietly OKs More 2,000-Pound Bombs, Warplanes for Israel
"Arming a war criminal makes you a war criminal," one critic admonished the U.S. president.
Mar 29, 2024
Despite growing worldwide calls for an arms embargo, the Biden administration in recent days has approved the transfer of billions of dollars worth of new weapons shipments to Israel, including warplanes and 2,000-pound bombs that have been dropped on densely populated areas of Gaza with devastating results.
The Washington Post reported Friday that the administration has "quietly" authorized arms shipments including more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, as well as 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines worth approximately $2.5 billion. The transfers are the latest of more than 100 arms shipments authorized by the Biden administration since the October 7 attacks on Israel.
"'Quietly,'" Palestinian American writer and political analyst Yousef Munayyer scoffed in response to the report. "This is cowardly from the administration. If you are going to be full backers of genocide, own it. We see you and history sees you as well."
"It is scary to think of the world U.S. support for Israel is creating. A world with no rules, no limits in war, where norms don't exist, and where genocide is supportable," he added. "Good luck getting anyone to listen to you about international law after this."
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, deputy executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said in a statement: "We strongly condemn the Biden administration's unbelievable and unconscionable decision to secretly send hundreds of new 2,000-pound bombs and other weapons to support Benjamin Netanyahu's genocide. Arming a war criminal makes you a war criminal."
According to the Post:
The 2,000-pound bombs, capable of leveling city blocks and leaving craters in the earth 40 feet across and larger, are almost never used anymore by Western militaries in densely populated locations due to the risk of civilian casualties.
Israel has used them extensively in Gaza, according to several reports, most notably in the bombing of Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp October 31. U.N. officials decried the strike, which killed more than 100 people, as a "disproportionate attack that could amount to war crimes." Israel defended the bombing, saying it resulted in the death of a Hamas leader.
The Biden administration's arms shipments to Israel continue despite urgent pleas from United Nations officials, international human rights groups, and some progressive U.S. lawmakers to stop arming Israel's 175-day Gaza onslaught, during which Israeli bombs and bullets have killed more than 32,600 Palestinians—mostly women and children—while wounding over 75,000 others and damaging or destroying hundreds of thousands of homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, and other structures.
The International Court of Justice in January found that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza and ordered the country to prevent genocidal acts. However, Israel has been accused of ignoring the ICJ order, and amid ongoing atrocities—including the forced starvation of Palestinians—the court on Thursday issued another order demanding that Israel allow desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Last December, when the death toll in Gaza stood at approximately 18,000, President Joe Biden implored the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" of Palestinian civilians in the embattled enclave.
However, U.S. support for Israel—which already included nearly $4 billion in annual military aid—has continued unabated, with the Biden administration seeking an additional $14.3 million in armed assistance and repeatedly bypassing Congress to fast-track emergency weapons shipments.
"The U.S. cannot beg Netanyahu to stop bombing civilians one day and the next send him thousands more 2,000-pound bombs that can level entire city blocks," U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said on social media Friday. "This is obscene. We must end our complicity: No more bombs to Israel."
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told the Post that "the Biden administration needs to use their leverage effectively and, in my view, they should receive these basic commitments before greenlighting more bombs for Gaza. We need to back up what we say with what we do."
Biden administration officials have claimed they don't have any leverage over Israel, drawing ridicule from observers who point to the indispensable military and diplomatic support the U.S. provides.
The staggering death and destruction wrought by Israel's assault on Gaza has drawn criticism from even staunch supporters of the key U.S. ally.
Referring to the worsening famine in Gaza—which one U.S. State Department official acknowledged anonymously to Reuters on Friday—New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote on social media: "Really, POTUS? With Gaza facing starvation and Netanyahu defying you over Rafah, you ship billions of dollars in additional weapons to Israel, including 2,000-pound bombs, without end-use restrictions? Bibi is rolling you."
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Support for Israel's War on Gaza Plummeting Among Key Biden Voters: Poll
"Given these numbers," said one progressive campaigner, "I don't know how President Biden can reconcile his stalwart support for Israel with the clear preference that his core constituents have for an end to this war."
Mar 27, 2024
A Gallup survey released Wednesday shows that U.S. public support for Israel's military assault on Gaza has plummeted since November, with the decline particularly sharp among Democratic voters whom President Joe Biden will need to turn out to win reelection against presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.
Just 18% of Democratic voters currently approve of "the military action Israel has taken in Gaza" and 75% disapprove, according to the new poll, which was conducted between March 1-20. In November, 36% of Democratic respondents expressed approval of Israel's war and 63% disapproved.
"The crosstabs are even more striking—nearly two-thirds of people under 54, people of color, and women disapprove of the military action in Gaza," Sam Rosenthal, political director of the progressive advocacy group RootsAction, told Common Dreams in response to the new poll. "That is effectively the Democratic Party's base."
"Given these numbers," Rosenthal added, "I don't know how President Biden can reconcile his stalwart support for Israel with the clear preference that his core constituents have for an end to this war."
Overall, Gallup found that 55% of the American public—including 60% of Independents and 30% of Republicans—disapproves of Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip, up from 45% in November. Just 36% of the U.S. public approves, down from 50% four months ago.
"Biden is risking his second term and our democracy by continuing to support the kind of violence and cruelty that is being perpetrated in Gaza right now."
Observers
noted that Gallup's new poll was conducted after the Israeli military's February 29 massacre of Palestinians seeking food aid. Since October, according to one human rights monitor, Israeli forces have killed more than 560 people waiting for humanitarian aid, the delivery of which Israel's government has intentionally hindered—fueling the spread of famine across the territory.
The Biden administration has backed Israel's assault from the beginning, providing the Netanyahu government with billions of dollars worth of weapons and diplomatic cover despite widespread and growing protests at home and abroad. Gallup's survey found that 74% of U.S. adults say they are following developments in Gaza "closely."
Political analyst Yousef Munayyer wrote on social media that "Biden's policy of continued support for Israel's war on Gaza is in line with the views of the right-wing Republicans," noting that 64% of GOP voters still approve of the Israeli assault—down slightly from 71% in November.
"Just to emphasize how extreme his position is and out of line with his voters," he added, "more Republicans disapprove of the war than Democrats who approve."
Growing Democratic opposition to Israel's military action in Gaza has fueled grassroots campaigns across the country urging voters to mark "uncommitted" on their Democratic primary ballots to pressure Biden to change course ahead of the general election against Trump, who has voiced support for Israel's devastating assault on Gaza.
"Uncommitted" campaigns won 11 Democratic National Convention (DNC) delegates in Minnesota and two in both Michigan and Washington state.
"Biden is risking his second term and our democracy by continuing to support the kind of violence and cruelty that is being perpetrated in Gaza right now," Faheem Khan, president of the American Muslim Advancement Council and a lead organizer of Uncommitted WA, said earlier this week.
Rosenthal of RootsAction told Common Dreams on Wednesday that the U.S. decision to abstain and allow the U.N. Security Council to pass a cease-fire resolution earlier this week was "a step in the right direction, and a clear indication that domestic pressure from campaigns like Listen to Michigan and other uncommitted voting efforts is working."
"However, actual policy towards Israel has changed very little," said Rosenthal. "Biden is still clamoring for more military aid to be sent, and the U.S. still largely supports Israel's line, i.e., that military operations in Gaza are solely aimed at rooting out Hamas. What is manifestly obvious to the rest of the world, that Israel is committed to the wanton destruction of the Gaza Strip, is somehow escaping the administration's notice."
"President Biden should decide quickly whether he wants to continue to uphold policy that is increasingly associated with the opposition party," Rosenthal added.
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Bernie Sanders Says First Priority in Gaza Must Be to 'Stop the Bombing'
Amid mounting global demands for a cease-fire, the U.S. senator advocated for a "humanitarian pause" and an end to Israel's indiscriminate air assault.
Nov 01, 2023
With over 8,500 Palestinians already killed in Israel's war on the Gaza Strip, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to argue that the priority "right now must be to stop the bombing and bring in as much humanitarian aid as possible."
Sanders (I-Vt.) again advocated for a "humanitarian pause," or a temporary halt to hostilities for delivery of essentials and possible evacuations, rather than calling for a cease-fire, or a long-term suspension of fighting, which a small group of progressive House Democrats—and people worldwide, including hundreds of staffers from his presidential campaigns—have been demanding.
Congress, the Biden administration, and the rest of the world "must take action" to address the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, where over half of the 2.3 million population is displaced and residents have dwindling supplies of essentials, the senator said. He noted that "medical facilities there are in nightmarish conditions, with hundreds of babies in incubators and patients on life support at risk of death should the generators that sustain them run out of fuel."
In the three weeks since Israel declared war following attacks in which Hamas-led militants killed as many as 1,400 Israelis and took more than 200 hostages, Sanders has repeatedly stressed the importance of ensuring that humanitarian aid reaches Gaza, including by blocking passage of GOP legislation that he warned would worsen the crisis.
"Killing innocent Palestinian women and children in Gaza will not bring back to life the innocent Israeli women and children who have been killed by Hamas."
The senator, who briefly lived in Israel in the 1960s and said a few years ago that he is "proud to be Jewish" but "not actively involved in organized religion," has also faced criticism from some Palestinian rights advocates for not going further in his recent remarks about the Israeli assault of the besieged enclave—which legal scholars have called "genocide."
Palestinian American writer and analyst Yousef Munayyer said in response to the Wednesday speech: "How many dead Palestinians is enough for Bernie Sanders to call for a cease-fire? We learned today that it is higher than 8,000, how high it actually is is still not known."
Sanders, in his 18-minute address, acknowledged Israeli and Egyptian blockades of Gaza over the past couple of decades, which led to living conditions that "were horrific and inhumane" long before Hamas' October 7 attacks. He said that "if we are serious about bringing freedom and dignity to the Palestinian people, that is a situation that can never be allowed to be returned to. The Palestinian people are entitled to much more than that."
The senator called out Hamas as "an authoritarian terrorist organization" that is guided by a "fundamentalist ideology" and rules by force while "stockpiling arms and war material, taxing the desperately poor population, and stealing resources to build tunnels and rockets."
He also highlighted pre-war conditions in Israel, noting that the nation "had the most right-wing government in its history," with "a Cabinet that included outright racist ministers who consistently dehumanize the Palestinian population" and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicted for "a litany of corruption charges."
"Before the war, this right-wing Israeli government had systematically undermined the prospects of peace," Sanders said, citing various policies including settlement expansion and pointing to the recent surge in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
"Rage and revenge do not make useful policy," he warned Israel, recalling the U.S. response to 9/11. "Killing innocent Palestinian women and children in Gaza will not bring back to life the innocent Israeli women and children who have been killed by Hamas."
Sanders declared that "Israel has the right to defend itself and destroy Hamas terrorism" but does not have the right to kill thousands of civilians or endanger millions by cutting them off from necessities. He added, "That type of action against a helpless and impoverished population is morally unacceptable and in violation of international law."
In addition to calling for an end to Israel's indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, the restoration of water and power services, and an influx of humanitarian aid from around the world, Sanders said that "Israel must also begin the process of laying out a political strategy."
"Such a strategy must include as minimum first steps a clear promise that Palestinians displaced in the fighting will have the absolute right to safely return to their homes, a commitment to broader peace talks to advance a two-tier, two-state solution in the wake of this war, an abandonment of Israeli efforts to carve up and annex the West Bank, and a commitment to work with the Palestinian Authority to build genuine governing capacity," he said.
"The United States must make it clear that these are the conditions of our solidarity," he continued. The U.S. gives Israel nearly $4 billion in annual military aid and President Joe Biden recently requested over $14 billion more in response to the current war.
Sanders on Tuesday led a small group of senators who argued that any funding bill for humanitarian and military crises abroad must include an equal amount "to address the urgent and growing emergencies facing the American people at home."
He and some of those same senators also sent a Wednesday letter to Biden asking for responses to several questions related to the emergency funding request and stating that "the United States must take a leading role in charting out a future that respects the lives of Palestinians and Israelis alike."
This post has been updated with the letter to U.S. President Joe Biden.
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Netanyahu Shows Map of 'New Middle East'—Without Palestine—to UN General Assembly
"Netanyahu made clear with his little map today what normalization really seeks: eliminating Palestine... from the region and legitimizing greater Israel, all with the blessing of Arab regimes," one critic said.
Sep 22, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angered Palestinians and their defenders Friday after presenting a map of "The New Middle East" without Palestine during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Speaking to a largely empty chamber, Netanyahu—whose far-right government is widely considered the most extreme in Israeli history—showed a series of maps, including one that did not show the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or Gaza. These Palestinian territories have been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967, with the exception of Gaza—from which Israeli forces withdrew in 2005, while maintaining an economic stranglehold over the densely populated coastal strip.
Middle East Eye reported Netanyahu also held up a map of "Israel in 1948"—the year the modern Jewish state was established, largely through the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Arabs—that erroneously included the Palestinian territories as part of Israel.
Palestinian Ambassador to Germany Laith Arafeh said on social media that there is "no greater insult to every foundational principle of the United Nations than seeing Netanyahu display before the UNGA a 'map of Israel' that straddles the entire land from the river to the sea, negating Palestine and its people, then attempting to spin the audience with rhetoric about 'peace' in the region, all the while entrenching the longest ongoing belligerent occupation in today's world."
As Middle East Eye noted:
The inclusion of Palestinian lands (and sometimes land belonging to Syria and Lebanon) in Israeli maps is common among believers of the concept of Eretz Yisrael—Greater Israel—a key part of ultra-nationalist Zionism that claims all of these lands belong to a Zionist state.
Earlier this year, Netanyahu's finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, spoke from a podium adorned with a map that also included Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria as part of Greater Israel. In the same event, he said there was "no such thing as Palestinians."
The use of such maps by Israeli officials comes at a time when Netanyahu's ultra-nationalist government has taken steps that experts say amount to the "de jure annexation" of the occupied West Bank.
Netanyahu used the maps in an attempt to illustrate the increasing number of Arab countries normalizing relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords brokered by the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump.
"There's no question the Abraham Accords heralded the dawn of a new age of peace," the Israeli prime minister said. "But I believe that we are at the cusp of an even more dramatic breakthrough, an historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia will truly create a new Middle East."
Critics have countered that peace between apartheid Israel and Arab dictatorships has come at the cost of advancing Palestinian rights. In the case of Morocco, the United States recognized the North African nation's illegal annexation and brutal occupation of Western Sahara in exchange for normalization with Israel.
Netanyahu's props on Friday reminded numerous observers of the time during his 2012 General Assembly speech when he used a cartoon drawing of a bomb to illustrate Iran's progress on advancing a nuclear weapons program that both U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies said did not exist.
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Lockdown in East Jerusalem: Harsh Policies Come Amid Intensifying Violence
Rights groups condemned the new security measures, calling them a 'recipe for harassment and abuse'
Oct 14, 2015
East Jerusalem is in lockdown as of Wednesday after the Israeli military erected checkpoints around the occupied territory as the repression of Palestinian protesters took a severe turn.
According to reports, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead early Wednesday by Israeli forces at the city's Damascus Gate after allegedly wielding a knife. Locals told reporters that the military also detained 12 Palestinian students after early morning raids in two East Jerusalem neighborhoods.
Ma'an News Agency, quoting local official Muhammad Abu al-Hummus, reports, "The forces were issuing citations to Palestinian drivers at random. Israeli security also inspected several Palestinian youths and students in 'humiliating' ways, forcing them to take off their clothes."
The teenager's shooting death brings the total number of Palestinians killed since October 1 to 31, with an estimated 17 shot dead at demonstrations. At least seven Israelis have also been killed in the same period.
The widespread crackdown was initiated by the government's security cabinet, which agreed to a suite of punitive measures early Wednesday following a handful of attacks against Israeli citizens.
A statement issued by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli police are now authorized to "impose a closure on, or to surround, centers of friction and incitement in Jerusalem, following security considerations."
The statement also said that a so-called terrorist's house that has been demolished will not be rebuilt and that the permanent residency rights of the individual will be revoked and their property confiscated. Further, military units will be deployed to reinforce police in cities and on main routes, and 300 security guards will be recruited to secure public transportation in the capital.
Israeli forces have also been deployed in and around Jerusalem's Old City, Ma'an notes.
Human Rights Watch condemned the measures, calling them a "recipe for harassment and abuse."
"Locking down East Jerusalem neighborhoods will infringe upon the freedom of movement of all Palestinian residents rather than being a narrowly tailored response to a specific concern," it said in a statement.
The police lockdown comes after what reports said was the most violent day since Israel began imposing controversial new rules on the al-Asqua Mosque compound late last month, setting off a new wave of protests against the occupation, which have been met with brutal force.
As Brad Parker, an attorney and international advocacy officer with Defense for Children International, wrote Tuesday, the recent relaxing by the Israeli government of "live-fire" rules has given Israeli police a "green light" to use live ammunition against Palestinian stone throwers, who are mostly youths--amounting to what he says is effectively a "war on Palestinian children."
Since that time, 366 Palestinians have been shot with live fire, 932 with rubber-coated steel bullets, and 2,365 have been injured by tear gas, according to the Red Crescent. Dozens of Israelis have also been injured, mainly in rogue stabbing attacks.
However, as critics have noted, much of the mainstream media reporting has focused on the violence against Israeli citizens and have either neglected to include the context of the ongoing occupation or have buried the significant number of Palestinian fatalities.
Yousef Munayyer, the executive director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, told Al Jazeera that news outlets that fail to disclose "the conditions that Palestinians live under that are fueling the resentment and the anger that is leading so many of these young Palestinians to take actions themselves in this way -- in stabbings, in protests" are failing to provide their audiences with information vital to making sense of tragic events.
International protests in solidarity with Palestinians are planned for this coming weekend.
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